Shawn Michaels v. Steve Austin

[Badlittlekitten]

Love Steve but if you're going with the Great Match Theory I can't see past Shawn. He took a while to find his feet as a solo act but Austins WCW run is just as bland as Shawn's early heel run. HBK already had a fantastic early career with the Rockers.

 

94-97 for Shawn and 96-99 for Austin are four year periods where everything come together for both acts. Austin completely nailed it as a character and changed the business. For Great Match Theorists, Steve had better matches with Bret. Shawn had better volume of good and great matches with Razor, Owen, Taker, Mankind, Jarrett, Diesel etc. I think Micheals takes it pretty easy here.

 

Turn of the century Austin has his hallowed 2001, his best year in ring. Angle, Rock and Benoit. His HHH matches sucked a bit less than Shawn's. But if you can get over the fact he looks like a balding Old Compton Street transvestite Shawn's comeback run is on par. His live and die in the moment, heart in mouth, SHOWSTOPPA! routine isn't for everyone but it's perfectly in line with WWEs vision and it's little surprise they tout him as the GOAT. Also - frankly - I think some people will always give Shawn the short end of the stick because of who he is and the hype he gets.

 

The Taker matches, Cena matches, Jericho, the only worthwhile Shelton B match, the tremendous Survivor Series 03 performance. . . It's Shawn.

 

-On side note, I don't buy the notion that Jannety was better than Shawn. They generally looked like complete equals. I could see the argument for Shawn being the better at taking a beating. He's certainly more charismatic. Marty was never gonna get above the midcard as a singles

[JRGoldman]

I know that people have previously decried the transitive property in wrestling, but for two guys roughly in the same spot in the card at the same time in the same company, I think it is a useful tool. Personally, I think you can point to Austin having the better match with every major like opponent I can think of with the exception of the Undertaker. Austin's matches with Bret, HHH, and Foley are all better than Michaels' matches with the same people. I dunno, can you say that Michaels had better matches with Angle? I have no memory of the big Austin/Angle matches, so I can't judge. This obviously isn't the whole story, but I think it's telling. Austin seems able to vary his style a little more and find ways to make things interesting with other peak workers, which was really his job for a good portion of his run.

 

I can see voting for HBK based off of his tag stuff, or the overall quality of work prior to main event matches, but in terms of the style and work they are both well known for, Austin's output far exceeds Michaels.

[DR Ackermann]

In 1993 Jannetty was a lot better than Michaels. Mr. Perfect and probably Luger were better that year too. If you take into account the years that both guys were simultaneously active (89-98) and take into account how much experience they had, then I think Austin was clearly the better wrestler. When Austin came to the WWF, Michaels was allowed to do what he wanted in the main event whereas Austin was stuck in the midcard. As soon as Austin is given a shot at a major match (SS 96) he has what a lot of people consider to be an all time great match. Saying Michaels has more great matches is silly because he had a much longer career. Whats important is who did the most with the opportunities they had. If you factor in Michaels' pre 89 work as well as his comeback and Austin's 98-03, who has the biggest net gain (or net loss)?

[Loss]

Realistically, I think it only took a year for Shawn to find his footing as a singles heel. By 1993, he was someone who could rise to the occasion, which is evident by looking at his series with Marty Jannetty (we have strong matches from them on TV, PPV and handhelds), his surprisingly good Raw match with Duggan and the match later in the year with the 1-2-3 Kid. He has some stinkers (that Mr. Perfect feud ... ugh, and don't get me started on the Bret Hart cage match from Coliseum Video), but I don't think the argument against Shawn in '93 is that he wasn't good. It's more that he didn't care to be good unless he felt it was an occasion that warranted it.

[Benbeeach]

I know that people have previously decried the transitive property in wrestling, but for two guys roughly in the same spot in the card at the same time in the same company, I think it is a useful tool. Personally, I think you can point to Austin having the better match with every major like opponent I can think of with the exception of the Undertaker. Austin's matches with Bret, HHH, and Foley are all better than Michaels' matches with the same people. I dunno, can you say that Michaels had better matches with Angle? I have no memory of the big Austin/Angle matches, so I can't judge. This obviously isn't the whole story, but I think it's telling. Austin seems able to vary his style a little more and find ways to make things interesting with other peak workers, which was really his job for a good portion of his run.

 

I can see voting for HBK based off of his tag stuff, or the overall quality of work prior to main event matches, but in terms of the style and work they are both well known for, Austin's output far exceeds Michaels.

Science is super inexact. Citing the Bret matches when both he and Shawn's collective goals never rose to anything higher than "...yeah, fuck this guy" when they wrestled each other in juxtaposition to what Bret and Austin tried to go for when they wrestled is interesting. It's a slam dunk for Austin obviously but I'm not sure Bret wasn't having better matches with the Patriot than he was with Shawn. Not holding my breath on that thread.

How much better is Steve vs Dude Love than Shawn vs. Mankind at IYH? How much better is the 3 stages of hell in 2001 than the one in 2002? How much better is 3 stages 2001 than HHH/HBK 12/29/03 from San Antonio, or Last Man Standing from the 04 Rumble?

Austin/Angle in 2001 is a homerun pairing in a way HBK/Angle never was (although those matches aren't out and out trash), although Angle was already finisher overkill gobbledy goop by 2005. Was 2001 his formative year? Not sure, and I'm not sure who you blame for that if so.

 

By that same token, are Austin's Jericho matches better? No. Austin has a really good match with Benoit, but so does Shawn. How does HBK/Cena stack up to Austin/Steamboat, Austin . . . Savio Vega?

If Austin's skill is varying his style to keep things interesting with other peak workers, then you'd have to point me to where that isn't true of Shawn. Where in alot of Shawn's top matches is one lacking the variety of Austin's? I dig the huge gap between Austin heel brawler on top, and Austin face brawler selling his ass off and everything in between, but where is the sameness in the Shawn matches with Razor, to matches with Diesel, to Bret, to Mankind to Owen to Jarrett to Goldust to Bulldog? I'm not sure I'm really buying all of that.

 

Saying Michaels has more great matches is silly because he had a much longer career. Whats important is who did the most with the opportunities they had. If you factor in Michaels' pre 89 work as well as his comeback and Austin's 98-03, who has the biggest net gain (or net loss)?

Don't understand how this is valid in some arguments but not in others. It isn't silly at all. When we argue peaks and longevity all the time in other threads. Their careers we are looking at in portions. I don't see how Michaels entire tag run and comeback run, which is something in the neighborhood of like 15 years combined, gets tossed out in a thread like this. If you factor them in, then of course it's a net positive for Shawn. If this was a case of Austin's peak completely obliterating Shawn's at any point, and idk what we're calling them, the Shawn "fluff years" were worthless, then I think this holds some weight, but neither of these is the case. Austins 2001 is great. He has moments of greatness in 98,97,and 96 before that. Shawn has decent to good, if not good to great matches in 2002,2003,2004,2005,2007,2008,2009 and 2010, on top of his already comparable resume. How does this get dismissed?

 

I completely understand the "if I had a choice between an Austin match I'd never seen and a Shawn one, Austin" argument, not sure I wouldn't pick Austin myself (but I'd probably watch a Super Crazy match I'd never seen, before a Misawa match I'd never seen, this says nothing of who's better), but it speaks to choice and decision, based on an argument on what could have been. What we don't have and what doesn't/didn't exist, rather than what we do have. Austin's got the greater match, perhaps greater 3-5, matches. Shawn's best are not that far behind. And Shawn has dozens more good to great matches over the span of 3 decades.

 

What are we valuing here?

[Gregor]

I know that people have previously decried the transitive property in wrestling, but for two guys roughly in the same spot in the card at the same time in the same company, I think it is a useful tool. Personally, I think you can point to Austin having the better match with every major like opponent I can think of with the exception of the Undertaker. Austin's matches with Bret, HHH, and Foley are all better than Michaels' matches with the same people. I dunno, can you say that Michaels had better matches with Angle? I have no memory of the big Austin/Angle matches, so I can't judge. This obviously isn't the whole story, but I think it's telling. Austin seems able to vary his style a little more and find ways to make things interesting with other peak workers, which was really his job for a good portion of his run.

This method isn't really fair to Michaels, though. For one thing, just giving a point to whoever did better with a certain opponent somewhat obscures how each matchup went. Bret Hart is an advantage for Austin, but Michaels and Hart had some matches that were very good. The Michaels-HHH series doesn't reflect well on Michaels, but even they managed to have some good matches together. None of those matchups is as big a blowout as performance vs. Undertaker.

 

Michaels also loses a lot more if you take out uncommon opponents. He loses Jarrett, Razor, Diesel, Bulldog, and Jannetty (Austin had matches with some of those guys but not in comparable circumstances); Austin loses Rock, Steamboat, Vega, and Mero. I'm sure I'm missing some, but I think that Michaels has a greater percentage of his best stuff against guys Austin didn't wrestle than vice-versa, and I don't think that it's simply the result of his list of unique opponents being better than Austin's.

 

I also disagree with the argument that Austin-Foley is a better pairing than HBK-Foley.

[ohtani's jacket]

People keep mentioning how it took Michaels a while to click as a singles wrestler, but both Austin and the guys he worked with are forever mentioning how he was like a chicken with its head cut off for much of the 90s.

[Loss]

Yeah, Mind Games is what is remembered but the Shawn-Mankind match at the beginning of his 1997 heel turn is an excellent TV match too, one of the best TV matches of the year for the WWF in fact.

[Chess Knight]

I'm not one for any kind of "Great Match Theory" but Michaels having less than five matches I'd fit in that mold in his entire 21st Century run would hurt a hell of a lot. I think I'd only definitely say the Cena hour match and Taker match at WM09 would be the only singles I'd count. Maybe the best match w/ Benoit, and the Orton stuff could use a re-watch.

 

I've always thought Austin was good in the early 90s. Much better than Michaels, too. I do tend to be surprised how much I like 92 Michaels (I really loved the Hart ladder match last time I watched it), but I don't really find him good in 93 at all. Peak singles Michaels (94-97) I think is a great run, but even in his best singles year of 96, I thought Austin was seriously almost as good, and that was probably Austin's third best year.

 

I love Austin's WCW run. I'm constantly surprised every time I expect the Blondes not to hold up, and that Steamboat feud is awesome. Fits in tag matches with guys many years his senior in experience. I consider it a feather in Austin's cap that he was even able to do really well in a more sountherny setting of 92 WCW, considering how different he was by even 1996.

 

EDIT - Drawing a blank on Austin's 1991, but that Dustin match at HH has always been excellent to me.

[Grimmas]

Love Steve but if you're going with the Great Match Theory I can't see past Shawn. He took a while to find his feet as a solo act but Austins WCW run is just as bland as Shawn's early heel run. HBK already had a fantastic early career with the Rockers.

I am completely against great match theory. Shawn had way more great matches, I will admit that. By "Great Match Theory' Shawn is better, but I am anti-Great Match Theory, just like Matt D.

[NintendoLogic]

I find it interesting that so many of the people who are negative on HBK's post-comeback work also effusively praise John Cena. That strikes me as rather inconsistent, as I'm hard-pressed to think of any criticisms of post-comeback Shawn that wouldn't also apply to Cena.

[JerryvonKramer]

I find it interesting that so many of the people who are negative on HBK's post-comeback work also effusively praise John Cena. That strikes me as rather inconsistent, as I'm hard-pressed to think of any criticisms of post-comeback Shawn that wouldn't also apply to Cena.

 

I'm not against you there NL

[Matt D]

 

Love Steve but if you're going with the Great Match Theory I can't see past Shawn. He took a while to find his feet as a solo act but Austins WCW run is just as bland as Shawn's early heel run. HBK already had a fantastic early career with the Rockers.

I am completely against great match theory. Shawn had way more great matches, I will admit that. By "Great Match Theory' Shawn is better, but I am anti-Great Match Theory, just like Matt D.

 

A very very dysfunctional school of philosophy.

[Loss]

I believe in Bad Match Theory. If your matches suck, you must be doing something right.

[Matt D]

I call that the Brody Principle.

[The Thread Killer]

The phoney postcard drama of it all. The sense of portent. The narcassistic and self-important wish-fulfillment fantasy. Shawn's self-conscious sense of importance is like a teenager's idea of "deep". That's the only way I can put it. It's not even inauthentic, it's just gauche. As much as I have defended Vince on this board, I loathe his "late vision" of pro wrestling more than just about anything else. Not the Monday Night War comedy stuff, the 00s big dramatic "Wrestlemania moment" stuff. And there in that picture you can see it all. That's intended to mean something to people, and I'm sure it does. What it means to me is the dawning of an epoch of false sentiment and self-important "weightiness".

 

I feel like even though the Monday Night Wars was built on Stone Cold's success, modern WWE was built in Shawn's image.

 

I have nothing against anyone who doesn't share my complete disdain for this, I understand that these are my own deep biases.

 

I like the way you think. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[SomethingSavage]

I liked the Flair retirement match just fine. It didn't really reach a tipping point for me until all the HHH/Taker stuff. Then it just started to feel like a staged spectacle that tried too hard to bash you over the head with things. The acting can be nauseating and way too desperate at times.

 

I like enough of his matches for the most part, but yeah. Late era Shawn really is the embodiment of a CW teen drama - right down to the new awkward hairstyles each season and all.

[El McKell]

It didn't really reach a tipping point for me until all the HHH/Taker stuff.

So that's after Shawn's last ever match? You're basically saying he didn't get too nauseating and desperate until that one match he refereed?

[SomethingSavage]

I was referring to Parv's comments about Vince's "late era vision" of the self-conscious, epic style matches.

 

Shawn's overacting has been there since at least the Randy Orton punt angle of 2007. So no. I'd say it goes back a bit further than the guest referee gig.

[Matt D]

It was all over the end of the Cena vs Michaels Mania match.

[SomethingSavage]

True. And cases could be made for it being apparent in the Triple H 2004 program also. I just didn't feel like I was being hit over the head with it until that 2007 stretch or so. It really got kicked up a notch for the Batista stretcher match and then the Jericho series.

 

The matches themselves are enjoyable. I like a lot of them from a standpoint of looking at the action & the story being presented. On the same note, I can't make it through a single one of those performances without noticing the hammy acting and melodrama from Michaels.

 

That's why I think the CW comparison is apt. I can certainly sit down and enjoy a standalone episode of Supernatural, Arrow, or even freaking One Tree Hill back in the day (yeah, I said it). The stories can strike a nerve sometimes, and the direction is fine. But the execution is overbearing, the acting is "daytime soap" bad at times, and you never can quite make it through one full episode without coming away with that impression.

[Codysseus]

I like Steve. I think of him as a masterful storyteller whose great matches had such a high level of detail and nuance that he brought to them.. His performance vs the Rock at Wrestlemania 17 is one of my all-time favorite individual wrestling performances and I can't think of anything HBK did that was at that level. I still haven't seen the Taker Wrasslemania matches, though.

[Cap]

This is austin and it isn't really that close to me.

 

HBK is obviously insanely overrated in the WWE's imagination, and that probably earns him the ire of many internet warriors (including myself). His return run was so spotty to me. The taker matches were good, but not the best matches in Mania history. The Flair retirement match was solid for what it was, but I tip my hat to a clearly past his expiration date Flair more in that one. I kind of hate the HHH series. Their HIAC match is unwatchable to me. The Cena stuff was quite good. His prime run was good, but I rewatched the Vader Summerslam match and the Razor ladder match in the past month or so. Both matches are filled with spots that seem very very contrived to me. He wasn’t as fluid moving into the big dramatic spots as I remember and it took a lot away from what he was trying to do. Finally, I see everything for HBK after his tag run being booked pretty favorably for him. He wasn’t given a lot of crap to work with so his in ring work gets a lot more chance to shine through. That all said, HBK is very good. He isn’t a hack by any means. He has very good runs and did bring a lot of excitement to matches. Just doing his HBK thing brings another level of energy to many matches, energy that can’t really be manufactured.

 

Austin on the other hand gets a lot of points for getting more out of less. He was even putting on good matches well after he had to change his style completely going into his main run as lead man. The Austin/Hart feud is just tops. He had great in ring runs in both major companies and overcame some questionable booking placement. The only two major marks against Austin are the era he wrestled in and his own self-regulation. I don’t really LOVE the Attitude era stuff. He was king of the world at a time when overbooked brawls were a bit too common. Austin still managed to have shining matches in all that though. He also limited himself a lot from what I understand, not taking matches or sitting out when he didn’t think he could perform up to his own expectations. That is his decision, but Austin vs Hulk at Mania for example might have been a real feather in his cap if he were able to help carry Hogan to a good match, a memorable punctuation near the end of his career rather than the Hall debacle.

[Loss]

Who is someone Austin has carried? Who is his Sid or Kevin Nash?

[Jingus]

...Triple H, maybe? Austin usually had shockingly good matches with him, better than Shawn usually did. Nobody else but Foley and Benoit seemed able to so consistently pull such good work out of Trips.

 

 

HBK is obviously insanely overrated in the WWE's imagination, and that probably earns him the ire of many internet warriors (including myself).

This is something that does kinda make me chuckle, the bizarre gap of perception between the consensus and some hardcore smarks. It's not just the WWE's imagination. You know what people generally think that Shawn was great? Wrestlers. People as different as Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Ultimate Warrior, Jim Cornette, Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, Sid Vicious, Chris Jericho and Jim Ross all manage to put aside their completely differing philosophies on wrestling and agree that Shawn is possibly the best in-ring worker they've ever seen in their lives. (Same thing with Undertaker, but that's a different thread.) And they'll probably all immediately follow that up with "and he was a total asshole backstage", but if anything that makes their compliments towards his work even more impressive, because how much are you willing to compliment a guy you really don't like?

 

I remember a Hurricane Helms shoot interview where he was bitching for like five minutes straight about how terrible a person Michaels was... while still occasionally peppering in comments like "and that really hurt, cuz I idolized his ring work". You don't say that kind of stuff just to be a WWE corporate shill, not when so many of these people don't work there anymore and have tons of big disagreements with other parts of Vince's general business philosophy. These are the guys who've been there and done that, and it's pretty damn rare to hear anyone who's been in the ring with him saying anything not-glowingly-positive about HBK's abilities as an in-ring artist. Even fuckin' Bret doesn't knock the work itself.