Would Shawn Michaels Make Your Personal Top 100?

[JerryvonKramer]

If I've got a problem with post-comeback Shawn, and bare in mind I've only seen a handful of bigtime matches of his from that period, it's that he's just far far FAR too self-aware for his own good.

 

He seems to be aware of 1) his own greatness, not just that he's great but the IDEA of his greatness, the general perception of it, and 2) the status of a given match as a classic or a great match or some sort of masterpiece.

 

These are things that in my mind can't be levelled at guys like Flair and Steamboat -- they just did what they did. There's no sense DURING THE MATCH that they are aware of the greatness or perceived greatness of the match. Same with Funk, Hansen and a whole bunch of other guys from that era -- there's a certain AUTHENTICITY AND RAWNESS that Shawn plainly lacks.

 

And my dislike of post-comeback Shawn stems from the fact that this self-awareness gives "set piece moments", like Dylan said, a certain phoniness. It's one of the reasons I hate that Undertaker match from Wrestlemania 25 so much. You can't manufacture a classic match for the ages in such an obvious and self-aware way, they either happen organically or they don't.

 

For that reason, I'd take Rockers vs The Orient over these cheesy, made-to-order big matches like the Flair match or the Undertaker WM25 match any day of the week.

 

A shrewd reader might turn around at this point and say "Well, Jerry, what about stuff like Hogan vs. Warrior, or even Hogan vs. Savage, or Savage vs. warrior, weren't those manufactured classics? Weren't those made-to-order big matches designed to be historical? I bet you rate them, this is just yet more anti-modern-product bias".

 

My answer is to that is: no, Hogan and Savage were good enough workers not to show that sense of self-awareness, that sense of "this is not only a big match but a critically acclaimed classic in the making", in their performance, in their facial expressions and so on. There's a difference between Hogan and Warrior going nose-to-nose and it feeling like the biggest deal in the world and 15 false finishes with Shawn cranking up his "Sweet Chin Music" like nothing had happened every single time.

[El-P]

Agreed.

Three (two ?) words Jerry : self-conscious epic.

[Log]

Those last few Michaels WM were good for what they were, but the set-up for them really bugged me. I just hate the "We're going to have a great match" as opposed to, "I'm going to kick your ass/defeat you". Nothing takes me out of a feud faster than two guys talking about having a great match together. The idea's supposed to be to win.

[Chess Knight]

Those last few Michaels WM were good for what they were, but the set-up for them really bugged me. I just hate the "We're going to have a great match" as opposed to, "I'm going to kick your ass/defeat you". Nothing takes me out of a feud faster than two guys talking about having a great match together. The idea's supposed to be to win.

Agree with this for sure. I think it was done better with Michaels/Taker than some other examples I can think of, but anything that has the sort of mentality of having a great match instead of trying to win can be bothersome. I was watching 2002 ROH recently and I wanted to kick the shit out of the dude commentating whenever he said "match of the year candidate" or "legendary series of matches."

[Frankensteiner]

During Martel's peak he was working everyone from Flair to Bock to Jimmy Garvin to Jumbo to Gordy to Brad Rheingans to Boris Zhukov. Very broad section of guys. Honestly Michaels is a pinball worker and was sort of made to work guys like Sid/Nash. Martel getting a compelling match out of Boris (actually multiple ones) is at least as impressive to me if not moreso. Of course he didn't have the international platform or the ppv crowds but that is a marketing deal and nothing else.

The only Martel/Zhukov match on the AWA set is the cage match, which was like 12 minutes and had the advantages of a gimmick and blood. It's true that Shawn's style is largely conducive toward pinballing around for big guys. But he also worked really well with guys like Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett, who don't fit that description at all.

 

Yeah, I gotta call BS on the multiple compelling matches with Zhukov. The Cage match they had together was good, the others were not good at all. That's like if I said Michaels had an amazing match with Salvatore Sincere in '96.

 

I would still put Martel ahead of Michaels in my rankings but it has to be said Martel had much better opponents to work with during his peak run than Michaels.

[ohtani's jacket]

Michaels is an awful actor and I don't like the manufactured classics, but it's not surprising that wrestling evolved that way. You can see the roots on the 90s yearbooks.

[Sean Liska]

Those last few Michaels WM were good for what they were, but the set-up for them really bugged me. I just hate the "We're going to have a great match" as opposed to, "I'm going to kick your ass/defeat you". Nothing takes me out of a feud faster than two guys talking about having a great match together. The idea's supposed to be to win.

The last Taker match was built around the idea that Michaels was going insane because he lost to Taker the previous year, and that he would do anything to get one more shot at him and prove he could end the streak. He was willing to put his career on the line because he cared that much about knowing he had it in himself. It was one of the best builds they've done in recent memory.

[JerryvonKramer]

So am I alone in hating the WM25 match?

[El-P]

Hating is a strong word, but I thought the first Taker vs Michaels match was *very good* at best (while it was pimped to be a classic) and the second one merely good and that they tried way to hard to make an epic out of both matches. The issue with me is that when you very consciously aim for "epic" and hit "good", it's infact a fail.

[NintendoLogic]

I wouldn't call the WM25 match an all-time classic or anything, but it did do a good job of building drama and working around their physical limitations. It's almost certainly the best WWE match between Cena's 2007 run and the rise of Punk and Bryan last year. And I could be wrong about this, but I don't recall either HBK/Taker WM match being built around "Hey, let's have a classic!" The first match was an unstoppable force/immovable object deal with Taker's streak on the line against the one guy he had never beaten, and the second match was about Shawn being so obsessed with ending the streak that he was willing to put his career on the line for another shot.

[MJH]

WM25's run of near falls is really well put together as far as your-turn-my-turn near fall stretches go, but the match as a whole still boils down to 'do some little/big shit to kill time, reset on the dives, near falls'. It's very good, it's hard to imagine them doing it better, it saved a dire show, but one of the best matches in WWE history? No.

[Log]

I wouldn't call the WM25 match an all-time classic or anything, but it did do a good job of building drama and working around their physical limitations. It's almost certainly the best WWE match between Cena's 2007 run and the rise of Punk and Bryan last year. And I could be wrong about this, but I don't recall either HBK/Taker WM match being built around "Hey, let's have a classic!" The first match was an unstoppable force/immovable object deal with Taker's streak on the line against the one guy he had never beaten, and the second match was about Shawn being so obsessed with ending the streak that he was willing to put his career on the line for another shot.

My memory's shit, but I swear I remember Michaels saying something in a promo with UT about having a classic match or something (for their first meeting). But, yeah the second one was more Michaels wanting revenge.

[Log]

Michaels is an awful actor and I don't like the manufactured classics, but it's not surprising that wrestling evolved that way. You can see the roots on the 90s yearbooks.

How so?

[Dylan Waco]

I meant in the sense of carrying them to something way better than what they would produce of their own volition. It's true that Nash worked harder with his Kliq buddies, but it's not like his contributions to the GBFE match are all that earth-shattering. I wouldn't call the Sid match at Survivor Series great by any means, but I can't imagine a better Sid match, especially a 20+ minute one.

I actually think Nash's heeling at GBFE was the best heeling he did in his entire WWF run and I think the worst part of the match IN THEORY is the way Shawn comes back from the powerbomb through the table. I say IN THEORY, because I think it played out well in practice. Sometimes breaking the rules is the right move - that was one of those times. On the Sid match(es if you like RR as much as some), I thought it was good at the time and good last time I watched it. Never thought it was a great match. Best Sid match I've ever seen? Maybe, but I'm not a guy well versed in Sid matches, nor do I think it is surprising that Shawn would have a good match him - Shawn's style was tailor made to carry a guy like Sid. I DO NOT mean that to be dismissive of Shawn by the way. That's a strength I'm noting.

 

 

The demands on a top guy in a national promotion with a PPV-based business model are totally different than for a top guy in a territorial promotion with a house show-based business model. I'm more impressed by being able to do a dozen or so high-profile matches that are intended to be attractions in and of themselves along with a few high-end TV matches than a bunch of matches that are designed to get audiences to buy tickets the next time the promotion comes to town with the occasional blowoff.

This will seem like trolling, but can I ask why? I'm curious because I have almost the exact opposite view. I actually think guys from the 90's may have had the best of both World's in the sense that they weren't expected to have high end tv main events every week (that started to change toward the end of the decade, but Shawn was gone by then), their ppv main events were generally better built to (though this was not a staple of Shawn's run in 96), and their weren't as many beat into the ground ppv rematches during that era. Guys in the 80's had varying demands on them regarding tv, but they were pretty much expected to put on a compelling match in every town they worked, every night and they didn't have Pat Patterson (or anyone else) putting together their main events, gimmicks out the ass, et.

 

But setting that debate aside for a second, how successful was Shawn in delivering a dozen are so high-profile matches of high quality? From 94-97 you might have a dozen singles matches from Shawn that fit that mold on ppv. You certainly don't have a dozen in a year and I think even Shawn's biggest fans would be hard pressed to make the case that 94-97 was a run filled with depth of outstanding matches that is unique in the annals of wrestling. I do think he has some iconic/memorable matches from that period that tend to stand out a cast a broad shadow, but I don't see depth. I mean I guess if by high quality we mean "good or better" we could build a couple dozen matches from Shawn including tv from that era, but that seems like shooting low.

 

I'm not trying to move the goal post either. I see value in pointing to his carry jobs that were merely pretty good AND his matches with guys like Foley or Hall that I consider great myself. I guess I'm interested in seeing you expand on the broader point about the model, the challenges you think it presents and what you mean by high-profile matches (and what would be your definition of "delivering" in that context)?

 

The only Martel/Zhukov match on the AWA set is the cage match, which was like 12 minutes and had the advantages of a gimmick and blood. It's true that Shawn's style is largely conducive toward pinballing around for big guys. But he also worked really well with guys like Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett, who don't fit that description at all.

I don't really want to beat the Zhukov thing into the ground, but since Frankensteiner called bullshit, I will simply call "bullshit" back by posting my reviews of a couple of Martel v. Zhukov matches. I would also add that I think having interesting/good matches with Zhukov is at least as difficult as having a good match with Sid if for no other reason than because of the fact that at least Sid has charisma:

 

This didn't make the set:

 

Martel immediately opens up on Zhukov but quickly gets cut off. Zhukov ends up focusing in on Martel's arm. Zhukov is working a hard head gimmick so a lot of this arm work consists of headbutts to the arm which Martel does a good job selling like death. The arm selling from Martel really makes this and builds the tension very well. Great nearfall with Martel landing a perfect looking back cradle for a nearfall. The heat in this one is really great. Martel finally makes a comeback and hits some great punches. He's got Zukhov reeling but ends up eating knees on an out to inside slingshot splash. Zhukov's manager ends up tossing something into the ring and Zukhov gets decked with it and takes a big bump to the floor with Martel getting DQ'ed. For a match that is 80% arm work from a really uninteresting worker this was WAY better than it should have been.

 

This (the Cage Match) did but was one of the last ten matches on:

 

Martel does a cool rope running spot and dominates Zhukov early. Zhukov is back up to avoid Martel who comes forward with strikes and scores with a cradle for a nearfall. Zhukov gets some licks on and tries to force Martel's face into the steel but Rick manages to fight him off. Martel goes for another rolling cradle but Boris ducks down and Martel hits the steel. Martel takes bump after wild bump into the steel and blades. Zhukov starts biting at the cut and gets a good nearfall of a lariat that Martel bumps well for. Zhukov goes for another lariat but Martel ducks and he hits the steel. Martel back drops out of a piledriver attempt and starts firing up. Martel is pissed and starts punching at the bloody head of Zhukov. Martel hits a piledriver for a nearfall and then picks him up and spikes Boris into the cage on a running charge. Zhukov ends up ramming Martel into the steel almost in desperation. Boris hits a suplex and a standing clothesline for nearfalls. Boris misses a diving knee off the top and Martel wins. Finish did not look all that great and Boris did not have the offense to keep his heat section as dynamic as it should have been but this was still a good cage match and a really strong effort from Martel.

 

Agree that Shawn worked well with Owen and Jarrett, but I'm not sure I agree with Frankensteiner's point that Martel had better opponents. Shawn got to work Hall and Nash who were his buds and always worked harder for each other, Owen, Jarrett, Foley, Vader, Bret, Sid, DBS, Austin, Taker and others I'm probably forgetting. Martel got to work Jimmy Garvin, Zhukov, The Freebirds, Hansen, Jumbo, Bock, Rheingans, Flair, post-prime Race and others I'm forgetting. I really feel like it was a wash in a lot of ways, with Martel maybe having a slight edge at best.

 

 

My tastes tend toward the semi-epic, so I'm not nearly as impressed by sprints. I'm also not a huge fan of the touring heel champ shtick. I think it's pretty telling that when Hennig came to the WWF, he had few great matches, almost all of which were with Bret Hart. Even if I were to accept for the sake of argument that Martel and Hennig's title runs were better than Shawn's 1996 run, Shawn still has two decades' worth of quality output. Hell, there are 11 Rockers matches on the AWA set.

I think it's pretty telling that with the exception of Tito and Savage (maybe) every other star of the 80's who went to New York got worse and/or got better when they left. Hennig probably had the starkest and most insane decline considering how great he had been - but I still like Mr. Perfect era Hennig, better than post-comeback Shawn at least on a week-to-week basis. I actually think Shawn's initial heel work is sort of similar to Perfect's in that the character worked, but the in ring stuff left a ton to be desired as neither guy had anything but bumps to work with. The difference is that Shawn got the rocket strapped to his back and was put in a main event position (to be fair Perfect couldn't even draw against Hogan - then again I could see that Shawn not drawing against Hogan either and he sucked cock as a drawing ace himself so..). He delivered. I have no clue if Hennig would have or not, but I know when he was in a somewhat similar position in the AWA he delivered albeit wrestling a much more interesting and diverse way.

 

The last point we just have a massive disagreement on. I love The Rockers, but I'd have to be really generous to give Shawn more than 11 full years of quality work and of that I'd say no more than three or four that I think are truly great years.

[Jingus]

My memory's shit, but I swear I remember Michaels saying something in a promo with UT about having a classic match or something (for their first meeting).

It was mentioned, but it wasn't the primary focus of the buildup. They were focusing more on hijinx like when Shawn ambushed Taker from under a casket, or when Shawn did that goofy promo in the graveyard, that sort of thing.

 

On the Sid match(es if you like RR as much as some)

Actually, that Rumble match might have been the single greatest performance of Sid's life. Shawn was off that night, something was wrong with him. Don't know exactly what, but it was clear that he wasn't even trying half the shit that the ShowStoppa usually did on PPV. It was so obvious that he wasn't 100% that they actually made it part of the storyline, saying he had the flu or something. So we get the very strange visual of a rather lethargic Shawn Michaels being carried by a working-his-ass-off Sycho Sid, and it's just the weirdest thing ever.

[Matt D]

So baby in fact happened Sunday night, but I did finally watch the Shawn/Bulldog 95 MSG match today. And there were things I liked a lot and things I didn't.

 

Shawn came in with a massive energy and Bulldog fed on it, bumping big and making Shawn's offense look surprisingly great.

 

Sometimes it's too much. He does a bump at the beginning which is just ridiculous.

 

The story of the match was basically one of comebacks and cutoffs. I thought it was pretty well structured.

 

I didn't like the chinlocks though. What I learned by watching a lot of old WWF is that it takes two to chinlock well and while Bulldog shifted the second one a little Shawn basically just laid dead in both. A guy like Flair or Eadie can make a chinlock interesting and there are plenty of guys who can work from under on it and make it look engaging. It's okay to have a chinlock in a match. You don't need crazy submissions/grinding moves unless the match warrants them, but at least look like it's hurting or like you're trying to get out, or if you're doing it, that you're trying to hurt the guy. Maybe he'd have tried harder on them if it was a taped match.

 

Obviously I didn't love the triple kip up. I didn't completely hate it though. It was clever and self-aware. IT fed into the cut-off story of the match. If one kip up is believable, then three are sort of believable. And it didn't lead right to the finish

 

Cornette was great. I've seen very little of him with Bulldog/Owen.

 

Really, in my mind, the biggest difference between pre-and-post comeback Shawn is the match structure shifting to backwork post-comeback, and how the kip up operates. Yes, after he turned face again, he always had athletic superman comebacks, and it's partially problematic given his relative size (and how guys that size are traditionally portrayed in the WWF; context is king), but when they were smart and didn't automatically lead to forearm, bodyslam, elbow, superkick, like they later did, it's not quite as much of a concern. The back work structure is a lot more damning later on.

 

Here, the triple kip up was a little bit clever but I wish they had come up with something ELSE just as clever that didn't involve Shawn shrugging off two pretty killer clotheslines (sometimes his selling actually damns him in trying to tell a story,if that makes any sense). It was engaging and clever but made everything around it resonate less.

[ohtani's jacket]

Michaels is an awful actor and I don't like the manufactured classics, but it's not surprising that wrestling evolved that way. You can see the roots on the 90s yearbooks.

How so?

 

As the 90s wore on there was a real push towards show topping matches. In Japan in particular there was nowhere else the matches could go expect bigger and longer. And with things like the sitdown interviews with Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels there was an effort to present them as real people not just characters. The fact that they were real people connected to their work made their matches seem more like personal accomplishments. Michaels was supposed to the show stoppa and this great entertainer who had classic matches long before his comeback, and JR was beating us over the head with how emotional everything was long before the current era. The whole manufactured classics thing really isn't special to WWE, though. CMLL and the Japanese feds are just as bad. Wrestling was always going to evolve into something that tried to outdo what had come before in the 90s and the 90s was an incredibly bloated decade in terms of upping workrate.

[Gregor]

So baby in fact happened Sunday night, but I did finally watch the Shawn/Bulldog 95 MSG match today. And there were things I liked a lot and things I didn't.

 

Shawn came in with a massive energy and Bulldog fed on it, bumping big and making Shawn's offense look surprisingly great.

 

Sometimes it's too much. He does a bump at the beginning which is just ridiculous.

 

The story of the match was basically one of comebacks and cutoffs. I thought it was pretty well structured.

 

I didn't like the chinlocks though. What I learned by watching a lot of old WWF is that it takes two to chinlock well and while Bulldog shifted the second one a little Shawn basically just laid dead in both. A guy like Flair or Eadie can make a chinlock interesting and there are plenty of guys who can work from under on it and make it look engaging. It's okay to have a chinlock in a match. You don't need crazy submissions/grinding moves unless the match warrants them, but at least look like it's hurting or like you're trying to get out, or if you're doing it, that you're trying to hurt the guy. Maybe he'd have tried harder on them if it was a taped match.

 

Obviously I didn't love the triple kip up. I didn't completely hate it though. It was clever and self-aware. IT fed into the cut-off story of the match. If one kip up is believable, then three are sort of believable. And it didn't lead right to the finish

 

Cornette was great. I've seen very little of him with Bulldog/Owen.

 

Really, in my mind, the biggest difference between pre-and-post comeback Shawn is the match structure shifting to backwork post-comeback, and how the kip up operates. Yes, after he turned face again, he always had athletic superman comebacks, and it's partially problematic given his relative size (and how guys that size are traditionally portrayed in the WWF; context is king), but when they were smart and didn't automatically lead to forearm, bodyslam, elbow, superkick, like they later did, it's not quite as much of a concern. The back work structure is a lot more damning later on.

 

Here, the triple kip up was a little bit clever but I wish they had come up with something ELSE just as clever that didn't involve Shawn shrugging off two pretty killer clotheslines (sometimes his selling actually damns him in trying to tell a story,if that makes any sense). It was engaging and clever but made everything around it resonate less.

Hey, congratulations. I hope everything went well.

 

When I described Michaels as earning his comeback in this match, the three kip-ups were part of it, but it was more about the stuff that immediately preceded them.

 

He finally muscled his way out of the backbreaker hold, but it took him all of his strength to do that, which left him too exhausted to capitalize.

He was about to fight out of the chinlock, but Bulldog headbutted him to stop that.

He slipped out of a slam attempt and went for a backslide, but Bulldog overpowered him.

Finally Michaels scored with a clothesline, but again he couldn't capitalize. The same thing happened after he ducked a punch and hit a back suplex.

It was only after the kip-ups and the dropkick that he was really in control, so it felt like he'd had to fight really hard for it. I can see not liking his shrugging off the clotheslines, but it didn't bother me much because the tide was already in his favor, and the clotheslines weren't there for any reason other than to set up the kip-ups.

 

This isn't really something I'd consider great or anything, just a good showing between two guys in a matchup I don't normally like. Was it a match that you found ultimately hollow?

[NintendoLogic]

This will seem like trolling, but can I ask why? I'm curious because I have almost the exact opposite view. I actually think guys from the 90's may have had the best of both World's in the sense that they weren't expected to have high end tv main events every week (that started to change toward the end of the decade, but Shawn was gone by then), their ppv main events were generally better built to (though this was not a staple of Shawn's run in 96), and their weren't as many beat into the ground ppv rematches during that era. Guys in the 80's had varying demands on them regarding tv, but they were pretty much expected to put on a compelling match in every town they worked, every night and they didn't have Pat Patterson (or anyone else) putting together their main events, gimmicks out the ass, et.

That's one way of looking at it. On the other hand, working with the same guy night after night gives you the opportunity to work out the kinks and build a rapport with your opponent. Like, if you watch that one Flair/Steamboat house show match in Landover that Dave went crazy over at the time, it's basically a truncated version of the Clash 6 match. Shawn, on the other hand, only had one chance to get it right. Look at his schedule in 1996:

 

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/96.htm

 

Other than Vader, he hardly worked any house show matches at all against his PPV opponents. In fact, it kind of blows my mind to know that he didn't have a single match against Mankind prior to Mind Games. There's also the fact that the mid-90s WWF style was more physically demanding than the AWA style.

 

But setting that debate aside for a second, how successful was Shawn in delivering a dozen are so high-profile matches of high quality? From 94-97 you might have a dozen singles matches from Shawn that fit that mold on ppv. You certainly don't have a dozen in a year and I think even Shawn's biggest fans would be hard pressed to make the case that 94-97 was a run filled with depth of outstanding matches that is unique in the annals of wrestling. I do think he has some iconic/memorable matches from that period that tend to stand out a cast a broad shadow, but I don't see depth. I mean I guess if by high quality we mean "good or better" we could build a couple dozen matches from Shawn including tv from that era, but that seems like shooting low.

Shawn had 19 singles matches on PPV from 1994 to 1997 (20 if you include One Night Only). Of those, only a couple were outright bad (he was sick as a dog at the 97 Rumble and was working against Kama at the 95 KOTR), and a lot of them were very good, particularly Mind Games, which I consider a top 5 match in company history. In fact, you could argue that during that run, he had the best WWF tag title match, the best Intercontinental title match, and the best WWF title match in history. Any way you look at it, it's a hell of a run.

 

I don't really want to beat the Zhukov thing into the ground, but since Frankensteiner called bullshit, I will simply call "bullshit" back by posting my reviews of a couple of Martel v. Zhukov matches. I would also add that I think having interesting/good matches with Zhukov is at least as difficult as having a good match with Sid if for no other reason than because of the fact that at least Sid has charisma:

 

This didn't make the set:

 

Martel immediately opens up on Zhukov but quickly gets cut off. Zhukov ends up focusing in on Martel's arm. Zhukov is working a hard head gimmick so a lot of this arm work consists of headbutts to the arm which Martel does a good job selling like death. The arm selling from Martel really makes this and builds the tension very well. Great nearfall with Martel landing a perfect looking back cradle for a nearfall. The heat in this one is really great. Martel finally makes a comeback and hits some great punches. He's got Zukhov reeling but ends up eating knees on an out to inside slingshot splash. Zhukov's manager ends up tossing something into the ring and Zukhov gets decked with it and takes a big bump to the floor with Martel getting DQ'ed. For a match that is 80% arm work from a really uninteresting worker this was WAY better than it should have been.

 

This (the Cage Match) did but was one of the last ten matches on:

 

Martel does a cool rope running spot and dominates Zhukov early. Zhukov is back up to avoid Martel who comes forward with strikes and scores with a cradle for a nearfall. Zhukov gets some licks on and tries to force Martel's face into the steel but Rick manages to fight him off. Martel goes for another rolling cradle but Boris ducks down and Martel hits the steel. Martel takes bump after wild bump into the steel and blades. Zhukov starts biting at the cut and gets a good nearfall of a lariat that Martel bumps well for. Zhukov goes for another lariat but Martel ducks and he hits the steel. Martel back drops out of a piledriver attempt and starts firing up. Martel is pissed and starts punching at the bloody head of Zhukov. Martel hits a piledriver for a nearfall and then picks him up and spikes Boris into the cage on a running charge. Zhukov ends up ramming Martel into the steel almost in desperation. Boris hits a suplex and a standing clothesline for nearfalls. Boris misses a diving knee off the top and Martel wins. Finish did not look all that great and Boris did not have the offense to keep his heat section as dynamic as it should have been but this was still a good cage match and a really strong effort from Martel.

That writeup of the cage match lines up with how I saw it, and I'll take your word for it on the other match. But again, I think it shows how much the gimmick helps. When all else fails, just throw the other guy into the cage. By contrast, check out this match on Raw between Shawn and Hunter Hearst Helmsley:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHt3fkErpKQ

 

It's not a MOTYC or a lost classic or anything like that, but it is a really good TV match. If a match like that happened on Raw today, everyone at DVDVR would be raving about it.

 

Agree that Shawn worked well with Owen and Jarrett, but I'm not sure I agree with Frankensteiner's point that Martel had better opponents. Shawn got to work Hall and Nash who were his buds and always worked harder for each other, Owen, Jarrett, Foley, Vader, Bret, Sid, DBS, Austin, Taker and others I'm probably forgetting. Martel got to work Jimmy Garvin, Zhukov, The Freebirds, Hansen, Jumbo, Bock, Rheingans, Flair, post-prime Race and others I'm forgetting. I really feel like it was a wash in a lot of ways, with Martel maybe having a slight edge at best.

 

Jumbo/Flair/Hansen and some good hands versus Bret/Austin/Vader and some good hands? I'll give that one to Martel. And Shawn's matches with Bret and Austin were hampered by the two hating each other with the former and his back being completely fucked with the latter.

 

I think it's pretty telling that with the exception of Tito and Savage (maybe) every other star of the 80's who went to New York got worse and/or got better when they left. Hennig probably had the starkest and most insane decline considering how great he had been - but I still like Mr. Perfect era Hennig, better than post-comeback Shawn at least on a week-to-week basis. I actually think Shawn's initial heel work is sort of similar to Perfect's in that the character worked, but the in ring stuff left a ton to be desired as neither guy had anything but bumps to work with. The difference is that Shawn got the rocket strapped to his back and was put in a main event position (to be fair Perfect couldn't even draw against Hogan - then again I could see that Shawn not drawing against Hogan either and he sucked cock as a drawing ace himself so..). He delivered. I have no clue if Hennig would have or not, but I know when he was in a somewhat similar position in the AWA he delivered albeit wrestling a much more interesting and diverse way.

80s WWF wasn't exactly workrate central, but truly elite guys like Savage, Steamboat, and Bret were still able to have plenty of quality matches in that environment. That Hennig didn't do the same is pretty alarming. I will grant that his back was fucked for much of his run.

 

The last point we just have a massive disagreement on. I love The Rockers, but I'd have to be really generous to give Shawn more than 11 full years of quality work and of that I'd say no more than three or four that I think are truly great years.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that he had an unbroken two-decade streak of quality, just that his portfolio of good matches encompasses that whole period. And I think that having 11 years of quality work with three or four being truly great is enough to count you among the very best of all time.

[Exposer]

Tito Santana has three or four great years and a lot of quality stuff over a long period of time. Would you consider him all-time material? Don't get me wrong I love Tito and think he's better than Shawn but I wouldn't consider him all time material.

[Dylan Waco]

That's one way of looking at it. On the other hand, working with the same guy night after night gives you the opportunity to work out the kinks and build a rapport with your opponent. Like, if you watch that one Flair/Steamboat house show match in Landover that Dave went crazy over at the time, it's basically a truncated version of the Clash 6 match. Shawn, on the other hand, only had one chance to get it right. Look at his schedule in 1996:

 

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/96.htm

 

Other than Vader, he hardly worked any house show matches at all against his PPV opponents. In fact, it kind of blows my mind to know that he didn't have a single match against Mankind prior to Mind Games. There's also the fact that the mid-90s WWF style was more physically demanding than the AWA style.

That's a reasonable point, though I don't think mid-late 80's AWA is the best example of a territory where guys were running lengthy programs v. opponents thus enabling them to cruise control to quality matches. Certainly there was more of that than Shawn got, but less than one would see out of other major promotions. I'm also not sure I agree that WWF was a more demanding style, though Shawn was obviously a wrestler who pushed himself to go beyond your typical stuff from that era. Of course Shawn also took huge chunks of time off during his peak run, to the point where I'm not sure he was even active for half of the 94-97 window we are discussing.

 

Shawn had 19 singles matches on PPV from 1994 to 1997 (20 if you include One Night Only). Of those, only a couple were outright bad (he was sick as a dog at the 97 Rumble and was working against Kama at the 95 KOTR), and a lot of them were very good, particularly Mind Games, which I consider a top 5 match in company history. In fact, you could argue that during that run, he had the best WWF tag title match, the best Intercontinental title match, and the best WWF title match in history. Any way you look at it, it's a hell of a run.

It's a good run. How good is really what the debate is about as you noted before. I haven't watched the Shawn matches in a few years, but if we were putting together a 90's WWF Set from ppv I am positive both the Ladder Matches, HITC I (though I don't care for it myself), MindGames, GFBE, The Iron Man, v. Jarrett and probably even SS 97 would make the cut without much debate. That's eight matches and that is nothing to sneeze at. Beyond that you'd have at least the Action Zone tag from tv, but offhand I'm struggling to think of a tenth "home run" match that would be a definite pick. That's not really a knock on Shawn and there are a lot of others I could see getting strong consideration or that I would back myself (stuff like the Owen ppv match from 96 which I like more than most or the aforementioned Sid match which I may like less than others).

 

What I would say is that I don't think it is a uniquely transcendent run and that is where I think the real disagreement is.

 

I'm a pretty big fan of 91-94 Dustin Rhodes and would rate that run above Shawn's from 94-97. I'm not particularly interested in hashing that out right this second other than to say that as much as I like that run from Dustin, I don't know that I would consider it an out of this World, beyond belief, tremendous/on another level run. There are lots of other guys with similar length runs where I think you could find lots of good stuff, the difference is they weren't promoted as heavily as Shawn on ppv, they weren't pimped as hard as the sheets pimped Shawn, et.

 

 

Jumbo/Flair/Hansen and some good hands versus Bret/Austin/Vader and some good hands? I'll give that one to Martel. And Shawn's matches with Bret and Austin were hampered by the two hating each other with the former and his back being completely fucked with the latter.

Shawn being a little shit who can't get along with others is not something I think should be used as an excuse in a discussion like this. On paper Martel had better opponents, probably even in practice. But I don't think it was by a wide margin and Martel didn't have Patterson booking, props out the ass, et. I really consider it a wash in that category.

 

80s WWF wasn't exactly workrate central, but truly elite guys like Savage, Steamboat, and Bret were still able to have plenty of quality matches in that environment. That Hennig didn't do the same is pretty alarming. I will grant that his back was fucked for much of his run.

I think that's a really simplistic way of looking at it and I was as big a Hennig critic as you would find on the net until I started watching Portland/AWA. The expectations Vince had for heel work had a lot to do with how Hennig degenerated as a worker in my view, but that might be a separate topic in and of itself. I think the Mr. Perfect era comp to the initial Shawn heel run is pretty strong.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that he had an unbroken two-decade streak of quality, just that his portfolio of good matches encompasses that whole period. And I think that having 11 years of quality work with three or four being truly great is enough to count you among the very best of all time.

Lots of guys can say they have two decade portfolio's to some degree or another. For example Dustin Rhodes does. But there's some pretty weak shit in there also, lots of down time, et. I feel the same general way about Shawn, though I prefer Dustin's highs and think he was far more versatile.

 

Setting aside that the eleven year number was me giving Shawn the benefit of the doubt and ignoring the down time he had with injuries, losing his smile, et. eleven years of quality work really isn't shooting THAT high in wrestling. It's nothing to laugh at. But it's not an insane standard. Neither is 3 or four truly great years.

[ohtani's jacket]

Shawn is pretty clearly above Tito in the pecking order. Tito's career is a disappointment when it comes to matches.

[Ricky Jackson]

In fact, it kind of blows my mind to know that he didn't have a single match against Mankind prior to Mind Games.

That's actually as good an argument for Shawn being a great worker as any (Foley too). Two guys getting together for the first time and creating beautiful music. Also, and I'm probably forgetting something obvious, but did they ever wrestle each other again?

[Jingus]

Also, and I'm probably forgetting something obvious, but did they ever wrestle each other again?

They had a match on Raw the next year, and it was fairly short and nothing special.

[Victator]

That Raw match was really good and they both did a good job switching roles. It was Shawn's first match as a heel after Summerslam 97.

 

A week later I think they did a HHH/Shawn vs Taker and Mankind match. Though I do not remember much of it.