Just how good could Marty Jannety have been

[Guest LooneyTune]

Shawn Michaels was the main focus along with Austin for No Way Out. Like mentioned, it wasn't until an hour before the match began that fans were told Shawn wasn't there.

[Guest krazykat72]

Talking about Shawns heel work from 1997...

 

Am I the only one who doesn't like his matches with Undertaker from Ground Zero and Bad(d) Blood? Both are 20+ minutes of Undertaker beating him up, Shawn bouncing around like a ball... and thats just about it. 20 minutes of punching and Undertaker no selling.

The Hell in a Cell from Bad Blood is the best cage match in WWE History.

The entire point of the match was for Undertaker to be able to kick Shawn's ass after him getting away from him the previous few months and costing him the title back at SummerSlam. The UT is also significantly larger than Michaels and they played that up in the matches, with Shawn sticking and moving.

The first HiaC had a bunch of innovative spots and some really good storytelling (Shawnfiguring out howw to get out of the cage, using big moves like the piledriver on the steps to put UT down, etc).

Ground Zero is really good as well and was a great setup for the match. The DQ schmozz was really good and it necessitated the need for the Cell the next month.

 

As for his drawing from 12/97-3/98

 

The December shows usually were bad draws and that one was no different. In Shawn's defense, it did outdraw the previous 2 December shows.

The Rumble did ok that year (a lot better than '97) and the 2/98 show was ok, but they did advertise him not being on before the show (Savio was the Mystery man if I recall).

 

-Paul Jacobi-

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

A great draw can draw a good buy rate against all but the most un-over of opponents. IYH: D-X got, for the time, a terrible buy rate. If Shawn was as good a draw as he was a heel, IYH: DX would have gotten a lot more buys than it did.

 

And, as I actually did point out, he didn't wrestle on the Feb PPV, but that had no bearing on the buy rate, because few people found out he wasn't appearing until the last minute or until bell time, so any buys for the event were garnered with the belief he was wrestling.

 

And while I'm not 'blaming' Shawn for not taking viewers away from WCW, a great draw would have managed to do better than he did.

[Shanghai Kid 0]

So what was that meant to do, if not knock their viewpoint ?

Actually I was throwing that out there cause it seemed like he was stating it as a fact that Shawn had never done a good interview to sell a match. I wasn't saying that to help my argument or disprove his, I should of worded it better but I was trying to get the point across that no matter if he thinks Shawn didn't do good promos to sell matches or if I believed the contrary, theirs really no evidence to prove either theory right.

[Shanghai Kid 0]

A great draw can draw a good buy rate against all but the most un-over of opponents. IYH: D-X got, for the time, a terrible buy rate. If Shawn was as good a draw as he was a heel, IYH: DX would have gotten a lot more buys than it did.

 

And, as I actually did point out, he didn't wrestle on the Feb PPV, but that had no bearing on the buy rate, because few people found out he wasn't appearing until the last minute or until bell time, so any buys for the event were garnered with the belief he was wrestling.

 

And while I'm not 'blaming' Shawn for not taking viewers away from WCW, a great draw would have managed to do better than he did.

Fair enough, maybe those PPVs did not draw great, but I wouldn't compare them to WCW since in December WCW was having it's biggest show ever in Starcade. And I still don't think the buyrates of those PPVs would all be based on Shawns ability as a promo man, you still have to look at the overall product and where the company was at the time.

[Guest LooneyTune]

The HIAC Match was innovative... how? Shawn did a piledriver on steps. WOW! Give that spot alone "*"! Shawn trying to escape the cage... what a concept! Another **! Oh my god, he fell 6 feet off the side of the cage onto a table! A bajillion more stars!

 

Slow, plodding Undertaker no selling everything for 26:00 really makes it great I guess. (SARCASM ALERT!)

[Guest MikeSC]

The HIAC Match was innovative... how? Shawn did a piledriver on steps. WOW! Give that spot alone "*"! Shawn trying to escape the cage... what a concept! Another **! Oh my god, he fell 6 feet off the side of the cage onto a table! A bajillion more stars!

 

Slow, plodding Undertaker no selling everything for 26:00 really makes it great I guess. (SARCASM ALERT!)

That match was an easy ****1/2 affair.

-=Mike

[Guest krazykat72]

The HIAC Match was innovative... how? Shawn did a piledriver on steps. WOW! Give that spot alone "*"! Shawn trying to escape the cage... what a concept! Another **! Oh my god, he fell 6 feet off the side of the cage onto a table! A bajillion more stars!

 

Slow, plodding Undertaker no selling everything for 26:00 really makes it great I guess. (SARCASM ALERT!)

Um...maybe because 1) it was the first one. 2) becasue it told an awesome story of the cocky heel finally getting his comeuppance. 3) The bumping and selling by Shawn was off the charts great 4) UT played his part very well, as a guy who could have beaten Shawn, but chose to toy with him and hurt him. 5) Shawn's strategy for sticking and moving, and pulling out big moves during the match which I already pointed out.

 

You obviously weren't watching when this macth happened. The WWF had never used a cage like that and there was never anyone going up to the top of one and getting slammed on it. There were also no table bumps like Shawn's (until Foley a year later ) It was also a *great* introduction for Kane as it immediately established him as a main guy.

 

 

-Paul Jacobi-

[Guest LooneyTune]

I saw it 3 or 4 months after it happend, and wasn't impressed by any of it. At least the GZ match had an excuse to be all brawling and ref bumps (and the debut of the no hands pescado). HIAC was just "Shawns a coward, Undertaker wants to kick his ass", which had been played up every week for a few months.