WWE DVD releases may be about to become less heralded than ever. When the WWE Network launches next week, collections like these won’t stop being purchased over night but, I have no doubt, will be things associated with an era that was keen to repackage and remodel as often as necessary in order to squeeze as many dollars and cents out of a product as possible. Because, let’s be honest, we didn’t need another Shawn Michaels DVD collection. Every match on these discs is already available on multiple formats and, from next week, will be more easily accessible than ever. In fact, in the last eight years, Shawn Michaels has had two career DVD packages released as well as his sit down ‘Greatest Rivalries’ documentary with Bret, not to mention an autobiography and countless talking head appearances on other superstar’s and company retrospectives. So, why is this one even worth a second look?
As candid as
ever, Shawn Michaels introduces each match on this collection. When he speaks
you really listen. What he says is wise and comes with hindsight and a clarity
of mind that he didn’t have for years. Erudite, articulate, witty, poised,
cheeky and, above all, utterly at ease, Shawn is a joy to watch. If this is
anything to go by, his spoken-word tour of the UK this spring will be
tremendous. For the sum of his words alone, this DVD is worth buying.
For the
purists out there, obviously there are some omissions here. Jesse Ventura’s
commentary has been edited out from WrestleMania V and VI – which largely
leaves some dead air and can make for fairly awkward viewing – and the Chris
Benoit match from WrestleMania XX has been culled so as not to glorify Benoit’s
rise to main event status and so as not to make Shawn have to openly talk about
him in the past tense or praise his strengths.
And so to
that aforementioned hindsight. Shawn details, with honesty, his rise to stardom
at the biggest show of the year and as we move through the timeline he seems to
grow in confidence – in himself and in his abilities as a performer. This
culminates in his closing thoughts where he asks, “did I leave money on the
table? Yes, because I can still do it, I can do it now and I can still be good
at it. Not because I’m anything special but because I know that I can.” He
insinuates that he won’t be coming back but the confidence and pride that he
puts behind those words suggest that given the right time and place he might
just be willing to do it once more.
With regard
to his early WrestleMania matches, where Shawn is working with Marty Jannetty
in The Rockers, he talks about the accomplishment of just being on the card and
is very open about the fact that he was burning the candle at both ends and yet
was, crucially, “always able to deliver.” Part of “being able to prove yourself
as a man in those days” was to be able to stay out until 3 am the night before
and still get in the ring the next day and perform to an extremely high level.
He says that his split from Marty (which Shawn suggests stemmed from money
being made on a cereal commercial) made him “one unpopular dude.” They’d just
worked in the ‘Popcorn Spot’ – where fans rush to the food vendors between bigger
matches on the card – at WrestleMania VI and were feeling that they were so
often put on last on house shows because they brought the house down that they
were deserving of the titles. They agreed to quit and then Vince called him up
and the rest is history.
Shawn
describes how his habitual abuse got worse and worse by WrestleMania XIV which
he says is just “a blur”. He remembers that the message that day had been “just
get him to the ring and we will be ok.” His rise through the ranks until
WrestleMania X which “put [him] on the map” was really one where he was
frustrated and unsure of his future. Working the opening matches at consecutive
Manias (VIII & IX) was, for Shawn, like being labelled “a good little hand”
and, even as Intercontinental Champion, he felt “undervalued”. He worked with
Tatunka (a match that Dolph Ziggler is said to be a huge fan of) and had an
angle later in the show with Mr Perfect but was left unsatisfied and worried by
the return of Hulk Hogan which he states was, “not good for any of us”. On the WrestleMania
IX event, as a whole, he says that “there is a veil of negativity over that
show.” It certainly shows.
He defends
Scott Hall and to those who say that he went out there and had a match with a
ladder he remarks that “that is not giving Scott enough praise […] he was a
270lb stud who went out there and sold, bumped and worked his tail off for a
guy who was 205.” For all that he defends office decisions, he is also critical
of the company and of Vince when he feels the need to be. His match with Kevin
Nash at WrestleMania XI left him disgruntled for a few reasons: firstly, he
felt uncomfortable about “being outshined by people who you don’t work with” –
in relation to the Lawrence Taylor main event – and, secondly, because Vince
made Nash kick out at one after Shawn’s Superkick which received, as Shawn was adamant
it would, a rain of boos from the building. He said that after that, he was a
pain in the ass to Vince and got written off TV. “But for all that I was a pain
in the ass, ultimately, I always did what I was asked to do, which is why I’m still
here 50 years later [sic].”
Shawn’s comeback
match against Jericho at WrestleMania XIX starts the string of extremely high
calibre matches on this collection. Excusing the match against Vince in 2006 (which,
all things considered, is still good and Shawn says was like “having a
WrestleMania off”) every bout is different and every bout steals the show. The Kurt
Angle match from WrestleMania XXI is probably the most complete but, clearly,
his matches against The Undertaker – particularly the first, at WrestleMania 25
– are tremendous.
When he
starts to open up about the latter part of his career, Shawn grows with the
confidence that I mentioned earlier. He shrugs off the fact that he “never hit
[his] time mark” because he “never rushed things […] I always felt that if I
take this out, you’ll disengage, so I left it in.” And he starts to talk in absolutes:
“I knew no-one could touch me” and on wrestling with Cena at WrestleMania
XXIII, “I knew that there was nothing on the line except being in the ring with
me.” His respect for others is clear but he desire to be treated as the gold
standard is just as patent.
If you ever
wondered how he felt about Ric Flair wrestling again after his ‘retirement’
match at WrestleMania XXIV, you may be surprised to know that Shawn is hugely
kind: “knowing Ric, I knew he’d wrestle again but I knew that WWE wouldn’t let
him be involved in a big match again.” At the end of the match as Ric is crying
in the ring, Shawn tells us, tearing up to camera, “I told him I loved him and
that I hoped it was special to him.” He explains that this was one of the few
times where there was little blurring between Shawn Michaels and HBK.
“Taker and I
were always in the same place but always in so many different places” and after
their match at WrestleMania 25, he felt so at peace because “it was as close to
perfect as you can get.” The decision to follow it a year later was justified,
he says, because he was the one person who was able to “break the unbreakable”,
in that he made Undertaker vulnerable for a moment and broke his character
shown when Shawn is desperately climbing and crawling to get to his feet and
Taker yells at Shawn to “stay down!” The amount of respect that he has for
Undertaker is tangible but just as lucid is the fact he doesn’t feel unworthy
to have been in that spot.
This
collection chronicles many of the highest points in Shawn’s WWE career and yet originally
it could never have been conceived that way; like so much of the industry, it
is largely down to luck, timing and hard work. Shawn is a pleasure to watch and
listen to and, with a wonderful objectivity, imparts so much wisdom about his
character, career, his friends and his foes. With a sense of an ending being
dangled in front of our eyes, we’re left with a sentence that will ring in your
ears for days. A sentence that is just enough to sow the seeds of doubt in your
mind that one day Mr WrestleMania may well come back and wrestle again on the
grandest stage of them all. Side on, speaking to the director, clearly and audibly,
he ends by saying, “I was built to wrestle”.
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