Loss

Maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I thought it was the great ideas that he, Dave, had for the Invasion that he told to Vince and was hoping he would still use. I sent an e-mail to the Observer Radio mailbag asking Dave if he could reveal his long-talked-about idea for the Invasion. I sure hope it isn't the same one Jim Cornette had. I'm pretty sure Dave did an Observer sometime that fall with lots of ideas to turn the Invasion around. He said on WOL at the time that he thought Bischoff's ideas for turning WCW around were really strong, and he didn't want to say what they were if that meant no one would use them.

No one was going to draw huge at that point because the WWF was tarnished by all the scandals, but house show business picked up literally right away when they switched from Diesel to Bret in late '95, and the first few months of '96 were also a really strong run of house shows for the company.

When exactly did Terry Funk leave a WWF PPV right before the show because his horse was dying? I've heard that story before, but I don't remember him really being built up for any PPV appearances before '98 as Chainsaw Charlie, and it apparently happened before that.

I was just thinking of questions that we couldn't get definite answers to at the time for obvious reasons that maybe could be answered definitively now. Who was Willie the Worker? Dave talked at the time about some great ideas Bischoff had for revitalizing WCW, and when the company folded, he said he didn't want to share those ideas because he wanted someone to actually use them. What were the ideas? Who specifically was on "suicide watch" in 2006? I'm guessing Angle, but was that ever confirmed? Who was the wrestler Lex Luger refused to do a double juice cage match with unless the other guy got an AIDS test? Dave talks about someone's involvement in Montreal that he was sworn to secrecy over, to a point where the person told him he could only talk about it after that person died. I'm assuming that person hasn't died, but now that all the hatchets seem to be buried, who was it and what did they do? I'm sure there are plenty of others I'm missing.

Bret Hart has discussed his approach to carrying a wrestler before. He would ask the lesser wrestler his three biggest moves and build the entire match around that.

I think one of my favorite carry jobs is Lawler carrying Bam Bam Bigelow in that Texas Death Match from Memphis. Bam Bam was obviously very green, but had a few things he could do well, and Lawler carried him to a really great, long match built around a few big spots.

I feel like I should clarify that. I'm not sure if viewership has increased among minorities, or if it has just dropped among whites, making African Americans and Hispanics a larger segment of the WWE audience.

I wonder if this is due to demographics shifts more than anything else. The viewership among African Americans and Hispanics has increased over the past few years, and they mostly identify as Democrats.

I'd like to re-watch those Hogan/Jericho matches again sometime that Dave calls the best Hogan matches in years and that apparently made Hogan a huge Jericho fan. I seem to remember Jericho doing a lot of standard Randy Savage spots, but don't remember for sure. The Jericho/Hogan matches were 10 minute TV matches, but it would be interesting to watch them side-by-side with the Shawn match (and Hogan/Rock, Hogan/Taker, and Hogan/HHH) to see who is old Hogan's best opponent. Hogan/Rock at Wrestlemania X-8 was tremendous, but the rematch at No Way Out '03 was during a time when I think Pat Patterson was on the outs with the company because of HHH's increasing influence, and they didn't have his help in laying out the match. No one ever talks about that match. Was it not very good? I haven't seen it.

Booking to sell merchandise over tickets will almost always favor the status quo, will it not?

I genuinely don't think Vince is opposed to creating new stars. I do think he is hesitant to do it at the expense of guys like HHH and Undertaker, his lifers, and Cena, his merchandise cash cow. He has no problem having his second-tier main eventers -- guys like Edge, Jericho, Rey, and Orton -- put over someone he wants to give a shot. HHH has kept a pretty low profile lately, which probably means his heel turn and subsequent push are going to be more obnoxious than ever.

I'm surprised no one has argued that he gave the rub of someone retiring him to the Undertaker instead of someone like Miz, MVP, or Jack Swagger who needed it more. I guess you could argue that the DX-Spirit Squad feud was a burial of all the Spirit Squad guys, which it was, and Michaels was involved with that, although I'm not sure how much of that comes down to him.

Not major problems, no. But if we was constantly talking about how he wouldn't do certain things in wrestling because of his Christianity and going on about how he's a changed man, people would pick at those issues, because he would make himself a lightning rod. By wrestler terms, Shawn has been pretty close to saintly since returning, but the holier-than-thou demeanor tends to open one up to plenty of criticism.

It's not worth having too much of an argument about, but the core of the argument is that when you talk constantly about being a Christian, you are held under a microscope. That expands beyond wrestling. There are plenty of wrestlers like Chris Jericho and Eddy Guerrero that have never been hounded about their problems because they don't draw so much attention to their faith. Really, doing so is an invitation for people to find any flaw they can.

Embarrassing behavior complaints coming from Ric Flair ...

I was thinking it was, but didn't want to say without being sure. But yes, I could almost swear he said in his book that his birth name was Fred Phelps.

Male companion? This is why wrestling sucks, Orlando should just say "This is my gay lover" on TV and let that be that. Also worth nothing: Ric Flair's birth name is PHELPS.

And not a large proportion of light-heavyweight wrestlers for the past two decades? Not really. Shawn was never a junior. He was also about the same size as Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, and Randy Savage who were stars in the WWF before him and Bret. Bret and Shawn also shared their era with Nash, Luger, Undertaker, Razor Ramon, and Yokozuna heavily pushed. They didn't really change the norm on top. Since the late 90s, it's been the same: smaller guys like Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, and Misterio mixed in with bigger guys like Foley, Rock, HHH, and Cena. I never got the whole argument that he made things easier for smaller guys. What he did do is improve the quality of wrestling in main events from what it had been in the Hogan era.

I think his influence is mostly on the HHH/Jericho/Edge/Christian/Jeff Hardy group, who typically talk about how much they love Shawn and whose styles all resemble his in some ways. I think his biggest influence is popularizing the ladder match as a gimmick more than anything else.

So I thought since Shawn's career appears to be over (yes, there is probably better than 50% chance that he'll return at some point), this appears to be a good time to reflect on his place in history. He's been discussed ad nauseum, so we may not tread new ground here, but sometimes hindsight provides a different point of view. I will say that for all the talk of his weaknesses, some of it coming from me at times, I do think most would agree that the overall whole exceeded the sum of the parts. I mean that as a compliment, because in spite of whatever flaws he has had, he was able to have a long, productive career with some great matches which I guess have spanned four decades. He wasn't among the elite babyface tag team wrestlers of the 80s, but he was very good. The angle with his heel turn on Marty Jannetty is one of the most memorable heel turns the WWF has ever produced. I don't feel like he really came into his own as a singles wrestler until 1994, but '94 was a terrific year for him, even in spite of all the time off. He had the great Wrestlemania ladder match, the really good 20-minute TV match with Razor, and the Clique tag that fall was excellent as well. 1995 was the year where it was obvious he and Bret were the future of the company, even though Nash was the one being pushed. The Nash match at Wrestlemania XI was a fun match, but was worked in such an odd way that I can only guess was for Shawn to show up his good friend and prove that it should be him in that spot. The match was laid out for Shawn to look better than him in every way, even though he did take the pin in the end. His babyface turn was a bright spot in a pretty bad year for the company. He probably topped himself with the Summerslam ladder match with Razor, even if the Wrestlemania match is more remembered because it came first. 1996 should have been his breakout year, and in a way, it was. But personal problems and being the star of a falling company did put kind of a dark cloud over all the great matches he had. Looking back, I don't think it's fair to blame Shawn for business being in a slump. He worked hard as champion. I do think he would have been much better as a long-term heel in that spot, and it's sad that by the time they found the perfect role for him in '97, injuries and drug problems had caught up to him, and it didn't last very long. I'm not sure I have ever seen a heel with more heat than Shawn Michaels had in 1997. He started riots at house shows, had trash pelted at him in Europe in the Davey Boy match, and had ringside fans chanting for his death in the Undertaker HIAC match. Early DX was funny and Shawn was great as an obnoxious heel getting under everyone's skin. He probably should have gotten his comeuppance more often than he did, and there are things that stand out like eating a lollipop while tapping out to Ken Shamrock's anklelock, having temper tantrums in big matches when things didn't go the way he felt they should, and yelling out spots to embarrass Shamrock in their title match, that didn't reflect well on him. His comeback took some time to really take off, and I think has had great moments and moments that were also a little ridiculous. While the HHH match at Summerslam was his first match back, the Jericho match at WM 19 is really when I think he took off, and they stopped talking about him as an old, sad man past his prime in promos. He has had great moments, mostly at Wrestlemania, and has had moments where the fans were laughing when he was trying to sell a serious concussion angle. He's been annoying at times, but has also been great at working the crowd. So where's his place overall? I don't think he's at the level of Flair, but I do think the comeback may have put him slightly ahead of Bret in the all-time list, if only because he has had so much more longevity. To clarify that, that's setting aside the argument of who was better in the ring and instead is asking who had the better overall career and the most great matches. I do think in terms of U.S. main event wrestlers of the past 25 years, he's easily in the top ten, and possibly higher, depending on how you view him. I think the main things he'll be remembered for are his attitude problems in the 90s, the Montreal screwjob, and the comeback. In terms of just guys who have had great WWE runs, he is definitely near the top, and there is an argument to be made for him at #1. I expect him to go in the HOF at some point in the next year or two.

Dave on Gorilla Monsoon:

That made me laugh out loud.

I think too much time has passed for Goldberg to mean anything. He barely meant anything in his last run as it was.

I've always suspected -- and this is possibly wrong -- that the NWA vs UWF would not have worked, simply because the UWF was not seen at the same level as Crockett and the WWF. Yes, it was broadcast nationally in syndication, but Crockett was much stronger and had more nationally known talent. Using DiBiase, Doc, the Freebirds, Terry Taylor, etc. in key roles would have been great and probably worked and helped freshen up JCP talent that was starting to get stale. But I question what the UWF brand actually meant to wrestling fans in 1987. On that note, because the WWF destroyed him, we forget how it seemed like the sky was the limit for him at the time, but Terry Taylor could have come into Crockett as a near top level heel and probably had a great feud with someone like Barry Windham. DiBiase was probably a better pick for that role, but weighing the pros and cons of using Taylor in that role is also worth discussing. The guy was considered the next Flair by the hardcores after turning heel, and he was considered one of the top future stars.

The ups and downs of Ric Flair's drawing power through the years is really an interesting topic on its own, and one that I don't think has ever been discussed in depth by anyone other than Flair fanboys and WWF fanboys who think Hulk Hogan was the only wrestler of his era who was actually a draw. There are times when Flair has clearly delivered big numbers, and times where despite the hype and full promotion being there, he hasn't. Worth a more detailed look for sure.