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[2000-04-15-TWA-Total Impact TV] Shawn Michaels vs Venom


soup23

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Interesting match for me as I am unsure if I have ever watched it. I remember reading about it in PWI or whatever and being shocked Michaels came back for this. This was a pretty fun garbage brawl. Shawn didn't take any bumps on his back but did a good plunder style gimmick match using ladders for a fist drop, boards, garbage cans, etc. He does get some weapon shots across the back that help build the psychology of the match. Venom isn't a very good worker at all either from bumping or working on top. Match peaks with them going to a upper stage and Venom getting hiptossed onto a table below. The big heat of the match comes after that huge bump which is weird as Shawn gets handcuffed and bloodied up. Shooter Schultz comes in to help Michaels out and him and Venom have an embarrassingly bad sequence where they cant go through a table. Shawn ends up winning the company and the belt back. **3/4

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  • 3 weeks later...

Somehow this worked, even though Shawn looked off his game (understandably so considering he was retired, but he was clearly not at a good point in his life), Venom didn't look all that good and Shooter Schultz messed up his run-in pretty badly. I guess it was the pacing and the psychology of the match that carried this, and maybe Shawn was going on instinct. Hard to say. But there's nothing specific I can really point to and say, "That. That's what made this work." Maybe the pacing and selling? I'm not sure. The match was laid out well, so maybe that? It wasn't a huge success, but it worked.

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  • 1 month later...

A very ECW like brawl taking place in Texas. HBK was channeling Bill Watts circa 1986 with not taking many bumps but standing tall and kicking ass. Venom does his best taking punishment and that bump from the stage was nuts. Of course, he gets up in short time and makes it useless but that's whatever. Shawn bleeds a gusher and wins back the company. I'm still surprised this even happened as I thought he was under WWF contract at the time. Poor Shooter Shultz. He just jobbed to that table 3 times.

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  • 1 month later...

It’s so weird hearing ‘Sexy Boy’ on a non-WWF show. Michaels is the current TWA champion after Justin Credible had defeated Venom and then gave the belt to HBK. The match quickly spills to the outside where Venom drives Michaels into the guardrails, while the commentator talks about how he has a fused back and that there is a six inch bar with screws holding it together. Venom drops HBK throat first over the barricade and breaks a crutch over his back. After whipping him to the corner, Michaels avoids the charging Venom and wallops him with a trash can lid. He returns the favour with the crutch and then nails him with his cowboy boot which he had taken off. Piledriver on the trash can lid but he doesn’t even think about a cover, instead heading backstage to collect (a pretty small) ladder. He uses it as an offensive weapon before propping it up in the corner and slingshotting Venom into it. Fist drop off the ladder and Michaels then launches his opponent over the top rope to the floor. Chairshot to the head and Venom is busted open. Back inside and a series of punches as he goes to work on that cut. As Venom collapses in the corner, Michaels places the ladder between his legs and a running baseball slide dropkick into it. He rolls to the floor but HBK follows him and crotches him on the guardrail. Venom crawls to the backstage area and just as Michaels is going to level him again with the trash can, he gets in first with a low blow. Trash can across the fused back and apparently somewhere Vincent K. McMahon is cringing in agony for his once great superstar! Venom stacks up two tables, one on top the other, and goes to hiptoss Michaels off the stage through them, however HBK blocks it and hiptosses Venom through them. Michaels returns to ringside, seemingly looking for something, and a dazed Venom heads after him. HBK grabs a table from underneath the ring, although in the meantime the camera catched Venom emptying a packet of salt into his hand. He tosses the salt in Michaels’ face and nails him a couple of times with the kendo stick opening him up. Venom then handcuffs HBK to the top rope and starts wearing out the kendo stick on him. Shooter Schultz is out for the save and goes to T-Bone suplex Venom through a table he’d just set up but it doesn’t break. Attempt number two and the same outcome! He changes tact and tries to powerbomb him through the table instead and still it doesn’t break! Shooter uncuffs Michaels, HBK with a powerslam through the tables and a superkick for the win, with which he also regains control of the company.

 

I liked the majority of this a lot and the commentator did a good job in getting over what a bad state Michaels’ bad is in. How it’s fused and held together with screws, and how with one wrong bump be might not even be able to throw a football with his recently born child. I thought the pacing and psychology were spot on and it’s a nice change from some of the other weapon matches we’ve watched in this project. Where this went downhill was after Venom’s bump off the stage through the tables. Why did Michaels just leave him to return to the ring? Venom was up far too quickly and then after this almighty bump we then have him getting the heat on HBK. Less said about Schultz’s run-in the better and how on earth did he have a key for the handcuffs? Personally I’d have altered the structure slightly, had the heat section earlier (and not involving handcuffs) and the stage bump being the climax (scrapping Schultz’s involvement together). That final few minutes puts it a tad below the tag match for the month.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

Cool novelty match but not actually all that good. Given the circumstances I thought Shawn looked good. Shawn working most of the match on top made sense as this is essentially come and see Shawn work a match in his own promotion that you never thought you'd see. I agree it had a nice mid 80s Bill Watts feel to it. Venom didn't look good. The big table bump off the stage should have been the finish. The spot itself almost looked scary when it looked like Venom wasn't going to rotate in time. Both of them wandering back to the ring and completely brushing the spot off was frustrating. Shooter Schulz with an all time great run in. I could see before he even went for the first t-bone that he'd struggle to break the table. Laws of gravity exist in Texas too. Just nowhere near enough drop time. So of course he goes for it again. Totally agree that this should have ended on the stage with Shawn delivering Sweet Chin Music to kick Venom off the stage through the table.

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  • 1 month later...

This was pretty forgettable... The novelty of HBK working a hardcore match at an/his own indy show and getting bloodied up in 2000 was quite unique, but aside from that, there's not really much else to rely on. Venom going after HBK's bad back due to the all of the accumulated injuries was smart from a psychological stand point, but there was no selling to go along with it it and the handcuff spot worked, but then everything else was shambles.

 

I agree this should have ended during the hiptoss from the stage through the table below, but instead it didn't and they just kept working ignoring it. The run in by Shooter Schultz maybe the most embarrassing run in in the history of wrestling -- 3 table botches and he never managed to break the table. HBK had to recover and ignore his back injuries to just get the table spot in.

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  • GSR changed the title to [2000-04-15-TWA-Total Impact TV] Shawn Michaels vs Venom

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