[1994-01-14-WWF-San Jose, CA] Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon (Ladder)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This is a pretty unsung match as far as WWF handhelds go, I guess because they topped themselves at Wrestlemania. But this is still an excellent match. It's less spotty than Mania, but that's a good thing and makes it different enough from Wrestlemania. They don't really do any big spots here that they dropped at the big show, but they did later add quite a bit more. Plus, the filmers give the most sarcastic smark commentary in wrestling history, which alternates between amusing and annoying.

[jdw]

We saw one around this time at the Sports Arena in LA. We always thought it was a really good match. They may have pulled out more stops at Mania, but the house show series appears to have been pretty damn good.

 

John

[Kevin Ridge]

I hate handhelds. As a ladder match I was expecting more high spots but we were not getting them here. The commentary did not do it for me. The WrestlemMania match was way better than this.

[shoe]

I enjoyed the heck out of it. Kinda dug the early psychology of HBK working over Razor's back. HBK does a great job of pinballing for Ramon. Both guys are great at the near climbs. Some of HBK's bumps off the ladder were kinda samey, but still cool. I dug how we got a wrestling match that built to the ladder spots. This is more similarly worked to the SMW series with Smothers and Candido than the Wrestlemania bout.

[Exposer]

The commentary was ridiculous but this was another great Shawn-Razor ladder match. I liked the Razor's Edge tease on the floor and it also led to Shawn working on Razor's back for a while. Shawn took his usual bumps in a ladder match but they're still great ones and don't seem to be as insane and dangerous as guys like the Hardy's would take. The finish is really good and a cool big bump to take Shawn out. The Mania match is better but this is a nice gem.

[soup23]

I tapped out on the commentary. This was a nice beginning chapter to their ladder feud but was tough to watch with the WM10 and Summerslam matches so entrenched in my mind. I did enjoy them sort of finding their way on what spots would work with this match though.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

Shawn appeared to take a nasty fall on the side of his face toward the end. Cool match.

[PeteF3]

By the end I was hoping for the two smarky filmers to have died in a car fire on the way home. Also that's one small, flimsy-looking ladder. The match it self is very good, and by WWF house show standards it's excellent. Shawn bumps his ass off, natch, but there's some psych and build to the use of the ladder, as well as payback spots when Razor goes back on offense. We see some stuff that we'd see later and other spots that they'd junk. Better match and a more interesting look at the proto-ladder concept than Shawn/Bret.

[garretta]

I decided to "sacrifice" this match, as it were, by listening to the commentary, much like I did with a match on the '91 set involving Jushin Liger and Brian Pillman. Instead of analyzing the match itself (since at least the Mania X ladder match will be on the set), I decided to imagine that I was sitting next to the guys filming the match and see if the things they talked about added to my experience or detracted from it.

 

At least, that was my intent. But it soon became apparent to me that these two numbskulls had no interest whatsoever in the match before them (which was excellent, especially for a house show match), and were probably tanked to the gills and/or higher than kites to boot. What little wrestling talk there was surrounded a bizarre fantasy scenario in which Hall and Michaels were actually fighting this match as tag team partners going for the nonexistent WWF Intercontinental tag team championship. That's about all I feel comfortable sharing; the rest was either unintelligible, stupid, or scatological.

 

These are the type of fans who make wrestlers wish they'd chosen another profession, one which they could have worked in without a crowd. On behalf of those of us who are at least somewhat sane, I offer a sincere apology to any wrestlers who may be reading this. While we may not always like everything you do, the vast majority of us respect you as athletes and performers. It's a shame that we're lumped in with idiots like these, and that bringing a match like this to a wider public also entails giving them a platform for their drivel.