Everybody hates Shawn

[skskillz]

ultimajack said:

Okay, maybe you are right. However, it is bullcrap that he never drew a dime. In the back of Scott Keith’s book “Tonight in This Very Ring”; there is a list PPV buyrates. To end the “Shawn was not a draw and Bret was a draw feud”, I found the average buyrate they both drew while wrestling in the main event (I left out WM 14 to be fair for Bret). Shawn’s average PPV buyrate was 1.1 and Bret’s was also 1.1. Therefore, neither of them broke new PPV records, but both of them did sell PPV. Shawn sold more merchandise than Bret; therefore Shawn was a bigger draw. It is true Shawn did not have the drawing power like Hogan or Austin but he did put people’s buts in seats. It is not his fault that WWE was getting its ass kicked by WCW at the time. The reason why WWE was getting it ass handed to them is because of lame gimmicks and boring storylines.

Here are the buyrates in 1996 after Shawn won the title, according to Wrestling Information page (previous year in brackets):

WrestleMania XII: 1.2 (1.3)
Good Friends Better Enemies: 0.81 (N/A)
Beware of Dog: 0.45 (0.83)
King of the Ring: 0.60 (0.65)
International Incident: 0.37 (0.70)
Summerslam: 0.58 (0.90)
Mind Games: 0.48 (0.70)
Buried Alive: 0.44 (0.40)
Survivor Series: 0.58 (0.57)
Royal Rumble: 0.70 (1.1)

If those numbers are accurate, then Shawn was a step down from Diesel the year before and was a huge step down from the numbers they were pulling in years past. I don't know how that could possibly average out to 1.1 unless you're counting multiple years, and even then I find it hard to believe it would be anywhere near that mark. Again, that's assuming the above numbers are true.

Attendance was down in 1996. I don't know about merchandise sales in regards to Michaels. I'd imagine they weren't that high. By the time DX became a merchandise machine, Shawn was out with a back injury.

As the top guy in the company, Shawn was not a draw. Maybe as a complementary piece, but certainly not as a main event player.

[Stotty]

watch part four

[T.J. "the Crippler" Stevens]

I must say this. In '95, after the "Tell Me a Lie" thing where he had "head injuries," I didn't feel sorry for him while all the teenage girls in the audience cried. All I thought was that he was a vagina. That did nothing to get me behind him. Then when he won the '96 Royal Rumble, I had to watch as he danced around like a stripper, and pulled his trunks down to show his pubes. Then this kind of crap continued throughout his title rein.

When I was in highschool and the pretty boy kid that was friends with all of the girls got beat up, the guys didn't feel sorry for him. It just re-affirmed the fact that he was a vagina.

It was the same thing with Shawn Michaels' original title reins. You want to know why the buy rates went down? Because the majority of wrestling fans were dudes.