Hunter's Torn Quad

Back then, it was probably a bit of both.

Hall was meant to win at WM X8. but it wouldn't have affected the brand extension, just kept the NWO feud going. Austin didn't want to lose to Hall, because he didn't think Hall would be around long enough to finish the feud off. The finish was changed the day before WM X8, but not directly due to Austin not wanting to do the job, but because the writing team agreed that Hall wasn't worth giving the win to, as he wouldn't be around long anyway. And they were right.

Yes. On their last night with the company in 1995, one of them blocked the door to the locker room, while the other grabbed Michaels by the throat and snatched him up against the wall, and basically scared the crap out of him.

I never heard that, what's the story there? Shawn was trying to back out of doing the job to Austin at XIV, going so far that he said he was going to turn the main event into a shoot. The story goes that Taker told him that if he wasn't going to be jobbing out in the ring, he would be jobbing out in the parking lot when he got back. This incident has been confirmed by numerous sources, including I believe, Taker himself. Hunter's Torn Quad knows more about it than I do. I'm sure he could describe it in more detail. In the run up to WM XIV, Shawn started making noise about not dropping the WWF Title to Austin. This continued up until the event itself. Before the match, Undertaker went to the gorilla position, where the wrestlers are right before they enter the areana, and began taping his fists up. He told Shawn point blank that if he didn't do the job in the ring, he'd be doing the job the moment he stepped back through the curtains.

The point is that Shawn got his win back at all. Would it really have damaged Shawn to lose when Kurt interfered ? Not only would it have set up his WM match with Angle, but it also wouldn't have given the message that Edge really can't beat Michaels, which is what you got, given that Edge hit a ton of big moves on Shawn with Shawn kicking out of them all, and then hitting one kick to get the win back.

Rhyno did a shooter gimmick ? Guess I missed that one.

Except for the fact that he tapped out cleanly to Benoit's sharpshooter at Backlash 2004. And as for the idea that Angle would look bad if Michaels was somehow able to get back his win, that's false. Angle made Shawn tap out CLEANLY at WrestleMania XXI. Looking throughout Shawn's career, there are not many people that could make that argument. After an excellent match that made the both of them look great, Angle actually made Shawn tap out. If Shawn was to get back his win in the future, it wouldn't make Angle look any less threatening or any less credible. It would just establish that, maybe, these two wrestlers might be on the same level when it comes to wrestling talent. They're equally as good in the ring and, when they're facing each other, they just need to pull out that little extra something to get off the win. Seeing as how they're both considered to be WWE legends, this SHOULD be the image you're trying to portray. Angle losing the next match between the two doesn't hurt him, and I doubt it would be an example of "Shawn's backstage pull" getting in the way. It would just be a testament to the fact that these two are equally as good in the ring. This is hardly comparable to the Edge/Michaels thing. Edge won on a cheap fluke rollup at the Royal Rumble. Kurt Angle managed to make Shawn Michaels tap out cleanly. Shawn getting back his win in both scenarios have different effects. Against Edge, it gives off the impression that Edge needs to bend the rules to get a win off Michaels -- but he still CAN do it. If he doesn't though, he could very easily lose to Shawn, as he did in the Street Fight. Against Angle, it gives off the impression that both men could beat each other at any time. Angle can make Shawn tap out cleanly at WrestleMania XXI. Michaels can pin Angle cleanly at another major PPV. They are now put on the same competitive level. There is a difference in beating someone as part of a three-way, and beating them in a normal singles match. If you beat someone in a singles match, the right way, then there is no question that you are the better man, and you were shown to be able to beat them one-on-one. The benefits of a clean singles win over someone are greater than the benefits of beating them, even cleanly, in a three-way match, where the other guy being there takes the edge off of it. Nobody said Angle would look bad if Michaels got his win back. They were just pointing out that Michaels is getting his win back, so it's not like he selflessly put Angle over, because in the long run he didn't. It is comparable in that it can be argued, probably accurately, that Shawn only lost to Edge, and not even cleanly, because he was going to get his win back anyway. If Shawn was told to put Edge or Angle over and that he wouldn't get his win back, would he have been so willing to put them over at all ? I don't think he would have, at least not without a lot of complaining. Edge shouldn't be presented as needing to cheat to beat Michaels. Edge is meant to be a future top guy, at least as top as anyone can get with Hunter around, so he should have been given a strong clean win over Michaels at the Rumble, so that the fans can start to really take him seriously. As it is, he had to cheat to win, and when they had their rematch, Edge threw everything he had at Michaels and still couldn't win, while Shawn came back to win clean with one move.

WWE has tried numerous times to keep at pushing their flavor of the month even when the fans haven't taken to them how the company wanted. Hunter didn't over to any real degree for almost three years, despite getting push after push, and even then it took another two years or so and Mick Foley putting him over clean on three straight PPV's before the fans finally accepted him as a top guy. Rhyno was three or four inches taller than Taz and at least 30lbs heavier, and yet in your eyes Rhyno was the poor copy ?

The fight happened June 9th if I'm not mistaken--the day after KOTR. He wasn't too far off on that one. Yeah, it was in June. Still, it's an error that a book like that should have corrected before going to press. It also doesn't mention Shawn's threat to go and appear on the live Nitro going on that night.

Heyman got Rhyno over by booking to his strengths and hiding his weaknesses. It's the best way to get anyone over, and I don't know why such an intelligent concept is getting so much derision around here. You could say the same for anyone if they aren't booked to maximise their strengths and to hide their weaknesses.

They're going to do Kurt v Shawn again, as they already began teasing it, so Shawn's getting his win back, so he didn't really put Angle over. It was the same deal with him losing to Edge at the Rumble; Shawn got his win back in pretty short order, so Edge didn't really get over from the win, because he lost right back to Shawn. Michaels being put in the WM XX main event was simply down to Hunter wanting it, so he could feud with his friend on top, while the World Champion was kept in the semi's.

That 'piece' has more than a few errors in it, that simple fact checking would have corrected. For one thing, the fight in Boston happened in early July. Second, the idea of Bret giving the belt up was certainly not decided upon for sure before that Sunday in Montreal, and even then it was never a set upon plan. Bret and Vince were still talking things out that afternoon, which you can hear on Wrestling With Shadows.

Wouldn't have made more sense, then, to have Trips keep the IC title and defend it in his match with Benoit? It would have, but given the choice, Hunter likely would have gone with dropping the IC Title to Kane before losing to Benoit, which itself he would probably have tried to get out of. Losing the IC belt to Kane didn't do that much for Kane, as he was already at the main event level at that point in time. However, dropping the IC Title to Benoit would have probably elevated Benoit to the edges of the top level, and I don't see Hunter doing that.

The KotR was meant to have Austin v Jericho and Hunter v Benoit. The Austin v Hunter match was tentatively scheduled for Summerslam. The plan for Hunter during the Invasion storyline was for him to jump to WCW and be the guy it would get built around, and eventually unify the belts.

How do you know he could work fine? Even Bret said on one of those shoot tapes that he was starting to believe him before he came back too fast. As I said, go and some very basic research. Shawn was meant to lose the WWF Title to Sid at the Thursday Raw special, and then lose to Bret at WM XIII. Shawn ducked out of those two jobs by claiming his knee was bad. It won't be that hard to look up.

Remember that Shawn got injured? Like Vince said, refusing to lose the title to Shawn at his last major PPV wasn't reasonable. Total work. Shawn could go fine. He just didn't want to do a job to Bret. Go look it up. As was mentioned in the very first post in this thread, SurSer wasn't going to be Bret's last PPV. It was meant to be, and was agreed upon, to be the December PPV, where Bret would lose to either Undertaker or Shamrock in the 4-way, with Shawn eventually winning the belt at the end of the match

Yes, he would. People who have lost all feeling below their neck can still type, using a special helmet-like device that has an attatchment to it that allows them to press the keys on a keyboard. It's cumbersome, but it can be done, and is done all the time.

The rant had to do with why Vince was right. Shawn was right because Vince was right and doing what he wanted. Shawn was right because Vince was right ? So, how was Shawn right in refusing to do jobs for anyone at all because Vince was right in doing what he did to Bret ?

That's what I thought but Meltzer says right there that by Survivor Series he would only drop it to Shawn in december if Shawn put him over first. Even so, that doesn't make it much better. It would be like HHH refusing to put over Benoit or Batista at WM and instead wanting to do it on a Raw or at Backlash in a 4 way. Remember that Shawn was supposed to put Bret over earlier in the year at WM XIII, but Shawn ducked out of that job too. If I was asked to put a guy over who had, not only ducked out of doing a job to me, but also had refused to do any jobs to anyone else at all, I wouldn't want to do it either. Not really, because Bret had the contractual right to veto any finish presented to him. Shawn never had such a right when he was always getting out of doing jobs.

You do realise that Bret did eventually agree to even lose to Shawn clean, even though Shawn had repeatedly stated he would never job to Bret, or anyone else in the company for that matter ?

For his two years in the WWF from 1997 to when he left in 1999, during which time the company got its best ratings ever, they gave him chance after chance to get over, with gimmick after gimmick, with each one failing miserably. The only reason he even got a reaction in the first place, and it wasn't much of one, was when he got given the woman beating gimmick, which, given the audience the WWF had at the time would have been hard pressed not to get a reaction with. Not in this lifetime or the next could Jeff Jarrett be the next Ric Flair, and the fact that you seem to really think that shows just how truly blind you are.

WWE will excuse pretty much anything as long as it doesn't get them negative attention in the press.

Shawn walked out of the building that night, about 15 minutes before Raw was to go live, and they had to re-write Raw, which Shawn was to be a big part of, in order to start building up to the Calgary Stampede PPV. As he was leaving, Shawn said he was going to fly down to Boston, where Nitro was taking place, and that he'd show up on Nitro. Shawn refused to come back to the company at first, claiming an unsafe working environment. Vince didn't want to do it at MSG, because it would have cost something like $50,000, because of the fees involved in taping something at MSG.

Shawn mouthed off to Bret one time too many, and Bret took him down and yanked out a couple of large chunks of hair and gave Shawn a few good bruises as well. It got broken up pretty quickly, but not as fast as it could have been, if you know what I mean.

I imagine he would have said something along the lines of letting his hatred for Shawn Michaels get the better of him, and that while the US has bad apples like Shawn, every country has them, and that you shouldn't judge a whole country because of those who disgrace it.