LogFAQs > #903240099

#50 - Shawn Michaels Nominated by: Inviso

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I fucking hate Shawn Michaels.

And I think it's such a testament that such a scummy human being can rank so highly on this list. One of the ultimate backstage politicians, Shawn Michaels may have put on good matches from time to time, but the reality of the situation is this: he wasn't the draw we remember. You know who was a draw? Mike Tyson. Stone Cold. Shawn Michaels was a level above Kevin Nash as a draw, yet he had such a stranglehold on the company with his Kliq that for a long time WCW stomped the collective asses of Shawn Michaels' WWF because it was simply the Shawn Michaels show and Shawn doesn't play well with others. Shawn rarely let someone actually go over on him, and it created a world where there was Shawn and then there was everyone else with Bret occasionally loud enough and annoying enough to pester Vince into giving him the push he deserved. But too many other guys who COULD have been a major piece in the early Monday Night Wars were slaughtered by Shawn to such an extent that it was completely WCW's game to lose.

And they did, but I'm not ranking Eric Bischoff (yet).

When Shawn Michaels found God, I was unimpressed. Here's the thing about God: in wrestling, you only find the guy when you've bottomed out in all of your friendships and you need a do-over. Nowadays, of course, everyone backstage loves Shawn. But that's because it's easy to be everyone's friend when you're not trying to get over. Triple H is Dad, after all. Triple H, the guy who tried to bury everyone who wasn't the Rock or the Kliq. Shawn Michaels is cut from the same cloth as Triple H (at least when he was younger): arrogant, full of himself, uninterested in the team aspect of how the business worked. He's everything I hate in the politics of wrestling.

Yes, he's also a great worker. One of the best of his era. But imagine if he hadn't been such a whiny crybaby that his feuds allowed other workers to look good once and a while back in the 90s. Imagine that the care he took with Ric Flair or Undertaker in the late 00s existed 10 years earlier. Imagine if he hadn't lost his smile every time he lost a match. Then we'd be looking at a much higher ranking.

Oh, and I hate young Shawn Michaels promos. Aside from THAT voice coming out of THAT small guy, they are so dreadfully boring for me. Maybe it's because I wasn't exposed to Shawn Michaels' early days until years afterwards, but Bret Hart's 97 work always resonated more with me than any Shawn Michaels work prior to his return in the 21st century.
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