Shawn Michaels Ten Years Later

[Strummer]

When I came on the net nearly 10 years ago Shawn Michaels was a definite smark favorite. There were some who claimed Shawn had "saved the WWF" from going out of business. With heavy influence from Dave Meltzer, Shawn was generally regarded as a great wrestler and possibly one of the best of all time. There were some critics, but as a whole he was considered an elite worker. His backstage antics were mostly ignored as he had great matches that placated net fans. There were some who rated him higher than Bret, which, if claimed today, might get you banned from a few boards.

 

Cue to nearly 10 years later and Shawn is being vilified by many (maybe even most). People are calling him on his politics now and are pointing out his glaring flaws as a worker (no selling, stooging, overselling simple moves, etc.) There are now threads claiming Mark Henry is better than him. He's probably one of the most unpopular wrestlers on the net. So what happened in those 10 years? Was Shawn being overrated back in 96/97? Is he being underrated now? Has there ever been a wrestler that has taken such a dive in popularity amongst "smart" fans?

 

I'd thought I'd start a thread on this as it's the tenth year anniversary of Shawn's mega title push and so much has changed in how fans view his ability

[Guest Bruiser Chong]

Failure to evolve as a worker would probably be my guess. Shawn Michaels circa 1992 and 1996 are almost two different entities. He's not as good a worker as he once was, but he hasn't slipped off that much. My guess would be him showing no growth in character or in-ring ability in the last decade has made him seem stale and overrated.

[Guest The Metal Maniac]

I think HBK was over-rated to a degree, but it's not like the great matches he had back then are suddenly shit because people started noticing how annoying the kip-up can be.

 

I also think that his main problem these days is that his matches are totally cookie-cutter. For a guy who used to razz on Bret for his 5 moves of doom, he's become awful at it. What is it, inverted atomic drop, flying forarm, kipup, elbow, superkick?

 

Except for when he misses the superkick, and the other guy goes on offense for less then a minute before HBK hits it "out of nowhere".

[sek69]

I think is mostly a matter of overstaying one's welcome. All the greats have done it: Hogan, Flair, Piper, Austin, even Foley (he's done a good job of limiting his appearances so it's not as obvious with him).

 

Guys aren't able to stay at their peak forever, and they spend the time afterwards trying to reclaim that peak (or even worse pretend like they're still at their peak).

 

His constant political games also wear away at his legacy as well. His behavior during and after the Hogan feud was completely inexcusable for a guy at his level.

[Guest Alfdogg]

I never liked Shawn Michaels, even as a casual fan, and have never found him to be as good as some like to say. As "non-believeable" as Rey allegedly was as champion, I never found Shawn any more believeable. I never found it believeable when he was going over clean on guys like Diesel/Yokozuna/Vader/Sid/etc. I'm sure I'll probably catch some shit for that, but that's just how I feel.

 

He only made me hate him more when he came back in 2002. I presumed he was coming back for a mini-feud with HHH and then stepping out, but no, here he is nearly four years later squashing everyone on the RAW side, despite allegedy having 'changed." Look at how much damage was done to Edge last year after he was done feuding with Shawn. Were it not for John Cena and Mick Foley, he may have never been accepted as a main eventer again.

 

And people still do justify his backstage stuff, depending on workrate. Remember Chris Masters? Michaels squashed him, but it was OK, because "Masters sucks, Masters is just a green hoss, etc." Same with Carlito, and Muhammad Hassan, though he never actually went over Hassan.

 

However, he *is* better than Mark Henry. I can say that for him.

[Mad Dog]

I was indifferent to him for a long time. But it's his nuthuggers that drove me to hate them. There were 2-3 guys at TSM that used to drive me up the wall with how they twisted stories and everything to make Michaels look good.

 

As far as his matches. I always preferred Sting matches. While he wasn't as consistent he doesn't do the little things that Michaels does that annoy me. Plus his matches with Vader seemed to be the prototype for Michaels entire run at the top and he never topped the worst of those.

 

My other big issue with him was the Wrestlemania XII iron man and seeing him totally fall apart as a worker and then seeing it hyped as ***** because it was an hour long. I hate this match with a passion.

[Loss]

I was a big fan of Michaels in his day and still enjoy a lot of his matches from the first decade or so of his career. My annoyance with him is that when he retired, most of us had moved on and found new favorites and then he proceeded to come back and beat them over and over. Shawn doing a nostalgia comeback isn't a terrible thing, but he's not being protected in some ways and is being overprotected in others. He's had far too many long matches on TV in the past few years, which has just overexposed him and lumped him in with the rest of the old guys, and then he's also pushed way too high on the card at the expense of people with greater futures ahead of them.

 

Shawn doing the Hogan thing of 3-4 matches a year -- at most -- with his stuff being mostly self-contained would be much less grating.

[Mad Dog]

Now I do still like Rocker Michaels quite a bit but I think that's because he understood his role then. He didn't make the big guys treat him like Superman in the ring.

[Guest Bruiser Chong]

Yeah, one needs look no further than the 1990 Royal Rumble, where Warrior effortlessly whoops the shit out of Michaels.

[Guest DylanWaco]

The problem is that Michaels is a slowed down, predictable shell of his former self, who doesn't do alot of things that made him a memorable wrestler and instead has enhanced the facets of his work they were least impressive. I don't TOTALLY blame him because the older you get the easier it becomes to rely on shctick and casting himself in the "superhuman" role is probably self gratifying. Still he has been actively bad for about a year now largely because of this.

 

As for the older stuff. I have always felt that The Rockers were one of the most underrated tag teams ever and Shawn's work their is awesome and usually forgotten.

 

His singles runs were strange in that they were very good, but had they not been happening at the top of the WWF card I doubt they would have been as highly touted as they were at the time. His 96 in particular was highly touted at the time, but is massively overrated in the scheme of things. Without any stretching at all one can construct an argument that Michaels wasn't even one of the five best workers in the STATES that year, and that's a year that included alot of good stuff from Japan (no clue what Mexico was like).

[Mad Dog]

I liked the Rockers a lot but I always thought Jannetty was the better of the two as far as that team went.

[Guest DylanWaco]

I THINK Jannetty may have been better, but it's really close and part of the reason I like the team so much is that you never think when you are watching their matches "boy he really carried the team", which is more than I can say for alot of the other great 80's tandems.

[Guest Some Guy]

I think HBK was over-rated to a degree, but it's not like the great matches he had back then are suddenly shit because people started noticing how annoying the kip-up can be.

 

I also think that his main problem these days is that his matches are totally cookie-cutter. For a guy who used to razz on Bret for his 5 moves of doom, he's become awful at it. What is it, inverted atomic drop, flying forarm, kipup, elbow, superkick?

It goes: Flying forearm, kip up, inverted atomic drop. three clotheslines, bodyslam, elbow off the top, superkick.

 

I'm a pretty big fan of Michaels, but his matches are becoming cookie cutter, mostly because he's always put in the ring with guys like Masters, Hasaan, and The Spirit Squad. You give him shit to work with and he'll just go through the motions. When he's worked with Benoit, Rey, Shelton, Jericho and a few others then he mixes it up and breaks out new/old moves that he rarely uses anymore, like the Teardrop suplex or the Doctorbomb.

 

In his book he basically admitted that he doesn't try as har or feel that he has to do as much now as he did in his prime. He's found a formula that pops the the crowd and for the most part keeps him healthy, combine that with making about $1 million a year and one can understand why he does it, but I wish he would mix it up or become a part time performer.

 

Either way, this DX shit has to stop. They should just turn the guy heel, like they started to in the Hogan program. There is a reason that match drew such big money and I think most of it can be attributed to HBK finally giving the fans the heel turn that they wanted to see.

[Guest Luds]

I liked Michaels in his early WWE days, all the way to the end of the Rockers, but never cared for him after that. He just annoyed me.

[Strummer]

According to the latest Observer Shawn just signed a 5-year contract for $1.5 million per year. That's insane. Especially during a down period

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

That is insane. Who is he going to draw with to justify that kind of money? The fact that he was planning on cutting back his schedule earlier this year shows that he's probably hurting pretty bad. Will he be able to work a full schedule for another five years? This is a horrible investment.

[Loss]

What big matches does Michaels have left that he hasn't done? HHH, Vince, Hogan, Flair, Jericho, Benoit and Angle have already been done. Just Rock, and that match ain't happening.

[Mad Dog]

I think the real question is will Michaels actually put someone over in that time period.

[Guest bravesfan]

Cena/Michaels was never done officially, and a second program with Benoit would work. There are other guys that could make it work the second time around, but it would take some work to take it from the midcard feud it was, to a match that could main-event. In that case, Batista, Orton and a long shot in Benjamin.

[Guest Cam Chaos]

Cena/Michaels was never done officially, and a second program with Benoit would work. There are other guys that could make it work the second time around, but it would take some work to take it from the midcard feud it was, to a match that could main-event. In that case, Batista, Orton and a long shot in Benjamin.

Orton and Batista have both had a few matches with Michaels. I know Batista vs Michaels was on a PPV card a couple of years ago.

[JHawk]

Michaels vs. Benjamin as a PPV feud is one I want to see, but only if Benjamin goes over in the end.

[Loss]

I don't think it's necessarily important that Michaels lose the majority of the matches, as long as they're booked in a way where his opponent doesn't look like a chump, which does happen too much of the time. Michaels is a veteran, Shelton is climbing the ladder. It makes sense that Michaels would get the upper hand for at least some of the feud. And while I hate to admit this, we all argued Michaels going over Jericho being a bad move because Jericho would be there in the long haul and Michaels wouldn't. Three years later, who's still active and who is retired?

 

What it comes down to is that Flair really needs to retire. As long as Flair keeps going, guys 5 years or 10 years younger than him will keep going, because they'll think if Flair can do it, they can do it. The difference is that Flair is apparently made of teflon and will probably be capable of taking bumps into his 70s. Hogan can't really do that in his 50s, and Michaels is maybe just as limited or more limited than Flair in his 40s.

[sek69]

 

And while I hate to admit this, we all argued Michaels going over Jericho being a bad move because Jericho would be there in the long haul and Michaels wouldn't. Three years later, who's still active and who is retired?

 

 

You could make the argument that the same person is responsible for both guys' current statuses.

[Guest Cam Chaos]

I believe jericho suggested that just because you get the elevator up it doesn't mean you'll get a desk on the top floor. Having realised that but accomplished more or less all there was to do in the best paying promotion with the most international exposure, he decided to move on than stay static.

[Guest bravesfan]

Cena/Michaels was never done officially, and a second program with Benoit would work. There are other guys that could make it work the second time around, but it would take some work to take it from the midcard feud it was, to a match that could main-event. In that case, Batista, Orton and a long shot in Benjamin.

Orton and Batista have both had a few matches with Michaels. I know Batista vs Michaels was on a PPV card a couple of years ago.

Hence why I said "second time around". Michaels/Batista was a throwaway feud for the short amount of time it lasted, and the same thing happened with Michaels/Orton.