[Mikey]

It’s the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels! It’s the Macho Man Randy Savage! Yet another dream match in our best wrestler showdown, as Michaels eliminated old buddy Kevin Nash in the second round, while Savage slipped by old nemesis Ricky Steamboat. These two are not linked by much, other than the segue in the Lonely Road of Faith where Shawn obviously ripped off Macho’s spin around thing, which was later ripped off by Kurt Angle. (Why wasn’t Booker T’s spinarooni included in that? RACISTS!) Anyway, vote for your guy here.





Poll closes Sunday night at midnight eastern, pending my sleepiness.

[Moreofabreadguyanyway]

These two actually wrestled sometime in '92, but Macho was probably a little past his prime and HBK had not yet reached his. HBK wins this by a mile though. The guys still one of the best in the game to this very day. The Macho Man was a pathetic shell of his former self for most of his WCW run, which is where I saw him most.

[Riot Act]

It should be no surprise who I voted for.

Also, Savage getting past Steamboat is a joke.

[Mikey]

Savage getting steamrolled here is also a joke.

[Moosehead Jack]

I voted for Savage, HBK has been good, but I have always felt he was a bit overrated. Savage in his prime > HBK in his prime

[Mikey]

Savage blurred the line so well. You legitimately thought he was a nutcase. I still think he's a nutcase. Michaels is just a sissy primadonna-turned-Christian.

[salmonjunkie]

who had the better elbow drop?

Would "Black Heartbreak" be as fun as "Black Machismo"?

Actually, I'm on the fence here.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Michaels sealed it for me when superkicked Hogan a couple of years ago and showed up on that fake Larry King Live show with the worst mustache EVAR.

If you want to go with workrate... Michaels-Angle > Savage-Steamboat. Yeah, I went there.

[murgen]

HBK is my all-time favorite wrestler. This is an easy one.

[Moosehead Jack]

fsolomon75 said:

If you want to go with workrate... Michaels-Angle > Savage-Steamboat. Yeah, I went there.

c
w
i

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Hey don't get me wrong, in terms of story-telling, nothing tops Savage-Steamboat. I'm talking about the in-ring action. Plus Angle-HBK didn't feature interference by a turnbuckle-eating hairy bastard.

See that Lucky, I went with the current choice over the retro 80s one!

[firebreakerchip]

I am have very mixed feelings towards HBK. Sometimes, I can't get enough of the Showstopper. He is an awesome worker and legitimately feels like a rock star when he is out performing. He is just outright entertaining. He was the shit and he wasn't afraid to tell you. Then there are periods of times usually when I am watching a Hart family member or Vader wrestle that I hate Michaels. He really dicked those people over and I am not talking just about the Screwjob. I am talking about not letting Owen work a main event program with him, not giving Vader run with the title, and taking the European title for no reason from the British Bulldog in England just prove that his dick was bigger than Bret's. For those reasons, I have a hard time getting behind Michaels. However, the fact that he is up the against the second greatest wrestler of all time and my personal favorite makes it impossible for me to get behind him.

He wrestled like no one else in the 70's and 80's. He was edgy when very few weren't. He was small when many of the main eventers weren't. He played the paranoid psychopath perfectly maybe too perfectly. He had an unpredictable presence that made every one of his segments interesting. He rocked the stick with batshit insane promos that can help make you smile or fear for the life of his opponent. In '97 I will never forget, when Hogan, Piper, and Michaels were in a bitch fight over who was the real Icon of wrestling. Savage cut a promo where he say he had no idea what the hell icon was asking if it was a dodo bird or some other extinct avian species. It was just so random, and so strange and because it was coming out of Savage's mouth it worked. He wanted to kick ass.

People write off his WCW run, but he could still go well into 1998 before a knee injury really screwed him over. His series with Flair and DDP were superb. He had matches weekly as the NWO's major wrestler, who actually wrestled that highlights of Nitro with guys like Disco and Scotty Steiner. He got great matches out of Hogan and Warrior. He wrestled arguably the greatest match of all time against Steamboat. He was always willing to job and do business correctly and I admire him for that. Bobby Heenan when he was in WCW said it best, "Savage is the most dangerous man in wrestling.". Everytime you saw Savage you couldn't help, but believe that was true.

In conclusion, The Macho Man Randy Savage is FUCKING AWESOME! The dude had an intergalactic hitlist. AN INTERGALACTIC HITLIST, does Michaels? Did Michaels feud with Martians and members of the Andromeda galaxy, no, but Savage did.

Plus he had one of the greatest t-shirts of all time. The Hulk Who? Macho #1 totally rules the school.

Lastly, my favorite Savage promo: DANGERZONE~!

[Riot Act]

firebreakerchip said:

Then there are periods of times usually when I am watching a Hart family member or Vader wrestle that I hate Michaels. He really dicked those people over and I am not talking just about the Screwjob. I am talking about not letting Owen work a main event program with him, not giving Vader run with the title, and taking the European title for no reason from the British Bulldog in England just prove that his dick was bigger than Bret's. For those reasons, I have a hard time getting behind Michaels.

*sigh* Third time. Other than Bret's book, I really have no idea where you get some of these rumours/stories (except maybe Scott Keith or someone like that).

Owen is one of my favourites, but even I know that he was never really capable of working a true main-event program. He and HBK had no problems with each other (at least nothing I remember coming out publicly - HBK speaks on their relationship in his book) and HBK made him look like a million bucks, especially during the post-Screwjob phase of Owen's career. He was never really over enough and they certainly TRIED to get him over. I mean, let's face it, what other possible reason for passing Owen over for Shamrock after SS could there have been? "Brother gets revenge for screwjob" wrote itself and they ended up dropping it. For some reason, they never had faith to go with him.

As for Vader, that was purely business like with Owen. And I doubt it had much of anything to do with Michaels. Vader was to Michaels' title reign as Earthquake was to Hogan's.

mooseheadjack said:

I voted for Savage, HBK has been good, but I have always felt he was a bit overrated. Savage in his prime > HBK in his prime

Really, moose? Michaels was to the 90's as Flair was to the 80's. He could make anyone look great. I just never got that vibe from Savage. It always seemed like Macho needed to be in the ring with the right guy to make it click.

[Lucky]

Yeah, I like Savage but he always seemed to wrestle to the level of his opponent. People wrestled up to HBK.


HBK is a guy I really need to put the last 10 years aside to appreciate. Not to say he hasn't done a lot of good in that time but I have to think back to the time when every WWF video game I had HBK was the first guy I played with and how the DX really did feel cool and new and awesome. Since WWE got its monopoly on the business so much of that cool 90s and Attitude stuff has been shoved down our throats too much and I've just grown sick of them. Its always easy to forget I liked it once.

[Moosehead Jack]

riotact said:

Really, moose? Michaels was to the 90's as Flair was to the 80's.

that's a bold statement there, one i completely disagree with, but bold nontheless

[Riot Act]

luckylopez said:

Yeah, I like Savage but he always seemed to wrestle to the level of his opponent. People wrestled up to HBK.


HBK is a guy I really need to put the last 10 years aside to appreciate. Not to say he hasn't done a lot of good in that time but I have to think back to the time when every WWF video game I had HBK was the first guy I played with and how the DX really did feel cool and new and awesome. Since WWE got its monopoly on the business so much of that cool 90s and Attitude stuff has been shoved down our throats too much and I've just grown sick of them. Its always easy to forget I liked it once.

Lucky, we usually agree. However, I think that the whole "wrestling up to HBK" idea is the first thing we've agreed upon thus far in this tourny. Give me a high-five you Owen-bashing, Raven-voting SOB!

mooseheadjack said:

riotact said:

Really, moose? Michaels was to the 90's as Flair was to the 80's.

that's a bold statement there, one i completely disagree with, but bold nontheless

You deleted the last part of my statement, moose, which is the most important part for context. I was comparing Michaels to Flair in terms of how they could make anyone look good.

I mean, just look at HBK's 96 title reign. He got a great match out of Nash and not one but TWO (if you count Michaels' second title victory at RR97) out of frickin' Sid! And the second one against Sid was with a brutal stomach virus.

[firebreakerchip]

Hmm...I wonder what that reason was. Maybe it was because the Kliq chose who they wanted to work with and how they wanted it done. You said yourself the storyline wrote itself and yet they chose the unproven, and not over commodity of Shamrock to plug his place. I know that is a bit of conspiracy theory, but I believe.

I don't know how you could not believe the Vader one. This is Vader, the best big man in wrestling. The proof is in the fact that Vince wanted to move the title off Michaels and only three months later they put on the Kliq-approved big man, Sid Vicious. A wrestler, who doesn't even deserve to lick Vader's boots. The difference between how over Vader and Sid was before Survivor Series '96 was astronomical. Sid just happened to get over because a bunch of smart marks at MSG decided to fuck with Shawn. Not only, that Vader was reliable and wasn't liable to miss a date because of a softball game. Vader had proven himself in Japan and WCW as a world champion that could carry a promotion. So Vader was a better wrestler, a better monster heel, more over, and more reliable. Yet Sid got the title. Vader is not Earthquake. He is the mastodon, executor of the Roadkill Roadtour, the best big man ever. Michaels screwed Vader and was a whiny, petulant bitch from '93-'98.


Michaels admitted he was on his DVD. Patterson and McMahon said he was. Michaels is awesome in the ring, but I don't think you can deny that he refused to do his fair share of jobs in the ring. I don't think it is that big of deal in the grand spectrum. It just gets me riled up every once in all. I still love Shawn's body of work and ethic inside the ring. One of my favorite moments to this day was the promo he cut in Montreal when he was feuding with Hogan. For that one day, I was a mark and I wanted Bret Hart to come down and give Michaels his just desserts.

[Confident Lefty]

firebreakerchip said:

I don't know how you could not believe the Vader one. This is Vader, the best big man in wrestling. The proof is in the fact that Vince wanted to move the title off Michaels and only three months later they put on the Kliq-approved big man, Sid Vicious. A wrestler, who doesn't even deserve to lick Vader's boots. The difference between how over Vader and Sid was before Survivor Series '96 was astronomical. Sid just happened to get over because a bunch of smart marks at MSG decided to fuck with Shawn.

Shawn Michaels is my favorite wrestler, but I'm not going to argue that he didn't refuse to (or try to refuse to) job in some situations when doing so was harmful to the company. I do disagree with your saying that crowds reacted more strongly to Vader than to Sid. At International Incident, the July In Your House in 1996, Michaels, Sid, and Ahmed Johnson wrestled against Vader, British Bulldog, and Owen Hart. On a team with the WWF champion and the Intercontinental champion, the guy who got the most cheers was the big goof who was in the match only because the Ultimate Warrior had bolted from the WWF soon after King of the Ring. When Sid was just standing on the apron, the crowd chanted for him. No, he wrestled nowhere near as well as Vader, but he didn't fail to get a reaction, either.

More on point, I think that Michaels wrestled better matches with more people. Savage was better at talking; HBK as an interview was involved in memorable stuff, like torturing Michael Cole, but his microphone time never really added to a feud. Savage was scary, intense, and seemingly no more than a minute from killing whoever his opponent was going to be. I can't recall ever seeing a Shawn Michaels interview that made a feud or Michaels more compelling.

In the ring, though Shawn Michaels got good matches out of a wide range of guys - Jeff Jarrett, Razor Ramon, Diesel, Sid, Undertaker. A lot of these matches, particularly the ones with Hall and Undertaker, required brawling and weapons to be entertaining, but, still, nobody else has used the same formula to top what Michaels did with those guys. Savage's best matches were against Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair, two guys who could have had a good match without him. He had a good match with the Ultimate Warrior, but that was a better storyline than it was a match. I just think that Michaels was able to wrestle good matches with guys who didn't usually have them than Savage did. I think that the difference here is also enough to offset Savage's advantage on the microphone. I like both guys, but I prefer Michaels.

[Chris Eco]

Simple vote: Who is less senile right now?

Michaels.

[Riot Act]

firebreakerchip said:

Hmm...I wonder what that reason was. Maybe it was because the Kliq chose who they wanted to work with and how they wanted it done. You said yourself the storyline wrote itself and yet they chose the unproven, and not over commodity of Shamrock to plug his place. I know that is a bit of conspiracy theory, but I believe.

I don't know how you could not believe the Vader one. This is Vader, the best big man in wrestling. The proof is in the fact that Vince wanted to move the title off Michaels and only three months later they put on the Kliq-approved big man, Sid Vicious. A wrestler, who doesn't even deserve to lick Vader's boots. The difference between how over Vader and Sid was before Survivor Series '96 was astronomical. Sid just happened to get over because a bunch of smart marks at MSG decided to fuck with Shawn. Not only, that Vader was reliable and wasn't liable to miss a date because of a softball game. Vader had proven himself in Japan and WCW as a world champion that could carry a promotion. So Vader was a better wrestler, a better monster heel, more over, and more reliable. Yet Sid got the title. Vader is not Earthquake. He is the mastodon, executor of the Roadkill Roadtour, the best big man ever. Michaels screwed Vader and was a whiny, petulant bitch from '93-'98.


Michaels admitted he was on his DVD. Patterson and McMahon said he was. Michaels is awesome in the ring, but I don't think you can deny that he refused to do his fair share of jobs in the ring. I don't think it is that big of deal in the grand spectrum. It just gets me riled up every once in all. I still love Shawn's body of work and ethic inside the ring. One of my favorite moments to this day was the promo he cut in Montreal when he was feuding with Hogan. For that one day, I was a mark and I wanted Bret Hart to come down and give Michaels his just desserts.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I know HBK was difficult as all hell. But I don't believe all the conspiracy theories. At the end of the day, it was Vince's call. Owen wasn't over. Vader wasn't over enough to be champion (I was a 9-year old mark at the time and even I didn't perceive him as a possible champion), especially in 1996 with the company sliding and Michaels carrying it on his back (and I know for a fact that that pressure can be used as blame for some of his behavior). Sid was, for some reason I still can't comprehend, very very over from about June 96 to March 97.

confidentlefty said:

In the ring, though Shawn Michaels got good matches out of a wide range of guys - Jeff Jarrett, Razor Ramon, Diesel, Sid, Undertaker. A lot of these matches, particularly the ones with Hall and Undertaker, required brawling and weapons to be entertaining, but, still, nobody else has used the same formula to top what Michaels did with those guys.

Are you sure you want to include Jarrett in that list? I've always thought Jeff was a great wrestler and the match he and Michaels had at IYH2 was excellent.

[National Champion Chris Cole]

Everybody mentioning HBK's 96 reign has reminded me of the time I HATED HBK. Even before Austin's "I never lose" push there was the sickening HBK run between WM XII and his lost smile. You can talk all you want about screwing Owen and Vader but he really should have had that rematch with Bret at XIII. He just didn't want to job the title back to Bret.

[Confident Lefty]

riotact said:

Are you sure you want to include Jarrett in that list? I've always thought Jeff was a great wrestler and the match he and Michaels had at IYH2 was excellent.

I hope that I didn't poorly express what I was trying to say, but I was listing guys who aren't generally considered great wrestlers and with whom Michaels had at least one famous good match. I agree with you that the match between Michaels and Jarrett was great, and I hope that I didn't imply that I didn't like that match or his matches with the other wrestlers whom I listed.

I did mean to say that Jarrett was not a great wrestler, though. Although I have honestly never seen any of his WCW or TNA matches, his match with Michaels was the only Jarrett match I've ever enjoyed. From what I'd heard and read, I assumed that Jarrett was no better in WCW or in TNA than he was in the WWF, which was why I listed him with some bad and some mediocre wrestlers. Even if he was better elsewhere, his match with Michaels was clearly an aberration, a match far above his usual level for the time, which was why I thought Michaels deserved credit for getting a good match out of him.

[firebreakerchip]

I am a huge Vader mark so maybe I am just a little bitter, but the December PPV for that year was named It's Time yet it mysteriously did not feature Vader. It seems reasonably to me, but I was not a fan during this time so I am looking at everything retrospectively and focused mainly on Vader's Japanese and WCW work, which was stellar. His WWF work was not nearly as good, but I feel that most of it can be attributed to Vince. After his WWF, he went to All-Japan and tore the house down with Misawa, Kawada, and Kobashi. So the workrate was still there. Something or someone was just inhibiting it. Vader remains one of the few instances where WCW utilized a wrestler better than Vince. Rude and Steamboat are two others I think WCW used better, but the list is definitely a short one.

The "Lost my Smile" bullshit is so stupid. If Taker can wrestle and subsequently job the title to Edge with a torn bicep. I am pretty sure Michaels could have walked out and taken the powerbomb from Sid even with his "horrible, agonizing" knee injury that kept on the shelf for so long.

Jarrett is somebody has underperformed in my book. He has the talent to constantly being pulling out great matches with anybody yet somehow his matches never turn out that great. Besides the Michaels matches there are almost no memorable Jarrett matches. In TNA, his matches tend to be overbooked and just get lost in the extracurriculars. Even when his matches aren't overbooked that lack a certain spark. Honestly, I don't what he is missing because he has all the tools to go down as one of the greatest wrestlers. Instead, Jarrett is just serviceable and a good wrestler, just not a great one.

[Eric O'Mac]

tarheelmike said:

Michaels is just a sissy primadonna-turned-Christian.

And what's wrong with that? Jackass.

[salmonjunkie]

Yeah! Leave sissy primadonnas alone, Tarheel. Just because you don't get them... sheesh.