Shawn Michaels

[Matt D]

My main counterpoint to your argument of "Why don't they sell the stomach the whole match?" is that one (the active limbwork that is the focal point for an entire portion of the match) is part of the broader story being told (it's architectural) and the other is just a momentary blip. This is especially meaningful, for example, when it comes to post-comeback Michaels who has a lot of matches built around him selling his reconstructed back only to kip up at the end, perfectly fine. I honestly wish they had gone further into the religion and implied that whenever he did that he had some holy power coursing through him or something.

 

One's part of the story the wrestlers are telling and a part that's supposed to hold things up. The other is just "wrestling has to be real" which isn't what I'm saying. I want it to be consistent and I want to feel like moves matter. If you use an element in your storytelling, one that has a real narrative thrust, you shouldn't just ignore it a moment later. I don't think novels do that. They might tie it off to get to the next plot point or what not, but it usually has both weight to what happens immediately thereafter and closure, and that's both different and appreciated. It's more narrative consistency than wrestling logic, if that makes sense.

 

Alternatively, if it just didn't work, a bad tactical choice, then I'd like to see that played out in the match in some meaningful way. I'd like to see frustration from the heel that the tactic didn't work, or you know, the babyface acknowledging it somehow. I'm not saying you have to sell it like death. You don't have to pop your arm back in like Cesaro did in his match vs Zayn. Just shake it off in some way that isn't just rushing to hit your shit.

 

Now, then, all of this is a personal thing for me. Is it dogmatic? On some level, but I think there's a theoretical underpinning to it. Does it ruin a match for me? Not usually but it does detract and when someone makes the effort, it's appreciated. It's not just about the comeback. It also makes the actual heat section mean more because it was shown to have consequence. It's like the old mindset: the better you make your opponent look, the more it means when you beat him. The more you make limbwork have meaning even after the fact, the more it matters that you're fighting through it and I think the more it makes your offense ultimately mean.

[BillThompson]

If that match was all Jarrett, why did he never have any other matches that were anywhere near as good?

 

Because Jarrett was never more than a capable wrestler. He had his moments, and I'd say he did have a handful of matches that were close to or on the same level as the Shawn match. However, at the end of the day Jarrett was a capable wrestler but not a great wrestler. I rate Shawn about the same, but Shawn had more physical tools, worked with better people, and had the ability to crank out great matches on a more consistent basis than someone like Jarrett.

[NintendoLogic]

Of course everything doesn't have to lead to the finish. But everything should lead to something. No one goes into a James Bond movie expecting him to be finished off by the deathtrap he'll inevitably be caught in, but we still expect him to escape using his wits or some cool gadget and not just get up and walk out.

[ohtani's jacket]

I watched that IYH match against Jarrett and it seems wildly inaccurate to say that Jarrett carried Michaels. At no point did Jarrett push Michaels outside his comfort zone and by no means was he the one making it interesting (abdominal stretches and sleeper holds are hardly my idea of carrying someone unless it's Erik Watts.) It was a Michaels match through and through. The best part of the bout was the bump he took to the floor. It wasn't my kind of match and Michaels can't wrestle the way I like, but you'd think he was incompetent the way this thread is going. The match felt like it could have done with a longer FIP segment on Michaels or some more interesting work from Jarrett on top, the comeback was standard WWF no-selling instead of a beautifully executed transition, and the Roadie crap was a distraction, but a carry? The entire thing seemed like a Michaels bout from the rope exchanges to the pinball style bumps to both guys being knocked down and the ref starting the count.

[Dylan Waco]

I was thinking about the Owen, Bulldog, Shawn stuff earlier and while I agree that Bulldog is clearly a bridge too far, I'm not so sure about Owen. I guess really it depends on the way you are thinking about it. If you are framing it as most truly great, "big time" matches Shawn has the edge largely because of booking. But if you are talking about consistency of performance, volume of good matches, week-to-week delivery, I actually don't think it's impossible to envision Owen over Shawn even during the years that are often identified as Shawn's peak (94-97). Don't get me wrong. I think the gut reaction there is to go with Shawn, but I'm not sure it holds up when I really start thinking about the details of each guys run during the period. Of course I don't think Shawn was ever the best worker in the States, let alone the world, so what do I know?

[Jimmy Redman]

My main counterpoint to your argument of "Why don't they sell the stomach the whole match?" is that one (the active limbwork that is the focal point for an entire portion of the match) is part of the broader story being told (it's architectural) and the other is just a momentary blip. This is especially meaningful, for example, when it comes to post-comeback Michaels who has a lot of matches built around him selling his reconstructed back only to kip up at the end, perfectly fine. I honestly wish they had gone further into the religion and implied that whenever he did that he had some holy power coursing through him or something.

 

One's part of the story the wrestlers are telling and a part that's supposed to hold things up. The other is just "wrestling has to be real" which isn't what I'm saying. I want it to be consistent and I want to feel like moves matter. If you use an element in your storytelling, one that has a real narrative thrust, you shouldn't just ignore it a moment later. I don't think novels do that. They might tie it off to get to the next plot point or what not, but it usually has both weight to what happens immediately thereafter and closure, and that's both different and appreciated. It's more narrative consistency than wrestling logic, if that makes sense.

 

I think the point I'm trying to make is that what the "narrative" of a match turns out to be isn't necessarily what you expect it to be at a certain point during the match. Or, for that matter, what you think it should be based on what has come so far.

 

Things can change, and both a story and an athletic contest can turn on a dime. That's as true of wrestling matches as it is of novels and movies and plays and songs and whatever other storytelling medium there is. You can absolutely start reading a novel and think it's going to be about X, but then as it goes on there's a twist, or a turn, or a change in tone and by the end it's far more about Y instead. That isn't an inherent failure of storytelling, unless the execution of said change is bad enough to ruin the book. But again, I'm not excusing bad execution. I'm saying that stories don't always go from A to B to C to D with logic and meaning attached to each move in equal measure. Not even great stories. They jump around, they stutter, they repeat "spots" and themes, they go in a completely different direction than you'd expect, they drag out, they stop abruptly, etc. and etc. And this is especially true of wrestling matches when you add in the intangible of it also involving two guys trying to tell some kind of story whilst also trying to perform athletic feats and trying to get the crowds surrounding them to vocally react. You're not going to get neatly-wrapped, unfailingly logical, perfectly progressing stories as matches. At least, hardly ever. And there's nothing wrong with that, because storytelling isn't meant to be perfect. There isn't always a "why" that you can point to for every minute of a match. Sometimes something completely illogical is the best choice, sometimes that is what works best.

 

Maybe that's not what you like to think or want to get out of wrestling, judging from your modus operandi, and I understand that and respect that. We can agree to disagree. But this is one of those times where, from my point of view, your ultra-logical approach leaves one in danger of missing the forest.

 

On the point of limb work specifically, my main point is, again, that not selling a limb while on offense or later in a match is not inherently a bad choice. It could be if it's the wrong choice for a particular match, or if it's executed badly, but that you don't have to sell everything all the time.

 

To flip around the idea of things being "meaningful", how "meaningful" is it if limbwork is super effective every time? How special is crippling a guy with your limbwork when your limbwork can basically cripple anyone at will? Crippling limbwork becomes as routine as going through your moveset. I think there's something to be said for extended death selling being more "meaningful" if you don't sell like that every single time your leg gets attacked by someone. That's Dolph Ziggler's entire problem. He flops around and sells like death in every match, whether he's facing Big Show or Rey, whether he's above the guy he's facing or beneath. And it renders his big bumps meaningless, because he bumps like that for everyone, so when he does face a big guy and SHOULD be bumping around, what should be a different kind of match with a big-little dynamic is just every Dolph match ever. If every match with limbwork resulted in the victim selling it like death, every match with limbwork in it would look the same.

 

I've been talking in the abstract this entire time, but to bring it back to the original point - Shawn/Razor II - I watched the match again so I can now tie it into my first point, and I do think it is a good example of my point. Sometimes limb work just doesn't cripple a guy.

 

I personally don't think Shawn just "no-sold" the leg work. He was worked over for a while, and then the big turning point was Razor climbing the ladder and Shawn STRUGGLING to climb up the ropes to hit a springboard somethingorother to knock him off. Then he collapsed and sold. Then Razor picked him up for an attempted Razor's Edge. Shawn floated through it and shoved Razor into the ladder. Then he collapsed and sold. These were desperation moves. Then he gradually started to become more active but he was limping around for minutes after his initial hope spot. When he and Razor climbed the same ladder Shawn was noticeably slower. All of this is selling. None of this involves Shawn hopping around on one leg or collapsing under the weight of his leg or whatever else he's supposed to be doing. But it all involves Shawn continuing to sell after he went back on offense, until he reached a point where he had recovered sufficiently enough to do more stuff and win the match. He sold all through the finish, but it was more of an overall, exhausted selling of going through a gruelling ladder match, not selling that his leg was broken. His leg clearly wasn't broken though, because if it was, he'd be selling it, you know? But in terms of there being a transition from limb work to not limb work, there WAS a transition. It wasn't arbitrary or popping up. So I really can't agree with the idea that just because he wasn't selling his leg like death through the finish, that he blew off perfectly good leg work or ruined the story of the match. They may have ruined the story that YOU wanted them to tell, but not the story that was actually playing out in reality.

 

Having said that, if a match disappoints you because they end the "story" of it in a way that displeases you, I think that's a perfectly valid reason for not liking a match.

[W2BTD]

 

My main counterpoint to your argument of "Why don't they sell the stomach the whole match?" is that one (the active limbwork that is the focal point for an entire portion of the match) is part of the broader story being told (it's architectural) and the other is just a momentary blip. This is especially meaningful, for example, when it comes to post-comeback Michaels who has a lot of matches built around him selling his reconstructed back only to kip up at the end, perfectly fine. I honestly wish they had gone further into the religion and implied that whenever he did that he had some holy power coursing through him or something.

 

One's part of the story the wrestlers are telling and a part that's supposed to hold things up. The other is just "wrestling has to be real" which isn't what I'm saying. I want it to be consistent and I want to feel like moves matter. If you use an element in your storytelling, one that has a real narrative thrust, you shouldn't just ignore it a moment later. I don't think novels do that. They might tie it off to get to the next plot point or what not, but it usually has both weight to what happens immediately thereafter and closure, and that's both different and appreciated. It's more narrative consistency than wrestling logic, if that makes sense.

 

I think the point I'm trying to make is that what the "narrative" of a match turns out to be isn't necessarily what you expect it to be at a certain point during the match. Or, for that matter, what you think it should be based on what has come so far.

 

Things can change, and both a story and an athletic contest can turn on a dime. That's as true of wrestling matches as it is of novels and movies and plays and songs and whatever other storytelling medium there is. You can absolutely start reading a novel and think it's going to be about X, but then as it goes on there's a twist, or a turn, or a change in tone and by the end it's far more about Y instead. That isn't an inherent failure of storytelling, unless the execution of said change is bad enough to ruin the book. But again, I'm not excusing bad execution. I'm saying that stories don't always go from A to B to C to D with logic and meaning attached to each move in equal measure. Not even great stories. They jump around, they stutter, they repeat "spots" and themes, they go in a completely different direction than you'd expect, they drag out, they stop abruptly, etc. and etc. And this is especially true of wrestling matches when you add in the intangible of it also involving two guys trying to tell some kind of story whilst also trying to perform athletic feats and trying to get the crowds surrounding them to vocally react. You're not going to get neatly-wrapped, unfailingly logical, perfectly progressing stories as matches. At least, hardly ever. And there's nothing wrong with that, because storytelling isn't meant to be perfect. There isn't always a "why" that you can point to for every minute of a match. Sometimes something completely illogical is the best choice, sometimes that is what works best.

 

Maybe that's not what you like to think or want to get out of wrestling, judging from your modus operandi, and I understand that and respect that. We can agree to disagree. But this is one of those times where, from my point of view, your ultra-logical approach leaves one in danger of missing the forest.

 

On the point of limb work specifically, my main point is, again, that not selling a limb while on offense or later in a match is not inherently a bad choice. It could be if it's the wrong choice for a particular match, or if it's executed badly, but that you don't have to sell everything all the time.

 

To flip around the idea of things being "meaningful", how "meaningful" is it if limbwork is super effective every time? How special is crippling a guy with your limbwork when your limbwork can basically cripple anyone at will? Crippling limbwork becomes as routine as going through your moveset. I think there's something to be said for extended death selling being more "meaningful" if you don't sell like that every single time your leg gets attacked by someone. That's Dolph Ziggler's entire problem. He flops around and sells like death in every match, whether he's facing Big Show or Rey, whether he's above the guy he's facing or beneath. And it renders his big bumps meaningless, because he bumps like that for everyone, so when he does face a big guy and SHOULD be bumping around, what should be a different kind of match with a big-little dynamic is just every Dolph match ever. If every match with limbwork resulted in the victim selling it like death, every match with limbwork in it would look the same.

 

I've been talking in the abstract this entire time, but to bring it back to the original point - Shawn/Razor II - I watched the match again so I can now tie it into my first point, and I do think it is a good example of my point. Sometimes limb work just doesn't cripple a guy.

 

I personally don't think Shawn just "no-sold" the leg work. He was worked over for a while, and then the big turning point was Razor climbing the ladder and Shawn STRUGGLING to climb up the ropes to hit a springboard somethingorother to knock him off. Then he collapsed and sold. Then Razor picked him up for an attempted Razor's Edge. Shawn floated through it and shoved Razor into the ladder. Then he collapsed and sold. These were desperation moves. Then he gradually started to become more active but he was limping around for minutes after his initial hope spot. When he and Razor climbed the same ladder Shawn was noticeably slower. All of this is selling. None of this involves Shawn hopping around on one leg or collapsing under the weight of his leg or whatever else he's supposed to be doing. But it all involves Shawn continuing to sell after he went back on offense, until he reached a point where he had recovered sufficiently enough to do more stuff and win the match. He sold all through the finish, but it was more of an overall, exhausted selling of going through a gruelling ladder match, not selling that his leg was broken. His leg clearly wasn't broken though, because if it was, he'd be selling it, you know? But in terms of there being a transition from limb work to not limb work, there WAS a transition. It wasn't arbitrary or popping up. So I really can't agree with the idea that just because he wasn't selling his leg like death through the finish, that he blew off perfectly good leg work or ruined the story of the match. They may have ruined the story that YOU wanted them to tell, but not the story that was actually playing out in reality.

 

Having said that, if a match disappoints you because they end the "story" of it in a way that displeases you, I think that's a perfectly valid reason for not liking a match.

 

 

This is a great post. I agree with nearly every word.

 

At no point during Shawn/Razor II did I think Shawn was blowing off the leg work to "fly around" or "get his shit in". In fact, I think the opposite. I think Shawn/Razor II is a great example of focused selling, and I think Jimmy Redmond did a great job pointing out spots & examples. And keep in mind that i'm someone who probably wouldn't have cared all that much if Shawn had blown off the leg a little.

 

The bottom line is Shawn never made me feel like the moves didn't matter. Yes, he climbed. Yes, he leaped off of the ladder. So what? As Jimmy pointed out, he was selling "pain" each time he did these things.

 

I think sometimes we use selling as a red herring to bash a match or a wrestler we don't like, sort of as an expectation bias. If it's a wrestler with a reputation for not selling or a wrestler we don't like, we are subconsciously (or consciously in some cases) waiting for examples of bad selling to jump all over and expose. If people are watching Davey or Elgin, or Bill is watching Michaels, they are going to be far more hyper critical of things like selling because they are going into the match biased and looking for it based on expectation. That may not be totally unfair, but at the same time it is sort of unfair. I've watched pimped lucha matches with lucha darlings that feature egregiously bad selling that would get a guy like Davey Richards mocked and gif'd, but the expectation bias isn't there, so it gets glossed over. We are all guilty of glossing over things when we like a guy, and hyper focusing on things when we don't. That's human nature, I think.

 

I think the point i'm trying to make is this. If you think Shawn/Razor II is an example of blowing off limb work, that's fine. But that also means you have incredibly high standards of selling limbs, and I sure hope you are being consistent across the board with the same level of hyper focused expectations. If your bar is truly set that high, fine. But man, I would think you would find it very hard to enjoy a great deal of matches with standards set that high.

[Tim Cooke]

"That may not be totally unfair, but at the same time it is sort of unfair. I've watched pimped lucha matches with lucha darlings that feature egregiously bad selling that would get a guy like Davey Richards mocked and gif'd, but the expectation bias isn't there, so it gets glossed over."

 

Selling is not universal. All Japan Women sell differently from modern CMLL wrestlers (who differ from their elders in the 80's). Japanese Shoot Style has a different style of selling. All I ask for in regards to selling is some type of consistency within the style/promotion.

 

I'm curious to know what pimped lucha matches contain Davey Richards level selling/moves/psychology?

[BillThompson]

I like to think I'm able to differentiate my selling. Heck, as much as I dislike Shawn I give him credit for being in a fair number of great matches. I don't actively root against him either, anytime I watch one of his matches I want it to be good and I hope that it will be. In the case of Shawn/Razor II I remember watching the first ten minutes and thinking, "Man, this is great stuff, totally smokes their first ladder match." Then Shawn does completely forget about the immense amount of leg work Razor had done and starts flying around as if his leg had never been touched. I can't justify ignoring 5+ minutes of concentrated and vicious leg work just because Shawn wanted to get his shit in. That's the main difference between myself and most people when it comes to that match, what you guys see as an exciting and sensical finishing run I see as Shawn saying fuck you to Razor and all the work he had done just so he could get his "exciting" offense in and pop the crowd.

[JerryvonKramer]

Question: do people prefer Shawn as a face or as a heel? And why?

[Jimmy Redman]

"Flying around" is a gross exaggeration, unless you somehow don't mean that literally. He didn't start flying around. He struggled to come back, and what he did do was climb the ropes or the ladder (slowly, with difficulty) and jump off with something. He kind of ran for the spot where he dived through the ropes with the ladder, but apart from that he literally didn't even run the ropes. Didn't kip up. Didn't hit the ropes for flying forearms. Didn't go on any sequence of moves or extended offense. Not sure where "flying around" comes into it.

 

He was up and doing stuff, yes. But not flying around. But I'm probably just being semantic here.

[BillThompson]

Question: do people prefer Shawn as a face or as a heel? And why?

 

 

As a face tag wrestler, that suits him very well.

[WingedEagle]

Just wanted to add that I loved Jimmy's post as it expressed a major point I haven't effectively been able to make on my own -- selling is great, but it often feels like a crutch that can be used to knock a wrestler or match when someone mounts a comeback, pulls out a win or delivers any sustained offense because in doing so they to some extent had to stop completely selling whatever work was previously done. You carry that too far and you've got an all time squash performance.

[Matt D]

I think the point I'm trying to make is that what the "narrative" of a match turns out to be isn't necessarily what you expect it to be at a certain point during the match. Or, for that matter, what you think it should be based on what has come so far.

 

Things can change, and both a story and an athletic contest can turn on a dime. That's as true of wrestling matches as it is of novels and movies and plays and songs and whatever other storytelling medium there is. You can absolutely start reading a novel and think it's going to be about X, but then as it goes on there's a twist, or a turn, or a change in tone and by the end it's far more about Y instead. That isn't an inherent failure of storytelling, unless the execution of said change is bad enough to ruin the book. But again, I'm not excusing bad execution. I'm saying that stories don't always go from A to B to C to D with logic and meaning attached to each move in equal measure. Not even great stories. They jump around, they stutter, they repeat "spots" and themes, they go in a completely different direction than you'd expect, they drag out, they stop abruptly, etc. and etc. And this is especially true of wrestling matches when you add in the intangible of it also involving two guys trying to tell some kind of story whilst also trying to perform athletic feats and trying to get the crowds surrounding them to vocally react. You're not going to get neatly-wrapped, unfailingly logical, perfectly progressing stories as matches. At least, hardly ever. And there's nothing wrong with that, because storytelling isn't meant to be perfect. There isn't always a "why" that you can point to for every minute of a match. Sometimes something completely illogical is the best choice, sometimes that is what works best.

 

Maybe that's not what you like to think or want to get out of wrestling, judging from your modus operandi, and I understand that and respect that. We can agree to disagree. But this is one of those times where, from my point of view, your ultra-logical approach leaves one in danger of missing the forest.

 

On the point of limb work specifically, my main point is, again, that not selling a limb while on offense or later in a match is not inherently a bad choice. It could be if it's the wrong choice for a particular match, or if it's executed badly, but that you don't have to sell everything all the time.

 

To flip around the idea of things being "meaningful", how "meaningful" is it if limbwork is super effective every time? How special is crippling a guy with your limbwork when your limbwork can basically cripple anyone at will? Crippling limbwork becomes as routine as going through your moveset. I think there's something to be said for extended death selling being more "meaningful" if you don't sell like that every single time your leg gets attacked by someone. That's Dolph Ziggler's entire problem. He flops around and sells like death in every match, whether he's facing Big Show or Rey, whether he's above the guy he's facing or beneath. And it renders his big bumps meaningless, because he bumps like that for everyone, so when he does face a big guy and SHOULD be bumping around, what should be a different kind of match with a big-little dynamic is just every Dolph match ever. If every match with limbwork resulted in the victim selling it like death, every match with limbwork in it would look the same.

 

I've been talking in the abstract this entire time, but to bring it back to the original point - Shawn/Razor II - I watched the match again so I can now tie it into my first point, and I do think it is a good example of my point. Sometimes limb work just doesn't cripple a guy.

 

I personally don't think Shawn just "no-sold" the leg work. He was worked over for a while, and then the big turning point was Razor climbing the ladder and Shawn STRUGGLING to climb up the ropes to hit a springboard somethingorother to knock him off. Then he collapsed and sold. Then Razor picked him up for an attempted Razor's Edge. Shawn floated through it and shoved Razor into the ladder. Then he collapsed and sold. These were desperation moves. Then he gradually started to become more active but he was limping around for minutes after his initial hope spot. When he and Razor climbed the same ladder Shawn was noticeably slower. All of this is selling. None of this involves Shawn hopping around on one leg or collapsing under the weight of his leg or whatever else he's supposed to be doing. But it all involves Shawn continuing to sell after he went back on offense, until he reached a point where he had recovered sufficiently enough to do more stuff and win the match. He sold all through the finish, but it was more of an overall, exhausted selling of going through a gruelling ladder match, not selling that his leg was broken. His leg clearly wasn't broken though, because if it was, he'd be selling it, you know? But in terms of there being a transition from limb work to not limb work, there WAS a transition. It wasn't arbitrary or popping up. So I really can't agree with the idea that just because he wasn't selling his leg like death through the finish, that he blew off perfectly good leg work or ruined the story of the match. They may have ruined the story that YOU wanted them to tell, but not the story that was actually playing out in reality.

 

Having said that, if a match disappoints you because they end the "story" of it in a way that displeases you, I think that's a perfectly valid reason for not liking a match.

 

This deserves a lot of words.

 

First, I need to reiterate I haven't seen the SS match in a long time. I tend to bring things towards general wrestling theory a lot of time, I'm sure to everyone's dismay. My apologies on that. I will rewatch the Summerslam match sometime soon.

 

Second, I understand what you're saying, certainly. I am going to reiterate as well that a lot of the discussion we have is not necessarily about good or bad but about good or great or greatest, and in that regard, attention to detail and consistency in selling is more important. In another discussion, I might not be so quick to raise this (or maybe I would be. I think my actions might belie my intentions here).

 

Third (and again a bit of a reiteration but I think it does clarify), I'm very much focused on selling after a medium-to-long amount of focus on one body part, because that makes the element more architectural. It's a support that the overlying narrative of the match sits upon. It's a useful and relatively easy tool. It's easier to figure out a few minutes of legwork than to come up with some other compelling string of offense that's not so focused. You haven't really convinced me that meaning of the limbwork segment, which for many matches, is the entirety of the heat, isn't lessened by dropping the selling in the comeback. This brings in the meaningfulness. I think the need to sell should pretty much be relative the amount of limbwork. Proportional, if not exactly, then in spirit. If it's presented more as containment, then it's not as necessary though even then it helps to do a few little touches. I'm not saying that a little bit of limbwork should be sold like death, just that if it's a structural part of the match then that should be acknowledged or else there is disruption. It's not one size fits all. There's not just one way to do it.

 

Fourth, while a story might jump around or sputter, I think most of the worst stories in other mediums have some layer of basic narrative coherency where they wouldn't just drop something so thoroughly, and if they did, they'd be criticized for it. If a writer spends time building up one element, that element usually reverberates throughout the rest of the book, even as just something that changed the character or his perspective somehow. Usually a red herring leads to some other revelation. It's not just shrugged off. Usually in real sports, you can extrapolate back to create a narrative from what happened. The danger and opportunity in wrestling is that the wrestlers can craft that story but if they leave a part out or do something illogical, there can be a gap, which stretches the ability to tie things together.

 

Five, logic and attention to detail isn't everything, of course, but for me it's a starting point. I don't often let go. I watch wrestling with my head more so than my heart. I can't help that.

 

Six, as for the idea that sometimes dropping the selling is the right choice. I don't entirely disagree. The issue is the word "right." For instance, the example of Bryan doing it in order to look more formidable to a certain portion of the audience in his comebacks, or Michaels looking like more of a star/indestructible. I'm not sure if that's the "right" choice, though, or maybe the choice that the wrestler thinks is best, which comes with pros and cons. Usually, though, it doesn't benefit the match in a bubble. Some of this is presentation too and some of it has to be more than just rote. If a wrestler has that adrenaline boost that would allow for it or is that overcome with rage, then that's an execution issue. It has to be shown in the performance itself. In that case, it's not dropping the selling so much as it's explaining it away. There needs to be a conscious effort for that, though. I'll have to rewatch the Summerslam match to see if that happens there.

 

Seven: I'm not a "Great Match" person. I don't give star ratings. I'd much rather see a wrestler in a number of situations and I'd much rather see patterns. I do think it's quite possible that I find these patterns and then I overlay them back on matches. If someone drops selling over a number of matches in the same way, then I'll hold that against them in each match instead of looking at the match as its own entity. If they don't, I'll look at it differently. Bryan's ROH work makes me look at his WWE work differently than if I hadn't seen it. I bring the totality of my knowledge of Shawn's work into every match I watch or rewatch with him. Same with Buddy Rose or Nick Bockwinkel or Jerry Lawler. It helps some wrestlers and hurts others. That's just how I process this stuff. It's all part of a greater understanding. Do I keep the same standards across each wrestler, even in wildly different situations? I don't know. On the broadest sense, I think I do.

 

Eight: Do I miss the forest for the trees then? Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But it's not like I don't get a ton of enjoyment out of wrestling. I don't watch wrestling to hate it. I think on the positive/negative scale, I'm pretty much in the middle around here. I find new things to enjoy every day though even through the lens of how I look at things. I'd be a lot more worried about my approach if I didn't. In some ways, that alone is a validation of it for me. I'm also glad I'm not the only voice here. I'm an outlier in that regard, though there are people not so far from me on the spectrum.

[Loss]

Question: do people prefer Shawn as a face or as a heel? And why?

 

I think Shawn married work and character in a way by 1997 - just as he was breaking down - that he had become an incredible heel and a great worker. Consistent is a hard word to use about a guy who was so gone he couldn't even work TV or house shows very often, but when he needed to rise to the occasion, he generally did. It's a shame we didn't get 2-3 years out of it. The potential was certainly there. So that's my answer. I don't think he had found himself yet as a heel from 1992-1995 though.

[Childs]

Shawn's 1997 heel run is also by far my favorite. He was a schmarmy dickhead by nature and he finally ran with it in a way that felt organic. It was among the great portrayals of ego run amok I've seen in wrestling, perhaps because it was hardly a "portrayal" at all. I keep going back to his performance against Davey in England, where he was such a massive, heat-generating prick. Loss is right; his physical ailments and addiction caught up to him enough that he never had the run he should've with that character. He only produced a handful of noteworthy matches in that time. But for a few months, he was a great performer, totally in his element.

 

Here's my review of the Davey match from the '97 threads: I don't know; I thought this made for a great piece of wrestling theater. The crowd loved Shawn bumping around for Bulldog in the early part of the match. And I didn't mind all the interference spots, stacking the deck against the local hero. I get the questions about the missing Hart Foundation. But I could also see Davey wanting to go it alone as the gallant native. The bit where Davey's leg went out on the powerslam at ringside came off well. And I loved Shawn tossing Davey's knee brace to Diana before applying the figure four. The heat at the end, with Shawn baiting the crowd, was just insane. This reminds me of the NWO Horsemen skit because it seems more dickish in retrospect, given the lack of revenge on Shawn. But the dude delivered an awesome heel performance and created a super-intense ending to a fantastic show.

[NintendoLogic]

Consistent selling within a style/promotion isn't a good thing if it consistently sucks. Does anyone think that Atlantis and Ultimo Guerrero were wrong to do prolonged selling of high impact moves instead of video game selling like everyone else in CMLL?

[Dylan Waco]

Bad example given the finish

[Badlittlekitten]

 

Look at him. I'll say more when I'm not tired/brain dead.

 

I love the cocky bastard.

[BillThompson]

So, post-comeback HBK, pretty, pretty awful so far. Admittedly I'm only in 2002-2003, but man has been downright terrible so far. His weak offense looks even more offensive now, and his athletic timing has apparently gone the way of the dodo bird. I know there are a few HBK matches in the coming years that I like, but if the remaining years until his retirement are like 2002-2003 there's no way I can see any case for him being a top 100 guy.

[anarchistxx]

Question: do people prefer Shawn as a face or as a heel? And why?

 

As a character he was much more interesting as a heel. In the ring he could pretty much only excel as a face: almost all his great matches are as a face, except for gimmick matches where the props take away any kind of conventional structure or role playing. He doesn't have the offense to be a heel, can't control matches long enough to keep it interesting or believable or meaningful. All his big spots are face spots i.e. dives, desperation moves, flash offense.

 

His best heel matches were when he just pinballed for The Undertaker, playing the desperate underdog heel instead of the desperate underdog face, just with cowardice and arrogance added to the character.

[Coffey]

Read the whole thread tonight as I can't sleep. It's late, I'm on meds as I'm sick as shit and I'm not sure how well written I'll be or how much of this will all make sense. I must say, I don't think any other wrestler nominated will in the same thread have one person saying "not in the top 500" while another says "maybe #1." I'll dodge the firestorm & mud-slinging & just say I disagree with both. That is two radically different ends of the spectrum.

 

I don't like all Shawn but I do like some Shawn & he'll be on my list. Not sure where. Not #1 and not #500. I do think that him being touted as "the greatest ever" by WWE hurt him in the eyes of some fans. To some degree, I think that has hurt Ric Flair as well. I don't think, however, that all the workers that have praised those guys over the years were all kayfabing their comments and I think most the fans of each are genuine in their praise as well, from what they have seen. Not what they have heard that they let persuade their opinion. I do definitely sense some resentment from some big wrestling fans in regards to the high praise that wrestlers receive as it grows over the years though. Shawn, to me, is one of those wrestlers. I feel like I'm seeing it again now with CM Punk around some parts of the internet too. The Rock also had it, especially after he left to go make movies. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes wrestlers that were shit on start to universally have people come around to them too. Chris Masters, Mark Henry, in example. It's weird how there's like "trends" in wrestling on forums. Not saying hivemind or any of that nonsense, not trying to open that can of worms again. PWO has a lot of strong minded, opinionated posters. A lot of which seemingly know each other outside of the forum & are on a first name basis. Who the fuck is "Joe?" Without a username, I'm lost. I feel like a fish out of water here all the time. I'm in my early 30's & feel "young" when I come on here. Despite watching wrestling my entire life, it feels like everyone else has seen more & can remember more than I can. I don't think anyone knows my name, or gives a piss to, or can remember any of my posts at all, but I still come around because, fuck it, the wrestling talk is good.

 

Also, we've all seen all of Shawn Michaels' stuff because it's all readily available. It's on DVD, it's on WWE Network. We grew up watching it. If I've seen his entire career, his tag work, his early solo stuff, his main event run, his comeback... how am I going to compare his entire work to, say, a dozen YouTube matches of The Destroyer watched individually without any build? It doesn't matter how much stuff I try to seek out between now & the vote, it's not going to be able to compare because I'm watching it all, in one year, at my current age in a group sit, in a vacuum, outside of the moment. I grew up watching WWF. I'm nostalgic for a lot of it now. I have memories of things that I remembered from growing up. How can I fairly compare the two? It's night and day. The footage won't be judged on the same scale as I can't disconnect myself enough from my past to be able to re-evalutate all things with a clean slate. Even with the dates put in place there doesn't seem to be enough time. I'm still struggling with trying to be impartial & finding a process that works better for me. I'm watching more wrestling now for this list, which is really just a hobby between internet nerds, than I spent doing work at jobs or projects for grades in school. I feel kinda silly about that, by the way. My girlfriend is now to the point where I get cussed if I mention watching wrestling.

 

Also, if Shawn's later shit sucks, that doesn't make his earlier shit worse. If a wrestler dies at age 30 but was good from 25-30, does that mean he's better than Terry Funk 'cause Funk's still wrestling on jelly legs at 146 years old? Cause the early Terry stuff still owns & can't be taken away from him. The bodies of work are different. Shawn Michaels threw Marty Jannetty through the Barbershop Window! It's not a match but it's a moment I'll never forget. How does that not factor into my line of thinking when I'm comparing stuff?

 

I guess at the end of the day it doesn't matter too much as everyone is going to have a different list & there will be a lot of arguments & no one will be happy with the outcome of the final list anyway. That's the nature of lists. I love the process: the watching the footage, the pimping of matches, the reading the threads/discussion & the recommendations & nominations. This is the first thread I've read so far where it didn't really feel too fun for me anymore.

 

This quote from the Integrity thread really resonated with me:

There's gonna be dismissive comments, there's gonna be troll bait, there's going to be people looking at lists and thinking if that person might have been under the influence of something when they turned it in. Can't avoid it.

[DR Ackermann]

If his 'later shit sucks' it doesn't make his earlier stuff worse, it just means that if someone else was as good as him for the same length of time and then extended that period of quality even longer then that wrestler would by definition be a more deserving candidate. If all we went by was a wrestler's best, each wrestler would only be judged by their single best match, which is silly. An A is great but 2 As are better.

[goc]

. A lot of which seemingly know each other outside of the forum & are on a first name basis. Who the fuck is "Joe?" Without a username, I'm lost. I feel like a fish out of water here all the time.

This is completely off the main topic here but this IS kind of annoying. I kind of wish people would just stick to using the forum usernames regardless of how well they know each other if just for the sake of the rest of the posters.

[goodhelmet]

I agree in principle that using usernames is helpful but in no way would we tell somebody that knows another poster personally (or even feels like they do) that they can't address them by their first name.