[1993-10-02-WWF-Superstars] Update: Shawn Michaels suspended, Battle Royal for the vacant IC title

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Shawn Michaels has been suspended and stripped of the IC title for failing to appear for a number of title defenses. All these years later, I'm still not entirely sure what happened between Shawn and the WWF during this time.

 

They announce that there will be a battle royal on Raw, with the two last men wrestling in a singles match the following week.

 

And so begins the Wrestlemania X build, although I don't think that was the idea at the time.

[Kevin Ridge]

Yeah, I do wonder what the story about this suspension was. Michaels on one of his DVDs talked about steroids but dodged it and was saying he was just fat at the time which was explanation of being so big. Story from Tunney is Michaels has not made contractual title defenses. The first of Michaels losing a title outside the ring. Battle Royal set to determine the next IC Champion. MVP and Snuka as participants! Didn't know Snuka was around at that point.

[PeteF3]

And the last traces of Gene Okerlund are gone from WWF television until 2001, as his "From the pages of the World Wrestling Federation magazine..." intro has been replaced.

 

Shawn Michaels pulled a CM Punk and walked out on the company because of various disagreements. This led to a vacating of the Intercontinental title to be decided in a 20-man battle royal. This came too suddenly for Jack Tunney to film an announcement, so they just have Gorilla read a letter from the President's office.

 

So starts a sharp decline for the WWF. I was just getting into insider info via Prodigy, and in rapid succession we had Luger's failure on top, the departure of Gene Okerlund, a walkout by Shawn Michaels, a suspension and then firing of Matt Borne, a suspension of the Steiners, the departure of Mr. Perfect, an extended suspension for Jerry Lawler, the departure of Bobby Heenan, and the Charles Austin lawsuit verdict. With the feds still breathing down McMahon's back. I seriously thought the WWF was on the verge of going under entirely.

[Dooley]

I think it's been alluded to that HBK failed a drug test but like Loss, I've never heard a definitive word one way or the other.

[garretta]

The battle royal field looks impressive. I wonder if they thought of using someone like Backlund or Snuka in the finals in place of Martel. Probably not, since both of them were faces and so was Hall.

 

It sure didn't seem like Gino read twenty names to me. They went by too fast to count, but it felt like they were leaving the last couple of slots open, although I can't figure out for whom. Snuka and Lombardi (as MVP, I believe) filled the "surprise entrant" quotient quite nicely. So did Martel, come to think of it.

 

I wonder why they went with a battle royal instead of a tournament. It was probably something simple, like they already had a battle royal planned and decided to make it for the IC title when this all came down rather than try to plan out a tournament. The one-on-one match for the belt was a nice touch, although I might have made it the same night to make the whole thing more of an endurance contest instead of waiting a week. (This is assuming that both the 10/4 and 10/11 Raws​ were taped on the same night to begin with.)

[soup23]

Gino is doing the update today. He announces the suspension of HBK and we even get the letter from Tunney announcing as such. We then get the rundown for the battle royal to crown the IC champion.