McMyths

[El-P]

It's actually quite amazing that Shawn is held in any regard what so ever considering at least 75% of his career he was a completely unprofessional shithead.

 

Not really surprising. History is written by winners. The Kliq won. But yeah, looking at his title history is pretty damn hilarious.

 

_wins the IC title from Bulldog in late 92. Apart from the rapid switch with Jannetty, doesn't lose the belt, gets suspended or something and puts his pal Razor over at Mania X in the title match.

_wins the tag titles with his pal Diesel. Doesn't lose the belts, which get vacated after Survivor Series 94 and the split between the two.

_wins the IC title from Jarrett. Doesn't lose the belt because of "injury", belts goes to Douglas who gets jobbed out on the same show to his pal Razor.

_wins the WWF title. switch with Kliq's friend Sid, then doesn't lose the belt because he "lost his smile".

_wins the tag title with Austin. Doesn't lose the belt because of whatever reason I don't even remember, Foley takes Shawn's place.

_wins the WWF title via Montreal screwjob, throws a fit before losing the belt to Austin, with Taker waiting backstage in case of bullshit.

[SteveJRogers]

It's actually quite amazing that Shawn is held in any regard what so ever considering at least 75% of his career he was a completely unprofessional shithead.

To be fair, you are describing a LOT of professional athletes, in so many different eras, whom skate by because they perform very, very well.

 

Does it mean Shawn deserves being pushed officially as a GOAT? I don't know, there are plenty of non aligned places that would put Shawn in a conversation among the GOATS in terms of his performance as an entertainer though.

[SteveJRogers]

 

 

It's actually quite amazing that Shawn is held in any regard what so ever considering at least 75% of his career he was a completely unprofessional shithead.

Not really surprising. History is written by winners. The Kliq won. But yeah, looking at his title history is pretty damn hilarious.

 

_wins the IC title from Bulldog in late 92. Apart from the rapid switch with Jannetty, doesn't lose the belt, gets suspended or something and puts his pal Razor over at Mania X in the title match.

_wins the tag titles with his pal Diesel. Doesn't lose the belts, which get vacated after Survivor Series 94 and the split between the two.

_wins the IC title from Jarrett. Doesn't lose the belt because of "injury", belts goes to Douglas who gets jobbed out on the same show to his pal Razor.

_wins the WWF title. switch with Kliq's friend Sid, then doesn't lose the belt because he "lost his smile".

_wins the tag title with Austin. Doesn't lose the belt because of whatever reason I don't even remember, Foley takes Shawn's place.

_wins the WWF title via Montreal screwjob, throws a fit before losing the belt to Austin, with Taker waiting backstage in case of bullshit.

Here is a detailed look at Shawn's lack of dropping any WWF/WWE title by taking a fall/submission:

 

10/30/90 Rockers defeat Hart Foundation, title change never airs and never recognized

 

10/27/92 Defeats Davey Boy Smith for IC title. Loses to Marty Jannetty on 5/17/93

 

6/6/93 Defeats Jannetty for second IC reign, Diesel debuts as his bodyguard same night. Stripped in September (Solie.org Title History just says he left, it could be addictions related).

 

8/28/94 Wins tag belt with Diesel. Titles are stripped on 11/23/94 when Diesel turns babyface and team splits

 

7/23/95 Defeats Jeff Jarrett for third IC reign. Forfeits it on 10/22/95 after infamous bar assault.

 

9/24/95 Wins tag strap with Diesel, solely for one night that The Kliq owns all the gold (Michaels IC and Diesel heavyweight). Reversed next night due to wrong man being pinned.

 

3/31/96 The boyhood dream has come true! Defeats Bret Hart, loses to Sid on 11/17.

 

1/19/97 Defeats Sid for his second WWF title reign, loses smile on 2/13/97

 

5/26/97 Wins tag strap with Austin, gets stripped when Michaels briefly quits promotion, Austin kept his part, and would wind up with Dude Love as partner on 7/14/97

 

9/20/97 Wins Euro title from Davey Boy Smith, drops it on 12/11/97 in a "lay down" spot to Triple H. Obviously this was kayfabe, but goes to the "didn't really lose it in the ring" side of ledger.

 

11/9/97 Defeats Bret in Montreal Screwjob. Despite searing back pain and rumors that he wouldn't, does the honors to Austin on 3/29/98.

 

11/17/02 Wins World Title in first Elimination Chamber match. Drops it to Triple H on 12/15/02. Final singles title of career.

 

1/29/07 With John Cena defeats Team Rated RKO for tag belts. Two end up WrestleMania opponents for Cena's heavyweight title, they hold the straps until 4/2/07 when Michaels deliberately eliminated himself from a tag team battle royal for the belts. Obviously this was kayfabe, but goes to the "didn't really lose it in the ring" side of ledger.

 

12/13/09 D-X defeats JeriShow for tag titles, lose straps to ShowMiz on 2/8/10 when Miz pins Michaels (as he was arguing with Triple H).

 

Looking at the numbers:

6 Tag Titles, officially 5, 1 dropped in the ring

3 WWF Titles, 2 dropped in the ring

3 IC Titles, 1 dropped in the ring

1 World Title, 1 dropped in the ring

1 Euro Title

 

14 times Michaels had possession of a title, and only 5 times lost it in a "legit" (as legit as a pre-scripted sport can be of course) fashion in a match.

[Jingus]

Also, while that's a lot of bullshit on Shawn's part, remember you're only talking about four years of his entire career. During his tenure as one half of the Rockers and in his post-comeback miracle run, Shawn was much more professional. In fact, I'd say it's 75% of his career that he wasn't a shithead; we just remember that 25% because it stuck out so glaringly at the time.

[Matt D]

Shawn was a shithead as a Rocker, both in what he did in ring and in his perceptions of what he didn't get.

[Mad Dog]

I seem to remember him getting pissed at jobbers and stiffing them several times with the Rockers.

[Jingus]

Who didn't ever stiff jobbers in squash matches? I'd never heard of Shawn being more out of control than various other guys. Remember, the freakin' Nasty Boys were around during the same time period.

[LariatMMBOPPO]

9/24/95 Wins tag strap with Diesel, solely for one night that The Kliq owns all the gold (Michaels IC and Diesel heavyweight). Reversed next night due to wrong man being pinned.

You're forgetting the best part. It wasn't the wrong man as in never tagged in, but wrong man as in never in the match. Owen was half of the tag champs, but was taken out to tend to his wife having his second kid (this apparently wasn't real.) He runs in and almost immediately gets pinned by Diesel. It was terrible.

[Bierschwale]

Morale must have been really crappy backstage in 97 with Shawn's antics going on.....

 

There was a Meltzer quote that came up a while back about him talking two different guys out of getting into a fistfight with Michaels because they'd have gotten fired on the spot.

[sek69]

It's not just the reluctance to lose titles, it's throwing in ring tantrums and (legit?) stomping Vader just because he wasn't in correct position for a move. It's continually going into business for yourself on promos just to egg on Bret Hart, then having a hissy fit and claiming unsafe working environment when he has enough and goes at him in the locker room. It's trying to get fired so you can go play with your friends in WCW to the point of showing up in no condition to perform.

[PhilTLL]

Entirely unrelated, but did Meltzer coin "in no condition to perform" or did he adopt it from the guys? It only recently struck me what a sad little euphemism it is for "too intoxicated to work." I'm not sure I've ever heard it in any other context.

[El-P]

It's not just the reluctance to lose titles, it's throwing in ring tantrums and (legit?) stomping Vader just because he wasn't in correct position for a move. It's continually going into business for yourself on promos just to egg on Bret Hart, then having a hissy fit and claiming unsafe working environment when he has enough and goes at him in the locker room. It's trying to get fired so you can go play with your friends in WCW to the point of showing up in no condition to perform.

 

It's volontarily taking the shittiest bump for Diesel's powerbomb at Mania 11 to make him look bad. Yeah. Even to his best pal he was an asshole at points.

[thebrainfollower]

I would have hauled him up and whispered "how many of these do you want to take before you take one right you selfish piece of ....." if I were Nash. People, Vince more than anyone, enabled this unprofessional prick by either getting off on it, latching on to exploit it, or just tolerating it.

[SteveJRogers]

Entirely unrelated, but did Meltzer coin "in no condition to perform" or did he adopt it from the guys? It only recently struck me what a sad little euphemism it is for "too intoxicated to work." I'm not sure I've ever heard it in any other context.

Pretty sure its been used in various sports and entertainment industry media reports through the years.

[PhilTLL]

A bit of googling revealed it is not exclusive to wrestling, but wrestling does dominate the usage. And in some other contexts, they even use it for conditions other than intoxication.

[SteveJRogers]

I would have hauled him up and whispered "how many of these do you want to take before you take one right you selfish piece of ....." if I were Nash. People, Vince more than anyone, enabled this unprofessional prick by either getting off on it, latching on to exploit it, or just tolerating it.

FWIW, again team sports are littered with such bad and unprofessional conduct, even TV shows, movie sets, etc. And in those cases you'd have to do something that is pretty much illegal, or get in such a bad way with TPTB to lose a job.

 

Not a defense for Michaels, more to the point where I don't get the idea that the WWE is wrong to over blow his importance, or greatness in the industry based on his grossly unprofessional attitude and conduct, as well as personal demon issues.

[thebrainfollower]

The thing about TV and movie is you can edit these problems out if an actor is trying to sabotage the work or another actor's performance. You can't do that with live TV.

[elliott]

Honestly, when I brought up HBK it had less to do with him being an unprofessional prick who refused to drop titles and showed up to work stoned and has more to do with the fact that when Shawn was the anchor, the WWF was getting it's ass kicked by the competition and was not the #1 promotion in America for the first time in...ever?

[Badlittlekitten]

Far as I'm aware WWE never push HBK as an all time great in terms of star power but more as an all time great performer.

[ragemaster]

 

It's not just the reluctance to lose titles, it's throwing in ring tantrums and (legit?) stomping Vader just because he wasn't in correct position for a move. It's continually going into business for yourself on promos just to egg on Bret Hart, then having a hissy fit and claiming unsafe working environment when he has enough and goes at him in the locker room. It's trying to get fired so you can go play with your friends in WCW to the point of showing up in no condition to perform.

 

It's volontarily taking the shittiest bump for Diesel's powerbomb at Mania 11 to make him look bad. Yeah. Even to his best pal he was an asshole at points.

 

 

Lol Shawn didn't take it wrong Diesel threw him down wrong. If you ever been in the ring and takin a powerbomb, your only really in control of jumping up to take the move. Once your up, its up to your opponent and gravity to control how you take it. Diesel did it in one motion and stepped to the side. If he had stopped and controlled him better he would of landed flat on his back.

[ragemaster]

Would also add who's worse Shawn for being a dick, and not losing a fake title.

Or Bret for calling him out for being a bad role model and his bad behaviour. When he was just as bad cheating on his wife in a real marriage.

My point is there's lots of shits in wrestling, from Bill watts being a sadistic guy who got pleasure beating up people in real fights and maiming them. To Andre the giant being a racist, in the case of Shawn the only person you can blame is Vince.

Vince is the boss and let him get away with it, just like he agreed with Bret that his title loss to the Mountie wouldn't be shown on tv to protect Bret's ego.

[sek69]

No one's under the impression there aren't all sorts of horrible people in wrestling, but most have the professionalism to not display it on worldwide TV.

[Loss]

Nash has admitted that he knew what Shawn was doing in that match, but that he didn't fault him at all because he was just trying to show that he should have been in that spot. They've talked about how Shawn would yell at Hall and Nash on car rides that he was twice as good as Hall and ten times as good as Nash and it wasn't fair that they were in better spots. Of course, Nash responded that he was still the one who turned heads in airports and that was what it was all about. It's that sort of thing that makes me realize when guys like Hall and Nash used to talk about how no one was good enough to take their spots, they were also talking about outmaneuvering them politically. They clearly see the backstage machinations as part of working and have less respect for guys that either don't play that game as much or aren't very good at it. The only way to earn the respect of a conman is to out-con him, as the old saying goes.

[dawho5]

It's hard to fault Michaels, Hall and Nash for wanting to be in the best earning spot they could. It is, however, easy to fault them for causing major problems within the promotion they were working for to stay there. I could say the same for Flair as he got more powerful as well. It's a tough thing as a wrestling fan to separate the enjoyment of in-ring work from the knowledge that a wrestler very likely fucked a lot of people over to get where they are and stay there.

[JaymeFuture]

Just wanted to thank everybody for the nominations, as the podcast discussing "McMyths" is now available at the following link:

http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/8awtz6/SCGRadio49-BustingMcMyths.mp3

We get to all things revisionist history and company line, including Vince's spin on The Brass Ring, the 1994 Steroid Trial, taking on "Ted Turner", crying foul over Eric Bischoff's dirty tactics, Saddam Hussein threatens WrestleMania, the Ultimate Warrior DVD, Montreal, DX's invasion of WCW, wrestling in smoky arenas, Black Saturday and many many more, a really fun show, check it out and let us know what you think!

In addition, next week is our 50th episode, and we're going to be going a mailbag show for the first time this year, so if you have any questions, points of discussion or random comments and thoughts you'd like to hear discussed, drop them below, in a PM or send them to [email protected], and we'll get to them on next week's show.