Was Shawn Michaels Worth The Trouble in the 90's?

[DichEvans]

He's my favorite wrestler of all time, but the amount of incidents he was involved in is just staggering and it's not like he was drawing super well. A majority of the money he drew came after he came back.

-Business took a dip after he became champ at WM 12
-He refused to drop the WWF title at Mania 13, thus killing the card and helping it deteriorate to the point where its the worst drawing Mania ever. The two marquee matches were thrown together 4-5 weeks before the show. It was supposed to be because he had a bad knee, but he said he "lost his smile" and was then doing backflips two weeks later
-He sabotaged many of the marketing events to Mania 14, causing literal riots a few times. He also stormed Austin's victory press conference just to yell at everyone for some reason. 
-Got suspended for a fight with Bret, thus ruining his tag team title storyline with Austin.
-Got into a fight with 5 Marines, was hospitalized and it nulled an entire storyline around the IC title
-He has vacated more titles than anyone else in WWE history, in an era where it was common place to drop them and "do the honors".
-He demanded the European title after Davey Boy dedicated a match to a terminally ill child. Helping to damage the England market.
-He then made a mockery of the European title, completely devaluting it for a reason no one really gets. That title was supposed to be used to draw money in Europe, but it would never be in any main event ever again and was quickly relegated to the lower midcard


I am sure there is more that I am forgetting and he was regularly having the best matches out of anyone in WCW or WWF, but my god, he was causing the WWE a lot of issues that clearly impacted the company's bottom line.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

To be fair, it was Davey’s terminally ill sister he dedicated the match to. Then Shawn had it changed, “to get more heat” on DX, on a show no one outside the UK even saw.

[Mozenrath]

Some of this is stuff that was likely going to happen with or without him, but it doesn't let him off the hook, all the same.

Like, the European title was definitely going to peter out. The European market wasn't going to be the godsend that that both the WWF and WCW were initially hoping for, and if Bulldog doesn't lose it, it probably would have been quietly retired or maybe just unified with the IC title.

All the same, him winning it and then immediately losing interest wasn't exactly doing anyone any favors.

[dirtyoldman]

Wonder what the plan would be if he actually did no show Wm 14?
Still, this was barley a year after he vacated the title for 'losing his smile', so the WWF would have brought it on themselves for making him champ again

[grungesmurf]

NO!

[Fundertaker]

Aug 19, 2024 1:50:31 GMT -5 dirtyoldman said:

Wonder what the plan would be if he actually did no show Wm 14?
Still, this was barley a year after he vacated the title for 'losing his smile', so the WWF would have brought it on themselves for making him champ again

*tapes fists*

[tafkaga]

He was a channel changer for me after turning babyface.

Gotta wonder who could have taken his spot though.

[Allie Kitsune]

Aug 19, 2024 8:47:50 GMT -5 tafkaga said:

He was a channel changer for me after turning babyface.

Gotta wonder who could have taken his spot though.

They could have let Sid just be a legit babyface.

[tirtefaa]

A lot to unravel here. By no means am I justifying anything Shawn did, since he most certainly didn't do himself any favors with his behavior, but I think there's a lot of overexaggerating to the point this has become legend at this point.

Aug 19, 2024 0:00:37 GMT -5 DichEvans said:

Business took a dip after he became champ at WM 12

Business had already taken a dip, business had been steadily going down for years at this point. This idea that some guys drew significantly better than others is not true. Even in the foreign market you can see the house show numbers jump up and down, regardless of who was champion. Shawn, Diesel, Bret and Sid all didn't turn the company around with their drawing power. The product was terrible no matter who was on top.
 

Aug 19, 2024 0:00:37 GMT -5 DichEvans said:

He refused to drop the WWF title at Mania 13, thus killing the card and helping it deteriorate to the point where its the worst drawing Mania ever. The two marquee matches were thrown together 4-5 weeks before the show. It was supposed to be because he had a bad knee, but he said he "lost his smile" and was then doing backflips two weeks later

I don't know about him "doing backflips", but the company hadn't put forth any dedicated plan for Shawn to face Bret at Wrestlemania, as this has only been alleged by Bret. As far as marquee matches being "thrown together", that's relatively common for Wrestlemania, just two years later you have a similar situation where the title changes hands multiple times with no clear indication of who was facing who. Shawn's absence in wrestling didn't hurt or help the card. The fact of the matter is, the product was awful at this time. Truly awful.

Aug 19, 2024 0:00:37 GMT -5 DichEvans said:

He sabotaged many of the marketing events to Mania 14, causing literal riots a few times. He also stormed Austin's victory press conference just to yell at everyone for some reason.

What marketing events? Only thing I recall is him getting beaned in the head very hard with a D battery at an event he walks out of, which honestly I can't blame him there...not exactly a reason to start a riot, and I don't know of any other riots other than this one. As far as the press conference, who knows. But it didn't hurt business.

Aug 19, 2024 0:00:37 GMT -5 DichEvans said:

Got suspended for a fight with Bret, thus ruining his tag team title storyline with Austin.

Bret also got suspended. At least we can't argue that Vince was being biased here. Oh and the tag team run with Austin was boring anyways. Dude Love was a massive upgrade.

Aug 19, 2024 0:00:37 GMT -5 DichEvans said:

Got into a fight with 5 Marines, was hospitalized and it nulled an entire storyline around the IC title

He didn't get into a fight with 5 marines, as much as he was dragged out of a car while unconscious by an indeterminate number of men with crewcuts, who proceeded to beat an already unconscious (black out drunk) Shawn while holding back both Davey Boy Smith and Sean Waltman. According to police reports, the men also tried to run him over with their Ford Bronco...so it's not exactly a situation of Shawn getting bested in a legit fight. Of all the things that people mock Shawn for, this is the most confusing since by all available information he was not the instigator.

Aug 19, 2024 0:00:37 GMT -5 DichEvans said:

He has vacated more titles than anyone else in WWE history, in an era where it was common place to drop them and "do the honors".

Let's go through the titles that he "vacated". Once was for being busted for steroids, where he was stripped of the title. Once was for the Syracuse Incident as noted above, and not medically cleared,. Once for the tag titles for storyline purposes. Once again for the tag titles for the suspension he had with Bret. And once for losing his smile. Outside of the tag titles with Diesel and the lost smile, it seems like those other vacated titles were out of his control. I will saw that the "lost smile" vacated title is some of the worst TV as Shawn was visibly drunk. I don't know if vacating titles is a valid criticism of character, since Daniel Bryan vacated 3 titles himself.

Aug 19, 2024 0:00:37 GMT -5 DichEvans said:

-He demanded the European title after Davey Boy dedicated a match to a terminally ill child. Helping to damage the England market.
-He then made a mockery of the European title, completely devaluting it for a reason no one really gets. That title was supposed to be used to draw money in Europe, but it would never be in any main event ever again and was quickly relegated to the lower midcard

The European title was NEVER going to be a significant main event title. They put a lot of "prestige" around the tournament, but by the time Davey Boy lost the belt, he was nothing more than a goon for Bret and the Hart Foundation. Bulldog lost a midcard title to a main eventer. The European title was never going to remain a "Europe only" title, and it's not like 1997 WWF had a large list of guys they could use for that market exclusively. Did WWF lose money in Europe with this decision? I don't think Shawn really needed to win the title here, but I think it's a massive overreach to say that it affected business or destroyed the credibility of a title that was less than a year old.


As far as Shawn being worth the trouble...well that depends on who you ask. WWF had a lot of problems during this time, allowing for large egos to run wild. I would chalk up about half of what is said about Shawn to be truth, and a lot of the other stuff as fabrication. For his drawing power, he was given a lot of rope, but again business was awful at this time, so even a lesser star is better than what else was available.

[kamzee]

The Davey Boy Euro title thing is more something that just makes HBK sound like a dick rather than something with massive business impact. Anyway, of course he wasn't worth the hassle. Even if you think he was a great worker in the ring, he certainly wasn't any sort of major draw in the 1990s worth bending over backwards to placate.

I remember being a junior in HS in 1996 and some other guys at school started really getting disengaged from the WWF leading up to WM 12. We all knew Shawn was winning the title since there was no way he was losing two straight WM title matches after Rumble wins. And no one wanted to see it. I know it was around that point when I started checking out Nitro more and more, and then the NWO cemented it.

That said...I do think his heel run from right after Summerslam 1997 until WM 14 is the greatest heel work of all time. I wasn't even a big Austin fan but by WM 14 even I was begging for Austin to put an end to this idiot once and for all. When Rollins was made ref for the CM Punk/Drew match at SS, the Shawn heel turn came to a lot of people's minds. Sorry but there was no chance a Rollins turn would have had that level of impact. Shawn blasting Taker with the chair led to the formation of DX, the first HIAC, the Montreal Screwjob, and changing the entire business.

[dirtyoldman]

Steve Austin, Triple H, Sid and Marty Janettey.
The only four people to have beat Shawn for a singles WWF title.

[Psicofreak667]

One of these things is not like the other ones, not like the other ones...

[J. Hova]

I'm saying this as someone who thinks HBK was probably top five all time in ring.

He wasn't worth it. No one was.

At a historic low in the business in general and the WWF specifically, he was throwing temper tantrums on screen and backstage over the smallest things. He killed an awful lot of programs that could have drawn money when the WWF desperately needed it between just not wanting to work with someone or taking a powder (figuratively and literally).

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

f*** no he wasn't. Dude wasn't drawing shit as champion and actively worked against the company finding people who would. All because Vince liked seeing him dance around in booty shorts. And I say this as someone who loves his second run.

[fw91]

It's weird to assess imo. On one hand, an answer of f*** no is obvious. You can't defend his doucheness. But for 3/4 of 96, there was really nobody else who could have been the top guy. It was his time and was the hot face relative to the state of the company. Bret was going on hiatus for movies. Diesel and Razor were on their way out. Vader just arrived. Warrior was obviously unreliable. Sid was hurt or wishy/washy with softball during the first half of the year. Only other believable option was taker, but he was in mostly cartoon special attraction feuds for years between his 91 and 97 title reigns.

[Mozenrath]

Aug 19, 2024 8:50:43 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

Aug 19, 2024 8:47:50 GMT -5 tafkaga said:

He was a channel changer for me after turning babyface.

Gotta wonder who could have taken his spot though.

They could have let Sid just be a legit babyface.

They could have, but would Sid want it? He tended to think that big men make their best money as heels, and disliked the idea of being face for any real length of time.

I get where he's coming from, but I think he could have pulled it off for a bit. He just would have needed to not let Vince neuter him in the process like he did Diesel.

[BRV]

Aug 19, 2024 8:50:43 GMT -5 Allie Kitsune said:

Aug 19, 2024 8:47:50 GMT -5 tafkaga said:

He was a channel changer for me after turning babyface.

Gotta wonder who could have taken his spot though.

They could have let Sid just be a legit babyface.

When Sid turned on Shawn Michaels on the Raw after WrestleMania XI, the crowd in that middle school cafetorium went nuts, completely backing Sid. Part of me wonders if that crowd response to Sid was why Shawn Michaels so blatantly botched the powerbomb spot, causing Sid to have to hit it a second and third time.

[salz4life]

Aug 19, 2024 10:58:15 GMT -5 kamzee said:

The Davey Boy Euro title thing is more something that just makes HBK sound like a dick rather than something with massive business impact. Anyway, of course he wasn't worth the hassle. Even if you think he was a great worker in the ring, he certainly wasn't any sort of major draw in the 1990s worth bending over backwards to placate.

I remember being a junior in HS in 1996 and some other guys at school started really getting disengaged from the WWF leading up to WM 12. We all knew Shawn was winning the title since there was no way he was losing two straight WM title matches after Rumble wins. And no one wanted to see it. I know it was around that point when I started checking out Nitro more and more, and then the NWO cemented it.

That said...I do think his heel run from right after Summerslam 1997 until WM 14 is the greatest heel work of all time. I wasn't even a big Austin fan but by WM 14 even I was begging for Austin to put an end to this idiot once and for all. When Rollins was made ref for the CM Punk/Drew match at SS, the Shawn heel turn came to a lot of people's minds. Sorry but there was no chance a Rollins turn would have had that level of impact. Shawn blasting Taker with the chair led to the formation of DX, the first HIAC, the Montreal Screwjob, and changing the entire business.

HBK, Hunter/Chyna, and Ric Rude as the Original DX is still the best DX to me. They all played their parts perfectly. HBK/Hunter were essentially WWEs Hall and Nash and they were great at it, at least IMO. I was also begging for Austin to destroy HBK at Mania. LOL

[Charles "Charlie" Charles]

Mid-nineties Michaels was one of the absolute most insufferable babyfaces ever. Just a horrible smarmy, smug wanker, I suppose because that's what he was offscreen too, and it was embarrassing listening to McMahon verbally fellate him on Raw every week. It wasn't hard to see why those marines wanted to give him a kicking.

I'm also not especially enamoured with him as a wrestler. Shawn Michaels was always good at having Shawn Michaels matches, where he got walloped by a much bigger wrestler and bumped all over the place, but he often veered into hokey melodrama territory and again, I found him a bit irritating in that respect.

So short answer, probably not.

[Hit Girl]

Yes, because despite being a twat, he was still a great wrestler.