Shawn Michaels v. Steve Austin

[BillThompson]

Something that really holds Michaels back for me is that his very best singles stuff was usually either with another great worker or a match where a decent worker had one of their better days. Maybe one could say this for Austin, but I don't think that really holds up when Austin was able to slip and slide between dance partners rather easily based on the time period of his career. I like to use Owen Hart as the example of why I don't think Michaels as a singles wrestler is any great shakes. Specifically Owen/Michaels versus Ken Shamrock. Owen worked his but off to make Shamrock look good and get the best possible match that could come from Shamrock at that point. Michaels just wanted to have his match and the result was a piss poor match where Shamrock looked weak and like a guy who could barely wrestle.

[benjaminkicks]

Something that really holds Michaels back for me is that his very best singles stuff was usually either with another great worker or a match where a decent worker had one of their better days.

I would agree with the basic premise of this, but I have similar thoughts about Austin. Does Austin have any high end matches where he carries a lesser opponent to greatness like Owen did with Shamrock (to use your example. I haven't seen Owen/Shamrock in years)?

[Badlittlekitten]

Something that really holds Michaels back for me is that his very best singles stuff was usually either with another great worker or a match where a decent worker had one of their better days.

So you don't give Michaels any credit for these 'better days'?

[BillThompson]

I give him credit for those days sure, but having great matches with great wrestlers isn't a calling card I look for in a great wrestler when we get down to the micro level of breaking them down. What they were able to do on their bad days, with subpar workers, etc. is mainly what I'm getting at here. So, Michaels has his great days and his great matches, but what does it say about Michaels when he consistently failed to get great matches out of bad workers or has matches like the Jarrett IYH match where he's outworked by Jarrett to the point of it almost being a carry job?

[Matt D]

I wish that Jannetty didn't have the Goldust match in 96 or else I could rationalize putting him higher than Michaels pretty easily.

[Loss]

Austin and Undertaker working so many times and never fully clicking is a big black mark for me.

[El-P]

Austin and Undertaker working so many times and never fully clicking is a big black mark for me.

SummerSlam 98 ? No ?

 

They sure had they share of shitty matches in late 98/99 (with the occasional and always reliable help of Kane). That said, Taker is an overrated woker anyway, so one should not expect his matches to be really good all the time either.

[Loss]

I mention it because most of the talk in this thread has been about Shawn and Austin hasn't really been vetted at the same level. We've gone through the Michaels critiques time and time again, so I'd rather talk more about Austin instead of building a case for him solely by building a case against Shawn. The Summerslam '98 match was really disappointing. HHH and Rock stole the show that night.

[Gregor]

Something that really holds Michaels back for me is that his very best singles stuff was usually either with another great worker or a match where a decent worker had one of their better days. Maybe one could say this for Austin, but I don't think that really holds up when Austin was able to slip and slide between dance partners rather easily based on the time period of his career. I like to use Owen Hart as the example of why I don't think Michaels as a singles wrestler is any great shakes. Specifically Owen/Michaels versus Ken Shamrock. Owen worked his but off to make Shamrock look good and get the best possible match that could come from Shamrock at that point. Michaels just wanted to have his match and the result was a piss poor match where Shamrock looked weak and like a guy who could barely wrestle.

I understand looking at individual performances, but at this point you're basically just using it to handwave away a bunch of Michaels' best stuff. Michaels had a great match against Diesel - ah, but Nash delivered a killer side slam and talked some nice trash, so Shawn didn't really do that much. He had a great match against Undertaker - but if you watch the match, it was Undertaker's methodical offense that set the tone for the whole thing. He had a great match against Jarrett - but the stalling at the start was obviously out of the Jarrett playbook and therefore he carried the match. He had a great match against Razor Ramon - hey, everything Hall did in that match looked great. He had a great match against Mankind - but Foley was clearly the one calling the shots there. Why did all of these guys have their best performances against Michaels? Some of it has to be the opportunity to work a long match, and a lot of these were no-DQ or gimmick matches, but Steve Austin wrestled some of these guys, too, and his matches had similar advantages. He had famously bad chemistry with The Undertaker, and Shawn-Foley was a much better matchup than Austin-Foley (obviously Austin has some better matchups, like with Hart).

 

If you don't think Michaels' matches were great, that's a fair argument against him. If you think he had some great ones but that he should have had many more with the opportunities that he was given, that's a fair argument against him. If you think that he did well with the opportunity that he was given but that someone else could have done better, well, that's a little too much speculation for me. Intead, your argument seems to be that a bunch of guys had their career performance against Michaels, which sounds almost like a compliment. I feel like at some point you've got to give Michaels some credit rather than look for caveats that explain why this match wasn't his doing, either.

[El-P]

The Summerslam '98 match was really disappointing. HHH and Rock stole the show that night.

 

Couldn't disagree more. That ladder match was the first one that I found awkward and somewhat ridiculous at times. That's when I began to not take it for granted that "ladder match = good".

[Loss]

Whether you liked the match or not, HHH and Rock stole the show. Austin-Undertaker had great hype and couldn't live up to it in the ring. The heat for HHH-Rock was off the page. I'm not debating the merits of the match so much as I am debating the takeaways from the show that night. The main event wasn't the hottest thing on the card coming out, even if it was going in.

[benjaminkicks]

That ladder match hasn't aged particularly well, but I'll take it over Austin/Taker every day of the week.

[El-P]

Whether you liked the match or not, HHH and Rock stole the show. Austin-Undertaker had great hype and couldn't live up to it in the ring. The heat for HHH-Rock was off the page. I'm not debating the merits of the match so much as I am debating the takeaways from the show that night. The main event wasn't the hottest thing on the card coming out, even if it was going in.

 

In term of heat, yes. Doesn't mean anything about the quality of the match though. To me even D-Lo vs Val was better than the ladder match (again, speaking from memories).

[(BP)]

Didn't Austin get a concussion in the first few minutes of the Summerslam match? Not that he didn't have several other disappointing matches with Taker.

[BillThompson]

 

Something that really holds Michaels back for me is that his very best singles stuff was usually either with another great worker or a match where a decent worker had one of their better days. Maybe one could say this for Austin, but I don't think that really holds up when Austin was able to slip and slide between dance partners rather easily based on the time period of his career. I like to use Owen Hart as the example of why I don't think Michaels as a singles wrestler is any great shakes. Specifically Owen/Michaels versus Ken Shamrock. Owen worked his but off to make Shamrock look good and get the best possible match that could come from Shamrock at that point. Michaels just wanted to have his match and the result was a piss poor match where Shamrock looked weak and like a guy who could barely wrestle.

I understand looking at individual performances, but at this point you're basically just using it to handwave away a bunch of Michaels' best stuff. Michaels had a great match against Diesel - ah, but Nash delivered a killer side slam and talked some nice trash, so Shawn didn't really do that much. He had a great match against Undertaker - but if you watch the match, it was Undertaker's methodical offense that set the tone for the whole thing. He had a great match against Jarrett - but the stalling at the start was obviously out of the Jarrett playbook and therefore he carried the match. He had a great match against Razor Ramon - hey, everything Hall did in that match looked great. He had a great match against Mankind - but Foley was clearly the one calling the shots there. Why did all of these guys have their best performances against Michaels? Some of it has to be the opportunity to work a long match, and a lot of these were no-DQ or gimmick matches, but Steve Austin wrestled some of these guys, too, and his matches had similar advantages. He had famously bad chemistry with The Undertaker, and Shawn-Foley was a much better matchup than Austin-Foley (obviously Austin has some better matchups, like with Hart).

 

If you don't think Michaels' matches were great, that's a fair argument against him. If you think he had some great ones but that he should have had many more with the opportunities that he was given, that's a fair argument against him. If you think that he did well with the opportunity that he was given but that someone else could have done better, well, that's a little too much speculation for me. Intead, your argument seems to be that a bunch of guys had their career performance against Michaels, which sounds almost like a compliment. I feel like at some point you've got to give Michaels some credit rather than look for caveats that explain why this match wasn't his doing, either.

 

 

The only real guys who never did much of anything with their careers outside of a few matches here and there would be Diesel, and Sid. Guys like Undertaker, Jarrett, Foley, and Hall had careers full of good matches, or great matches for Foley and Taker, with people not named Michaels. Nash has the Hart matches, but I'm not as high on those as most. Sid has next to nothing really, outside of his participation in War Games and some cool angles. In the case of Sid I don't think his matches with Michaels are good or even great so he's not a factor in the discussion.

 

That just leaves Nash, and that match is his career performance because he brings a lot to that match. Michaels does too, and as I said originally I give Michaels credit for being in great matches. But, what about his matches that should have been great but weren't? That's what I'm looking at, because we know that people can have good-great matches with Foley, Taker, Jarrett, and Hall. It's what he did with the mediocre wrestlers that matters to me, and in that department I don't think Michaels was ever able to get greatness out of a number of mediocre workers like Austin was at times.

[NintendoLogic]

No wrestler in history consistently had great matches with bad workers, so I don't think it's fair to hold that against Shawn. On the other hand, the transitive property doesn't really work as a means of comparing wrestlers. Some guys just don't have chemistry with each other. Jumbo Tsuruta and Mitsuharu Misawa, two of the greatest wrestlers who ever lived, both struggled to have great matches with Stan Hansen, another all-time great. And Austin's matches with The Rock consistently delivered. I wouldn't use that as an argument that Rock was a better wrestler than Undertaker.

 

I'm honestly not sure which way to go on this. Austin's best blows away Shawn's best, and Austin's worst isn't as bad as Shawn's worst. But the gap between Austin's very best and the next level down is pretty steep, and Shawn has a much higher volume of good-to-great matches.

[benjaminkicks]

Sorry if this has been discussed to death or whatever around here, but since we were talking about Austin/Taker, what's the consensus around here on the Shawn/Taker matches?

 

Like the Hell in a Cell, end of the '07 Rumble, and Mania 25 and 26.

 

I get the feeling they're not as well liked as most parts of the internet.

 

I'm interested to see some criticism of those matches in regards to Shawn's performances.

[JerryvonKramer]

My understanding is that I am a big outlier on the Taker matches and everyone else really likes them.

 

I really dislike them. I can't remember which one it was but I gave it like **

[Mad Dog]

Austin and Undertaker working so many times and never fully clicking is a big black mark for me.

Taker was really hampered by injuries as their matches progressed. He was almost worthless as a worker in 99.

[benjaminkicks]

I guess I should rewatch them. I liked them at the time, but my tastes and interests as a wrestling fan have changed a lot since they happened.

[NintendoLogic]

I think HBK/Taker HIAC works great as a self-contained match. Shawn gets himself put in a situation where he can't run away from Taker, gets beaten within an inch of his life, connives a way to escape the cell, but he still can't escape Taker's wrath. The problem is that it set a precedent for HIAC matches to be focused on stunt bumps outside the cell rather than brawling inside it. But I don't think it's really fair to blame Shawn for all the lesser workers who took the wrong lessons from his matches. As for the Mania matches, I haven't watched the 26 match since the day it happened, but I think that 25 is as good as the modern WWE Main Event Epic style gets. I think the style as a whole is pretty degenerate, but they had as good a match as you can have while adhering to the tropes of the style.

[JerryvonKramer]

I seem to remember that Will is high on them. No one seems to have listed the Taker matches here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30977-your-34-matches/

 

But I can see some of the Jericho ones listed.

[Grimmas]

Hell in the Cell should be 4 3/4 for me

[benjaminkicks]

The Cell match is my favorite of their matches for sure. Not sure if I would go 5 stars on it, but 4.75 sounds right. I'll see for sure when I get there in my 90's WWF rewatch.

[Gregor]

The only real guys who never did much of anything with their careers outside of a few matches here and there would be Diesel, and Sid. Guys like Undertaker, Jarrett, Foley, and Hall had careers full of good matches, or great matches for Foley and Taker, with people not named Michaels. Nash has the Hart matches, but I'm not as high on those as most. Sid has next to nothing really, outside of his participation in War Games and some cool angles. In the case of Sid I don't think his matches with Michaels are good or even great so he's not a factor in the discussion.

 

That just leaves Nash, and that match is his career performance because he brings a lot to that match. Michaels does too, and as I said originally I give Michaels credit for being in great matches. But, what about his matches that should have been great but weren't? That's what I'm looking at, because we know that people can have good-great matches with Foley, Taker, Jarrett, and Hall. It's what he did with the mediocre wrestlers that matters to me, and in that department I don't think Michaels was ever able to get greatness out of a number of mediocre workers like Austin was at times.

Foley: I think that Mind Games is his career match, but he does have other great matches around this time. If you want to argue that Mind Games was them meeting expectations then I can see the argument for that even though I disagree.

Taker: Undertaker improved later in his career but HiaC was probably the second great match that he ever had, and the third wouldn't come until like 2002.

Jarrett: IYH 2 is an outlier for him. Jarrett was a more than capable wrestler but getting 15+ with him never meant that a great match was pretty likely.

Hall: Average to slightly above. Unlike with Jarrett, I'd say that having a merely good match with Hall was something of a success.

 

Michaels probably does have more disappointments than Austin, but I really don't see the case for Austin as being better with mediocre wrestlers. Who were the mediocrities out of whom he coaxed greatness? Austin's a guy whose best matches generally came against other guys who had great matches. Savio Vega didn't, at least not in the U.S., but he was better than Hall and about as good as Jarrett. Rock? Angle? I'll grant that I like some of the Sid matches more than you do (and probably wouldn't call them great, either), but performance against guys who weren't great seems like an advantage for Michaels.