[1993-12-06-WWF-Raw] Shawn Michaels vs 1-2-3 Kid

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The Shawn/Kid match I would have liked to have seen get a little more time, but they cut an incredible pace for the time they had. Both seem to be having a contest to see who can take the most ridiculous bumps, which Kid wins when he takes a beautiful powerslam from the apron to the arena floor.

 

I always liked the angle here, with Shawn delivering multiple Razor's Edges and refusing to go for the cover. Razor comes out to stop it and gets attacked by Diesel from behind the curtain and Razor's Edged on the concrete a few times by Shawn. The move looks a little sloppy on the outside, but Shawn was dropping to his knees understandably so Razor wouldn't have to bump like that on the floor. Good segment. This feud seemed to get hot pretty quickly.

[Gregor]

This felt different from most of the stuff that Michaels was doing in 1993. You mentioned in a post from early in the yearbook that Michaels, at this stage in his career, was focused mainly on feeding comeback for the faces, and maybe that's it; he does that well enough here, but he seemed more flashy here than he did at any other point in the year. The Jannetty match from May was about as long as this and also was wrestled at a fast pace, but Michaels' offense in that wasn't much more complex than choking and punching. This one seemed almost like a transition to the kind of wrestler he'd become in 1994.

 

Anyway, this is is my favorite Michaels match from a year in which he didn't really have any great matches. I think this one is very good, though.

[Kevin Ridge]

Shawn has lost weight from his heavy ways during the Summer. He is moving much better out there. Heenan taking shots at Monsoon. Great pace by both guys. Michaels looking to send a message by using the Razor's Edge on Kid. Ramon comes ringside to put an end to it. Set up though as Diesel uses the KO punch by the entrance way. They stopped pushing the move shortly after. Michaels hits a Razor's Edge on the floor. We get a zoom in of Razor's toothpick.

[PeteF3]

This is one of the best mid-'90s WCW cruiserweight matches ever to air on Raw. Lots of staples of that style like Michaels dropkicking the Kid out of mid-air. Only thing missing was the "double cross body block" spot. Really hot ending and post-match, as Michaels is killing the Kid with Razor's Edges before Ramon comes out to rescue him. Razor is about to give Shawn what-for when he's knocked out by Diesel, and eats two Razor's Edges on the floor himself. Very timidly done, but I was amazed Michaels was able to get him up in that move at all. Shawn is "back" after spending much of the late summer and fall overweight--here he finally had an opponent he could dominate and bully and build sympathy on, and show off a little more offense than his usual standards. This results in a match probably as good or better than the Jannetty MOTY.

 

As good as the post-match was, that faux-dramatic close-up of Razor's fallen toothpick was pretty groanworthy. Like something the modern "arty" WWE direction team would attempt.

[garretta]

I don't think we necessarily needed ​to see Shawn use the Razor's Edge on Hall, but it fits the HBK character that he would, even if he couldn't execute it properly. The execution isn't the point, him having enough balls to give a guy his own finisher on the concrete floor is. I think "finisher stealer" would have been a good secondary gimmick for Shawn, particularly with the guys he ended up feuding with over the next few years. (He even won the WWF title once by using another man's hold, but there was a certain screwjob involved, as you will no doubt recall.) The REs he used on Waltman looked more brutal than Hall's, particularly the first one when he made sure to really drive the back of Waltman's head into the mat. By contrast, Hall always looked like he was guiding his victim off of his shoulders, and I don't mean that as a criticism. I agree that we didn't need the toothpick shot at the end; they should have shown Hall being helped behind the curtain instead.

 

The bumps here were crazy, particularly the powerslam Waltman took from the apron to the floor. Shawn looked like he barely touched him, which made the bump even riskier, since Waltman had no one to help break his fall. I liked Shawn's offense, and as Pete said above he was finally in there with someone he was physically superior to, so it made sense that said offense would look good. We even saw a great version of Sweet Chin Music.

 

Waltman looked good here too, but he wasn't helped at all by the announcers. Heenan's ragging was to be expected, but I didn't like Vince talking about how Waltman couldn't take punishment, that he was wearing down quickly because Shawn was pounding on him. First of all, every​ wrestler wears down when they take punishment, as Vince should know by now. Second, how the hell does Vince expect the kid to stay over when he, the boss of the whole outfit, basically calls him a wimp? It says something about the WWF fan of 1993 that he was able to stay over despite inexcusable treatment like this. At least Heenan gave him his due as an athlete even as he (Bobby) was making fun of him.

 

I'm surprised Nash didn't join in on Hall's beatdown. We barely saw him come out from behind the curtain to deliver the knockout punch.

 

I'm starting to realize just how much Heenan put Shawn over during the latter part of '93, to the point of (supposedly) giving him water during Survivor Series. I never thought of them as a good fit, but the Brain always did well with prima donnas like Rude and Orndorff, so I could see him at ringside with Shawn if his neck had allowed it. Where that would have left Nash is anyone's guess.

 

I wish the angle where Waltman had saved Hall from Shawn and Nash the week before had made the set. Maybe they could have shown it prior to the match, since the two were directly tied together. Usually Vince was good about stuff like that, so it's hard to figure why he slipped up here.

 

The only line about Gino was when Heenan said he (Gino) had spent most of his time on his back during his career. The match (and the angle afterward) were both too good to be interrupted, so it was a smart move by Bobby to save his jokes for later.

 

I'm sure Vince has seen enough Japanese wrestling in his life to have seen the up-and-down dropkick spot at least once. This is just another case of actual wrestling meneuvers being shortchanged in Vince's sports entertainment world.

 

Heenan's last WWF performance on the Yearbooks was golden, with too many great lines to count. As I expected, Vince refused to play along with him, but that was par for the course by now. My choice for Line of the Night goes to "How many St. Joseph's (children's aspirin) do you think it will take for the Kid's back to feel better?" after Shawn had been working on it for a few minutes. My second choice goes to "Has he (Waltman) hit double digits yet?" I said this after Jesse left, but I mean it now more than ever: Even with JR's many memorable calls during his time there, the announcing in the WWF/E hasn't been the same since Heenan left. From what I've gathered, to compare today's color commentators to the Brain is utterly impossible, as few of them match him either in knowledge or style. The worst part of it is, Vince and his family seem to want ​it that way, for some unfathomable reason.

 

I agree with Heenan about one thing: Hall's shirt was ​ugly.

[soup23]

Good match. Shawn looks in better shape after having a rough 1993 and he is able to match the intensity of Kid here. They bump around good and have a fun athletic contest. It is amusing to come back from a break and see HBK throwing a superkick to not even a nearfall. Razor intervenes and they have a brawl at the entrance with an absurd close up on the toothpick and HBK giving Razor the Razor's Edge. ***

[Superstar Sleeze]

Shawn Michaels vs 1-2-3 Kid - WWF RAW 12/6/93

This looks fan-fucking-tastic when you’ve been watching a metric shit ton of New Generation WWF. This is during HBK’s fake IC title reign. I am surprised this isn’t talked up more because this completely different than anything else on WWF TV. This is downright Japanese workrate shit a precursor to WCW cruiserweight stuff. It is very avant-garde for WWF and really foreshadows what is to come. 

Kid comes out red hot. The one thing is Kid’s punching sucks. It will be interesting to see if he ever gets better at that. I can’t remember Syxx or X-PAC’s punch. They cut a great pace. Here are some of the high spot highlights: Strong dive to the floor by Kid. Shawn takes a weird bump into the post. He hooked it and spun out that I thought maybe he blocked it but I think he was supposed to hit. Kid eats a beautiful power slam off the apron to the floor. That was wicked. Beautiful German Suplex! Lots of movement, a dive and a suplex. Very different than most WWF.

Also this is an interesting combination because Kid can actually slam/suplex Shawn which he normally can’t do that in WWF. Also Shawn can play the bigger bully heel a role he usually couldn’t play in WWF.

Kid works a great side headlock but runs up the ropes one too many times and Michael’s suplexes him. Michaels works the backbreaker and in a rarity can really be that bully heel here. Kid gets a   heel kick. Kid misses a somersault splash from the top rope. Crashes and burns. Back from commercial and Superkick (not quite sweet or musical yet). Shawn who was feuding with Razor over who was the real IC Champion hits TWO Razor Edges and they looked GREAT! Again that’s Shawn getting to play bully heel which he never gets a chance. Razor saves on the third attempt. The match gets thrown out. Diesel slugs Razor from behind the curtain. Shawn HITS TWO RAZOR EDGES ON SCOTT HALL! Damn I mean that is a big boy for Shawn to get up! He must have ate his Wheaties that morning. It didn’t look super good because it had to be done on concrete/floor so Shawn safely put Razor down but just hoisting him up and down was impressive.

It was a spot fest but with character. Shawn was the bully heel and Kid was the plucky underdog. It was not overtly cooperative. It was not a weird a motion smoothing match. They took their time and made the high spots stand out. A really good 90s workfare match. *** 3/4