Matt D

Duggan I could understand, but Bossman had a pretty solid 91-93.

Past MAYBE a Steamboat match or two and some of the underdog matches like Koko and Sam Houston, name me a few matches where the first few minutes of a Flair match actually matter? I'm not arguing that they're not entertaining. I think Flair is awesome at making holds interesting, both applying them and taking them, but he just runs through his shit. Are you arguing that he doesn't do that? As for Shawn, I think he actually rarely does a real superman comeback in what I saw in 96. He definitely changed things up. Oh wait, there was that terribly frustrating 95 Bulldog MSG match where he kips up three times. Anyway, later Shawn, when the entirety of matches are built upon backwork.. well, that's a different story.

Isn't that "Every Flair Match Ever?"

From what I've seen now of 96 Shawn vs Post-Comeback Shawn, the latter is a much huger issue as a lot of his matches are based around the heel working on his damaged back.

Our tastes don't match up anywhere close to perfectly, but I remember the Gunn match as Michaels' worst of the year. Gunn is worse than Helmsley, and Michaels is more interested in Sunny than in the match. The Lawler match is more fun. I know you're mostly doing TV stuff, but the International Incident match seems like the sort of thing you'd be interested in - you get to see which guys are entrusted with certain portions of the match and just how much Sid and Ahmed are allowed to do. That's exactly why I want to see the Gunn match, btw. Well Not because of Sunny, but because it's not against a guy the quality of the others.

I still have one more Michaels match to watch! And I kind of want to see the Billy Gunn one too. Someone break this stuff off to its own note.

I've seen a bunch of matches where it hasn't happened QUITE like that and a bunch where it did, and it's weird to me. Did people make the Hogan comparisons in 96 at all?

Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf66Zlt3P7s and here's the first half of the stern interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVrluiMq_bs

I've got one more Shawn vs Goldust match (house show) to watch (Thanks Gregor!) but I did watch the 9/6/96 Shawn vs Goldust Raw match and I thought it was actually better than all the other ones I've seen so far. It didn't have the fast action, necessarily, but it was really solid. Goldust was very aggressive in the early going and it was obviously he wanted to win the thing. Dustin's offense was both believable and smart. Exactly what the match called for. Shawn was a bit more active from the bottom; instead of just laying there in a chin lock, he'd kick his feet and what not. You really got the sense that Dustin knew this was for the title, that he had earned the shot, and he wanted to WIN it. I thought for sure the kip up was gong to come after the double clothesline but it didn't, and I would have bought the finish after the elbow-drop as into SCM but they twisted it a bit. I think some of the other matches I've seen so far were flashier, but this was the best. Also, one thing I've noticed that 1996 Shawn is very good at is that when he flubs something (which is about once a match), he's USUALLY pretty good at recovering through sheer athleticism and instincts alone. I know sometimes he doesn't and throws a fit, but I've seen more recoveries than not. and I saw the 8-9-96 house show. I'll say off the bat that the most interesting thing about Shawn in 96 is that he really changes things up. I know I said that before, but here it is again after seeing a few more matches. This didn't look all that much like the other two Goldust matches I saw. Lots of different spots and some unique spots, such as missed kick to the head by Goldust (trying to counter a back body drop set up by Shawn) followed by a missed elbow drop by Shawn. Or the beginning of the match being Goldust reversing a Shawn attempt at a piledriver on the floor. The real meat of the match storywise was Goldust grounding Shawn and hooking in a chinlock. Shawn comes back the first time with the elbows but is cut off with a kneelift to the gut. Comes back the second time in a test of strength sort of way a couple of minutes later, but is powered down, and then the third time actually powers out of the thing and tosses goldust across the ring. It's a solid story if not an entirely compelling one. Goldust's chinlocks are pretty good though Shawn's selling isn't as interesting. The fans pop for each comeback but I think in this case, the blending of a slightly quicker pace and the story being told in the TV match worked better.

I saw the Marty match. Lots of fun tit for tat stuff. Cornette being out there was a let down since he didn't really play a role. It didn't exactly tell a story outside a broad "Two guys who know each other well" one, but it was worked pretty damn hard with Michaels going over for armdrags with more zing than I might have ever seen, and whipping across the ropes for his leaping forearm with as much speed as I've ever seen anyone in the ring. Good cut offs by Marty. A little less of a miraculous comeback. I thought it protected Marty's fistdrop well, though there was a weird moment when Shawn sat up to avoid the top rope iteration where, once again, he seemed momentarily lost in there. It was an awkward few seconds, for certain. Probably my favorite of the matches I've seen so far as there was just enough of a skeleton of a story in there to make the work worth the effort they were putting into it. Storming through. Saw the Owen match. Geez Owen was good. He had a way of making reversals look like he was actually trying something, like how Michaels floated over early on and it really seemed like Owen was going for some sort of slam instead of it just being part of a planned wrestling exchange. There's backwork that's ultimately meaningless (which is disappointing, since I thought it was going to go somewhere), but the comeback works the best out of all of the matches. While it's pretty much straight to the finish (though never entirely straight which is a testament to Shawn), it comes after Owen mocks the stomping and what not, so it's more of a hubris thing. Good athletic action like all the rest of these matches but I think they're all ultimately missing something.

John, I know how you feel about 80s WWF tag wrestling. One of my major points is that I think a lot of your major general complaints against wwf tag work don't appear in the Demolition matches, though (with the exception of maybe one or two Bulldogs matches, because it's pretty damn hard to hold back DK). I feel like I'm shouting into the wind here, but to me it's all the more impressive that they're able to avoid those pitfalls, or, in matches with things like the babyface team having an early offensive advantage, they're able to bring something to it by not just sitting there and eating the offense. They make it actually mean something, and create a far more even environment without resorting to no-selling and shrugging things off.

I do a weekly "wwe house show, this week" youtube search, but nothing's jumped out recently, I don't think. I don't know if they're cutting down on what's allowed or what. Watched the Al Snow match. Another really exciting opening segment, but Snow almost Killed Michaels twice, first with that rydeen bomb and then with that rocket launcher power bomb what the hell was that? But Michaels kept his cool and even ate a superplex shortly thereafter. I thought the comeback was a little smarter in how it was executed here, with the top rope clothesline after Snow went to the well for a second superplex a little more believable, but Snow really destroyed Shawn with his offense so it felt a little less believable. Granted, then Shawn did one of the best inverted atomic drops ever, execution elevating what would have been a pretty silly comeback after what he just ate. Good, story driven finish. Until I really started to watch these things, I didn't realize just how much Shawn used the classic wwf babyface no sell comeback. It feels a little weird in 96 and also a little weird with a guy like Michaels who is heralded as he is. There's also a moment in both comebacks I've seen where Michaels sort of fumbled with his opponent before throwing him across the ring, but that could be flukey. In general, I think this match was more effective at doing what it was supposed to do than the Kid match and was laid out better, but maybe wasn't as exciting. I'll take effective over exciting, but I believed the comeback in the Kid match more. Ok, saw the HHH match too. This had the same sort of opening as Kid, with Shawn getting out wrestled, but it was more meticulous and the announcers came up with storyline reasons for it, which made it work much better. It wasn't the same sort of Michaels' opening flurry as the other matches, but it resonated more and had more meaning. This was the most full match in a few ways, but I think a lot of that was because it received the most time out of the three. Lots of cut offs. Hunter's offense wasn't bad but it got a bit repetitive as it went on. He didn't quite have enough stuff or he couldn't use what he had quite well enough. One thing I do really like about Shawn in 96, from what I've seen before, is how he changed up the comebacks. The kip up is his rope-shaking, hulk-upping, strap dropping moment, but sometimes he does it right after the forearm, sometimes before, sometimes he does the inverted atomic drop before, sometimes after, so at least he switches things up, and it rarely leads directly to the finish either, so that's something. In general, I thought this was the match that made the most sense, that, on paper, had right amount of time in the right places, that had a clever enough opening segment, with Shawn coming unglued and getting pissed, and that was smart with its cutoffs and ultimate comeback. But it was also the most lackluster of the matches, and I do think a lot of that was on Hunter. I still don't regret watching it, mind you, because it was interesting for what, why, and how Shawn did. so to sum up, I thought the Kid match was exciting but structured weird, with a wrong beginning for the context. I thought the Snow match was structured okay and dynamic but was a bit too compressed to be believable, and I thought the HHH was structured pretty well with a better take on the kid beginning but lackluster. I would have rather seen Snow with that time.

I've only seen the January 93 Boston WWF House show fan cam as of yet in my 93 watching, and it's well enough done. It's still not the same as something that's professionally done, and I'd rather have Mooney/Lord Alfred than no commentary at all. Still, you can obviously get a lot out of that, too. I'm sure I'll get to more as I keep going (give or take some derailing). If there are really that many, then yes, it's a gap filler. As for Raw vs PTW, at least for the first 3 months of 93, the matches feel shorter and certainly more distracted. There's also an hour less and more extra curricular activity. You'd never see a match interrupted for Kamala chasing Kimchee through the stands on Primetime, for instance. Watched Shawn vs 123 Kid. Liked it. Obviously, by this point Shawn is running the Hogan formula with more elaborate finishes. He gave Waltman a ton, actually making him look like the better wrestler in the opening exchange and again later on, with Michaels' first two comebacks only due to Kid's grandstanding. There's a hint of Malenko vs Crusierweights in Shawn's offense as he kicks out both a press slam and power slam. I actually think he gave Waltman a bit too much without a good storyline reason for it especially as he was on his way to the Main Event at Mania. That said, as action goes, Michaels' might have been best at his opening segments. This one was fun but it was very weird to me that Michaels was on the losing end of the exchange until the grandstanding. Definitely not following the Tito formula, which is okay, but slightly less okay on the road to wrestlemania. Also, Vince's voice was really raspy.

I'll try to run through them in the next couple of days. Thanks.

Honestly, we lose a lot in 93 relative to 92 as there are less CV tapings and I think we got more out of random PTW matches then we do out of Raw matches. It's one reason why my interest petered out a bit in going through WWF TV. Just as we lost a lot from 91 to 92 in losing MSG, and a lot in 91 and 90 to 89 in losing some of the other arenas.

You can learn a lot more about late 80s early 90s WWF guys from MSG/Boston/Toronto/Philly/PTW shows than you can from most other places. Is that no as true in the mid 90s with Mania or whatever B/C shows they had?

Yeah, when I say i haven't seen much 96 Shawn, that's what I mean, mainly, the TV matches. I've seen very little WWE TV in 96 (which is only worth mentioning since I've seen almost everything there is to see from 90-92, and a whole lot of 93 and the late 80s. I haven't seen all the PPVs either but I've seen some at least.

That was from a msg fancam from 95, I think. The Goldust ladder match was 96 though, so there's that too!

I've seen the Vader match and the Mind Games match! so there's that. Oh and the Sid Survivor Series Match, and Mania of course. What else should I see from 96?

Probably should. I was mainly summing up a lot of the note. It sure sounds good though!

I think I've said my piece. You never ever see Eadie do anything, or shortly into the run, Darsow either, and have to think hard for why they're doing it. They gave when they should give and didn't when they shouldn't. They made babyfaces and heels both work for every little damn thing that they got. Every hot tag was earned. Every comeback was earned (and usually cut off smartly a couple of times first). Every bit of offense heels got on them when they were faces was earned and it ultimately made the matches better since everything felt more logical. It was a way of protecting themselves much more effective than the no selling you saw so often from the warriors. It also almost completely eliminated heel-in-peril segments when they were the heels in the match. It usually felt like the babyfaces just trying to desperately survive when they got to work over the arm for a few minutes; containment, not control. You can see trends over time in their matches, and they do have a few very good to great matches. If Shawn's the guy who looks worse when you break him down and analyze them as opposed to just yanking out GREAT MATCHES, Demos as a team are better if you break them down and analyze them instead of trying to find the great matches. They exist but it's not entirely the point. But I've said everything I think I need to on them. Very smart, self-aware, effective workers.

Where do I think I took my comments from, Will? I took what you said about those matches seriously since you took the effort to watch them, and I generally respect your opinion. You didn't like the Twin Towers match because the Demos weren't manhandling them, specifically because there wasn't a heel in peril segment, which was, at the least, pretty hypocritical. You weren't judging the match but your own preconceived notion about what you wanted. That they were selling for the larger heels seemed like a drawback in your eyes. It was a very frustrating post to read at the time, let me tell you. Your biggest problem with them seemed to be that they were Road Warriors clones to you when you were younger. And then you complained that they didn't work the match like the Warriors would have (no, they worked it smarter and WAY more giving, but to the ultimate benefit of the match, making both themselves and their opponents look better). Even at the worst, "ok" and sucked aren't quite the same thing though.

My new theory is that Shawn's increased confidence, and later stroke, meant that he had more match control/input, which led to worse matches as the years went on. But this theory only works if Dylan is right and the AWA stuff is his actual peak when it comes to good performances/smart matches.

I haven't seen the AWA Michaels stuff yet past one bloodbath, but I wouldn't be surprised if he deteriorated as he went along and got more fame/success/confidence. I'd like to see the memphis stuff when they were heels too. I've only seen a couple of studio jobber matches from that period. Does any MSC stuff survive? Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing the AWA work since Dylan and others think so highly of it, especially relative to Michaels' later work.

You never made a compelling argument about how Demolition sucked except for preconceived notions you never had any desire to revisit (which is strange for someone who posts so much here), not liking them when you were younger since they weren't the Road Warriors, and a lack of Movez. Even if you don't like their style, I can't see how you can completely ignore the arguments of the things they do well in every single match that they're in. But that's ok. We're not talking about them. I think Shawn was pretty well led in his tag team days. But I'm not going to put him being a face against him. I meant what I said about him vs DK. His matches were hugely helped by the fact he was something of a wuss who couldn't push people around like he later would be able to (see vs Vader). The fact that he still resented, fifteen years later, the amount of offense Demolition gave them (When it was in fact the perfect amount, strikingly so) shows a pretty big lack of understanding of what the hell he was doing out there and why. But I give some credit to Warrior for being so well-led so I'm not going to keep it from Michaels here, even if I feel it's really despite himself. Basically, as a WWF tag worker, he's not a smart worker, just a hard worker who can't get his way. I can't imagine his AWA run is any different, but I'm looking forward to seeing it. I imagine being younger/less established and in there against some canny, canny vets, he had even LESS influence, and Dylan, for one, considers that his very best work. So we're saying that his best work came at a time where he basically had the least amount of influence in the matches. Which is not the exactly mark of a top 25 great worker in my mind whether he has the matches or not.