Wahoo McDaniel vs Manny Fernandez (AWA, 12-13-1988)

AWA SuperClash III, Chicago, IL

As the AWA flopped around like a dying fish, Verne Gagne pushed his chips into the center of the table with SuperClash III, a pay-per-view event from the UIC Pavilion also featuring talent from World Class and Memphis, headlined by Jerry Lawler facing Kerry Von Erich to unify the AWA and World Class world heavyweight titles, neither of which meant much of anything by 1988.

This match was also on the card, an Indian Strap match featuring heated rivals Wahoo and Manny, who set this up with a TV bout in late October that ended in a double countout, and Wahoo saying after the match that if he couldn’t beat Fernandez in Chicago, he’d quit wrestling.

So there’s a lot at stake here — pride, Wahoo’s career, these two crazy fuckers’ bodies. Before the match, ring announcer Gary Michael Cappetta, who had earlier worked in the WWF and later would become the No. 1A ring announcer of my childhood alongside Howard Finkel (with respect to the great Mike McGuirk), introduces IWGP champion Tatsumi Fujinami.

This leads to Fernandez stealing the mic and going apeshit. Long story short, Fernandez says all the champions in the States are scared of him and that he’s chased Fujinami around Japan already, challenging Fujinami while also throwing in some old fashioned American racism, then he drops the mic and shoves at the suit-wearing Japanese champion. Wahoo comes from behind, Fujinami grabs Fernandez, and Wahoo gets the first shots in.

Fujinami leaves the ring and Manny bails out after getting whacked once with the strap. Wahoo stands in the ring with the strap around his wrist, ready to welcome Fernandez in. Wahoo has allegedly never lost an Indian Strap match. Poor Lee Marshall is on commentary doing his best to remain upbeat in the face of a meager 1,672 sold tickets in Chicago — he knew hours ago that this show was fucked, the AWA was fucked, and with them, he was fucked, but goddamn if he isn’t screaming at me about how this is “the most historic and the most exciting night in the history of this great sport!”

The great Ray Stevens is also on commentary. He, too, does his best — fuck, at least he’ll see a couple good ol’ boys here whomp each others asses.

Fernandez gets tied up, the bell sounds, and they’re cautious, as these things usually are at the start. Wahoo rips into Fernandez with the strap as Lee Marshall runs down current WWF Superstar Rick Rude because he can and because they did shit like that back when.

Wahoo biels Fernandez over with the strap around Manny’s neck. The referee makes Wahoo break the choke. Chop to the forehead from Wahoo, then a few strap shots, really laying in the leather here. Fernandez with a kick to the gut and a hard knife edge chop in the corner, McDaniel goes down.

Fernandez is the one whipping away now. “Just like taking a child out back to the woodshed with that leather strap!” This is one of those “all four corners” strap matches. I would prefer it just be normal where they’re strapped together whipping each others asses, but life does not generally go how I want.

Manny with some knees to the head of Wahoo, then he wraps the strap around his fist and clubs Wahoo in the head. McDaniel is busted open as Manny continues to clobber him, then rips him with another knife edge.

Wahoo sent off the ropes, Manny drops him with the back elbow. Wahoo juicin’ a good one, as he would. Manny touches one corner, then tries to drag Wahoo’s big, solid ass around, and well, that’s not happening. So Wahoo smacks Manny in the chest with a chop, and they trade shots for a moment. Manny bleeding a little from the forehead because once you touch him a few times he can’t not bleed.

But you gotta say this: they are, to the delight of basically nobody in this dumbass crowd, beating the piss out of each other with these chops. Manny bleeding proper at the five-minute mark. “These two guys are cracked open like a couple of eggs!”

Mike Enos, by the way, is your HULKING REFEREE.

Manny sent off the ropes and knocked down. Wahoo touches one corner, touches a second dragging Manny, and then Fernandez tries to wrap his legs around the bottom rope. Wahoo hammers down and yanks him off, then drags him to the third corner. Manny up to his knees and hits McDaniel with a low blow, putting the Chief down.

Fernandez drops a fist, deftly missed by the crack production crew, who had an all-star night all around. Fernandez goes up to the second rope, bellows out to the barely-alive crowd, and drops a fucking knee down across Wahoo’s head.

Goddamn, these two are busting ass and Chicago gives them nothing.

Manny touches a corner, touches another, touches a third, and then Manny goes up top for some reason or another, so that he can be yanked down by Wahoo. Wahoo drops an elbow. Another elbowdrop.

Wahoo touches a corner, second corner, third corner (with his head), and Manny tries to get the bottom rope again, bu Wahoo breaks him off. Wahoo going for the fourth corner, Manny struggles with him, and Wahoo gets kicked back into the corner, touching it for the win.

Bu Manny isn’t done there, he doesn’t care that the match is over, he still hates Wahoo McDaniel, and he is going to fight him some more. Referee Mike Enos gets thrown out of the ring. Manny gets the strap off and beats the shit out of Wahoo against the ropes, landing a bunch of vicious headbutts before Tatsumi Fujinami comes back in and chases Fernandez off. We get some great ringside shots of Manny in the crimson mask before he walks out.

Wahoo heads over to ringside with Lee Marshall. Well, first he goes to leave, because fuck this shit, but then a guy with a goofy gold chain over his SuperClash III shirt reminds him that he has to do a post-match promo for this shitshow.

“Like I told you, I don’t think this thing will ever be settled between Manny Fernandez and I — not in the ring. Maybe somewhere, sometime. Maybe out behind the building here. Maybe even with a gun in my hand! But I’ll tell ya one thing, this little strap match didn’t settle anything between us tonight. He took a beatin’, I took a beatin’, but beatin’ him’s not what I want, brother, I want him dead.”

At least the crowd reacted to that.

Rating: 3.5/5. Wahoo never did kill Manny, for what it’s worth. As the AWA continued to die its death, they ran cage matches in Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Winnipeg, and Marshfield, Wisconsin. Manny won in Vegas, Wahoo won the rest. Their last AWA match came in Aug. 1990 in Wall, New Jersey. Their final match together came at an NWA-sanctioned show in Charlotte in Aug. 1993, drawing 135 people. Nine years earlier, they’d feuded over the United States heavyweight championship in the same area. But wrestling changed so dramatically between 1984 and 1993 that there was no more interest in seeing Wahoo and Manny lay into one another. WCW had just been in town a couple weeks earlier, after all.