Shawn Michaels vs British Bulldog

[Austin3164life 0]

The SNME IC match from 10/27/92 is a great, ****ish, match which sees nice work around the abdominal stretch, and its kept to a time limit which never sees a gassed Davey. Better than KOTR 96, fairly easily. One Night Only is also a pretty darn exciting match.

[MDH257 0]

For heat, nothing compares to One Night Only.

 

Davey Boy was told he was winning the match, so he went around promoting the show in the U.K. media and saying that his sister, who has cancer, will be in the front row cherring him on and that he's dedicating the match to her.

 

The day of the show Shawn decides he wants to win the match and the European title, Vince tells Bulldog that the next U.K. ppv is in his hometown of Manchester and it will make a great story for Bulldog to win it back there. 

Bulldog reluctently agreed. 

The match (with Davey Boy's family including his sister, who died months later, sitting in the front row and acknowledged often on camera) is really good and ends with Shawn winning with tons of interference from HHH, Chyna, and Rick Rude.  The crowd is pissed.  DX directs some of their crotch chops at Bulldog's wife and sister, Shawn gets on the mike and calls the crowd a bunch of lymies, and the crowd pelted the ring with garbage comparable to the early days of the nWo.  

 

Bret was pissed because he and Owen wrestled earlier and he wondered why they weren't scripted to at least make the save for Davey Boy after the match.

 

Montreal was two months later and the Buldog obviously was gone by the time the Manchester show happened (not like Shawn was ever really gonna lose it anyway).

 

On the list of all of Shawn's evil political moves, I rank that near the top.  And this is coming form someone who thought he should have been in the Observer Hall of Fame Long before he was voted in.

 

you really should credit Dave Meltzer when almost verbatim reprinting his recap of the scenario.

 

-Paul Jacobi-

Yeah, how else was I gonna know about. I thought it was assumed that any accurate info we knew was because of Meltzer and Keller.

I was telling the story from what I remembered , not verbatim trancribing.

If I knew of Observer story from Sept. '97 being on the web somewhere, I'd happily link to it.

[Si82 0]

I mean, what was the point in giving him the European Championship anyway?

 

So he can become the first Grand Slam Champion (World, IC, Tag, EC). Yeah, I know, he couldn't have waited until they got back to the US.

Why did he need to be the first Grand Slam Champion?

 

He didn't need to. It didn't add anything to his feud with the Undertaker, which was on going at the time, and they knew he was being thrust into the world title picture after that. Did Michaels ever defend the European Championship other than when he lost it to Triple H? If anything he made the title worthless.

 

I'm not to have a go, but I just don't see it as a valid excuse.

HBK wanted the belt just to add to his resume. Its shallow, yes. But people remember that. It was another stroke to his ego.

After all Michaels wouldn't have been remembered for a bunch of classic matches and a number of different title reigns would he? However, this does not surprise me at all. It's just another example of why I hate Shawn Michaels.

[Guest Rrrsh]

Austins one major pull: Refusing to work with Jeff Jarrett... honestly, who the fuck wouldn't? I still don't buy Jarrett as a main eventer in TNA.

And I feel that Shawn didn't deserve to to lose to anybody but Sid in 96 cuz no one was over enough.

 

But they still pulled that stuff, no if anyone feels it was justified or not.

[Guest Rrrsh]

That is very irrelevant. HBK was very political to a smark fav. in Bret and his antics are very well known. The amount of shit Austin pulled is equal to Shawn, but people think he is good and are marks for his gimmick. Its that simple.

 

HBK's bullshit as a wrestler made life harder for everyone. Austin's bullshit as a wrestler made the company money and in part turned the company around.

Are you saying that you wouldnt be incredably bitter to Shawn on what he did to Bulldog if he was drawing?

 

Yah right. Its an inherant biased in which drawing has no relivance.

Austin didn't pull nearly the amount of unnecessary shit that Michaels did.

U say its unneccicary. I feel most of it was.

[Guest LooneyTune]

What a horrible job at trying to spell "unnecessary". You should hang your head in shame.

[Guest Rrrsh]

Thank you grammer boy.

[Dark Age 0]

lol.

[Guest LooneyTune]

Grammar, not grammer.

[Guest Loss]

Comparing Shawn and Austin is ridiculous. Neither is a saint by any stretch, but they're two totally different scenarios. Austin didn't start pulling stunts that were detrimental to business until 2001 or so, and even then, he was still one of the few big stars they had and needed to be somewhat protected. Shawn has lost the World title once without doing a job, the IC title twice without doing a job, the European title once without doing a job and the tag titles twice without doing a job. That's an unheard of track record, and none of those were storyline-based at all.

 

Austin dropped the IC title twice without losing - once because of temporary paralysis with everyone thinking his run was over and once because they wanted to protect him on the road to his first title win. Every time he lost the World title, he did a job and the only time there were problems with him dropping the tag titles was in June of '97 when HBK quit the company after a backstage skirmish with Bret.

 

Austin is either the #1 or #2 biggest draw in the history of American wrestling while Shawn isn't anywhere in that league. He was given the title and a major company promotional push in 1996, which failed because he was alienating the male audience with his chick magnet bullshit, and guys didn't want to take their girlfriends to see someone who threatened them. That's my theory anyway. His second and fourth runs with the title in '97 and '02 were jokes, and his transitional run in '97-'98 was admittedly great with him finally in the right role to draw heat and pass the torch.

 

No one gets to the level Austin and Shawn have reached without playing the game, but comparing the professionalism of Michaels and Austin is ridiculous. If you want to compare Michaels to someone else, he's about on par with Kevin Nash in terms of reliability and doing what is asked of him without a problem. Austin is probably on level with Flair -- someone who did occasionally refuse to do things, but who largely went along with what was asked.

[Guest Rrrsh]

Grammar, not grammer.

Hey, you got my joke.

[Guest LooneyTune]

Loss just made the best argument about the comparison, but that probably won't stop the arguing.

[Guest Rrrsh]

Comparing Shawn and Austin is ridiculous. Neither is a saint by any stretch, but they're two totally different scenarios. Austin didn't start pulling stunts that were detrimental to business until 2001 or so, and even then, he was still one of the few big stars they had and needed to be somewhat protected. Shawn has lost the World title once without doing a job, the IC title twice without doing a job, the European title once without doing a job and the tag titles twice without doing a job. That's an unheard of track record, and none of those were storyline-based at all.

 

Austin dropped the IC title twice without losing - once because of temporary paralysis with everyone thinking his run was over and once because they wanted to protect him on the road to his first title win. Every time he lost the World title, he did a job and the only time there were problems with him dropping the tag titles was in June of '97 when HBK quit the company after a backstage skirmish with Bret.

 

Austin is either the #1 or #2 biggest draw in the history of American wrestling while Shawn isn't anywhere in that league. He was given the title and a major company promotional push in 1996, which failed because he was alienating the male audience with his chick magnet bullshit, and guys didn't want to take their girlfriends to see someone who threatened them. That's my theory anyway. His second and fourth runs with the title in '97 and '02 were jokes, and his transitional run in '97-'98 was admittedly great with him finally in the right role to draw heat and pass the torch.

 

No one gets to the level Austin and Shawn have reached without playing the game, but comparing the professionalism of Michaels and Austin is ridiculous. If you want to compare Michaels to someone else, he's about on par with Kevin Nash in terms of reliability and doing what is asked of him without a problem. Austin is probably on level with Flair -- someone who did occasionally refuse to do things, but who largely went along with what was asked.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I am not comparing them. What I am saying is that HBK will have people throw out all logic in watching him and be completly negative towards everything he does becuase of what he did backstage. People cream themesleves over Austin and never EVER mention anything bad about him.

 

And for the record, people's hate for Michaels pretty much stems from his role as a heel in 97 and not any of the shit he pulled before that. And he did pull a lot of it, but most of that is glossed over in regards to people hate for the man.

[Guest Loss]

I would agree that people can often times be too harsh on Shawn. Some of the criticisms levied on him are quite valid though, and it's important to not get caught up in absolutes and rather just separate the BS from the truth. Hard to do, admittedly.

 

[cawthon777 0]

The SNME IC match from 10/27/92 is a great, ****ish, match which sees nice work around the abdominal stretch, and its kept to a time limit which never sees a gassed Davey. Better than KOTR 96, fairly easily. One Night Only is also a pretty darn exciting match.

I don't know if I would agree in saying it's a better match than the 96-97 stuff but the SNME match and Shawn winning the title crushed me since I was an 11-year old Bulldog mark.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Shawn should have jobbed to Vader, period.

[Guest Rrrsh]

Shawn should have jobbed to Vader, period.

No way. Vader was not worthy at that time. Is was boring, slow and wasn't over.

 

 

 

Period.

[Guest LooneyTune]

Bull. Trying to say Vader wasn't over just proves your bias shit for Michaels.

 

What was invested into Vader from January-August 1996:

Killed everyone at Rumble. DESTROYED GORILLA MONSOON. Vader squashed a former World Champion (Yokozuna) like he was an ant on multiple occasions. He was the first person to pin Ahmed Johnson. He was 1 of the people responsible for taking out the Warrior. He destroyed "legend" Jake Roberts at King of the Ring, and manhandled Shawn Michaels every time they have a physical confrontation. Vader was never booked wrong ONCE in 1996, until Shawn Michaels got piss scared because everyone liked Vader and hated his guts.

 

NO ONE gets that push unless he's over, no one.

[cawthon777 0]

Vader was over.

 

Period.

 

You could argue he should have won the strap at Summer Slam and blame Shawn. Or you could argue he should have won the strap at Survivor Series and blame Vader himself for being injured going into the match with Sid. Either way, I would have preferred Vader with the belt than Sid with the belt.

[Guest Rrrsh]

Bull. Trying to say Vader wasn't over just proves your bias shit for Michaels.

 

What was invested into Vader from January-August 1996:

Killed everyone at Rumble. DESTROYED GORILLA MONSOON. Vader squashed a former World Champion (Yokozuna) like he was an ant on multiple occasions. He was the first person to pin Ahmed Johnson. He was 1 of the people responsible for taking out the Warrior. He destroyed "legend" Jake Roberts at King of the Ring, and manhandled Shawn Michaels every time they have a physical confrontation. Vader was never booked wrong ONCE in 1996, until Shawn Michaels got piss scared because everyone liked Vader and hated his guts.

 

NO ONE gets that push unless he's over, no one.

He should have gotten the strap around WM. But, they had a plan and were set on it. He was FAR more over right after he killed Monsoon. But then he was in a opener in WM and it went downhill from there. The Ahmed thing was glanced over, ditto with Warrior. The WWE booked him as unimportant starting at WM. He SHOULD have been booked far better, but wasn't. Therefor, at Summerslam, it was the right move.

 

The smart thing would have been Michaels losing to Bret due to Deisel's interfernce. Have Vader KILL Hall and set up Vader beating Bret at the April IYH. Micheals could have waited for his belt untill Summerslam or Survivor Series.

[Guest LooneyTune]

Problem with that Summerslam loss: A big win would've rebuilt the monster he was in the first few months he was in WWF. However, a loss to Michaels hurt him far worse because all he did was flounder around for the rest of his WWF career.

 

He had one big shot, and that one simple loss hurt his career. Plus the fact he was booked like shit after that didn't help.

[Si82 0]

Problem with that Summerslam loss: A big win would've rebuilt the monster he was in the first few months he was in WWF. However, a loss to Michaels hurt him far worse because all he did was flounder around for the rest of his WWF career.

 

He had one big shot, and that one simple loss hurt his career. Plus the fact he was booked like shit after that didn't help.

I agree.

 

Giving Vader the title and then having him lose it in a couple of months would have just been a bad idea and would have made him look worse in the fan's eyes.

 

There was no reason for Vader to lose at Summerslam.

[Guest krazykat72]

[if I knew of Observer story from Sept. '97 being on the web somewhere, I'd happily link to it.

http://www.brethart.com/montreal/facts.asp

 

 

 

-Paul Jacobi-

[MDH257 0]

Thanks, I remember Bret said once that Dave's Montreal story was on his website. But I'd hadn't read it in forever and didn't rememeber the One Night Only details being a part of the story. That's why I said Sept. '97 (when ONO happened) instead of Nov. '97.