wrestling / Columns

Right Move/Wrong Move 5.28.10: Shawn Michaels Defeats Mr. Perfect at SummerSlam ’93

May 28, 2010 | Posted by Matthew Davis


RIGHT MOVE/WRONG MOVE

Looking back at the history of Vince McMahon’s decisions and the fallout – both good and bad!


DISCLAIMER: Every topic that I discuss will have been from a time that I lived through and actually watched live as an avid fan.


Shawn Michaels defeats Mr. Perfect via disqualification at SummerSlam ‘93.


In 1993, professional wrestling and the WWF, in particular, were changing. The major stars of the 80s were slowly being phased out of in-ring competition: Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage, to name a few. That year’s SummerSlam was the first official PPV of the post-Hogan era. There had been a few PPVs before that did not contain Hogan for one reason or another, but this time he was gone for good and the WWF knew it. Vince McMahon was in desperate need of promoting new stars: such as Lex Luger, Yokozuna, Bret Hart. There was also a new anti-drug policy that was put into effect at this time and any violations were taken very seriously and dealt with as such. This led to some of the newer stars being considerably smaller in size since anabolic steroids were strictily prohibited at this time. While the big push of the Summer of ‘93 was going to Lex Luger in his quest to become World Wrestling Federation Champion, some of the younger stars were getting over based on their in-ring talent. One of these stars was Shawn Michaels and he was in the middle of a long run as Intercontinental Champion. His opponent for the 1993 version of SummerSlam would be Mr. Perfect, a former, two-time Intercontinental title holder and the man many feel Shawn Michaels had supplanted as the uncrowned best worker of the WWF. This was billed as a match to determine the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time. Michaels was in the middle of his second run with the belt and had held it for the better part of a year, while Perfect was also a former two-time Intercontinental Champion. The anticipation for this match was very high for a non main event.

PARTICIPANT #1


Let’s first look at then-Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels…

Shawn Michaels had been pushed by Vince McMahon immediately upon the breakup of the legendary tag team The Rockers. Shawn had kicked Jannetty in the face and threw him threw the window of the barbershop in what was one of the more violent scenes of the early 90s. Jannetty was supposed to stay off TV selling the angle for several weeks, but return in time for a WrestleMania VIII showdown with his former tag partner. This didn’t happen due to Jannetty’s legal problems and instead Michaels ended up defeating El Matador Tito Santana at WrestleMania. He next began a feud with reigning Intercontinental Champion Bret Hart that saw the two men compete against each other in house shows throughout the Spring and Summer of 1992. The original plan was for Shawn Michaels to face Bret for the IC belt at SummerSlam ’92 if the WWF went ahead with the Capital Centre in Washington D.C. as the venue. Some reports even claim Michaels was schedule to defeat Hart for the Intercontinental title, which has some merit considering the eventual winner, the British Bulldog, was ultimately a transitional Champion between the two. Once the venue was changed from the Capital Centre to Wembley Stadium in London, England, Vince McMahon decided to substitute the British Bulldog as the #1 contender for the Intercontinental title. This way, Vince could capitalize on the overseas popularity of the World Wrestling Federation and even give the hometown (or more accurately home-country) hero a moment of glory in front of his fellow countrymen. This forced Shawn Michaels to be thrust into a short feud with “The Model” Rick Martel in what turned out to be a battle for Michaels’s manager, Sensational Sherri’s affection.


This could have been seen as a sidetrack for Michaels’s career, since instead of challenging for a title, he was battling another mid-card heel. He did his best with it and they pulled off a pretty entertaining match at SummerSlam ’92 with a gentleman’s agreement not to hit each other in the face that went south pretty quick. The bout ended in a double countout when both men Sherri was knocked to the floor and feigned unconscious which led to both men trying to carry her to the back. The aisle at Wembley Stadium was one of the longest for any wrestling event, so the two had quite the brawl before making it behind the curtain.

Later this evening, Davey Boy Smith defeated Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Championship with a reverse sunset flip in one of the greatest matches of all time. Although Wembley Stadium erupted in celebration for their countryman’s success, his run as Champion didn’t last long. He would lose the Championship less than three months later during the final episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event (until it was revived in 2006) to none other than Shawn Michaels. Davey Boy had failed a drug test and was released because of this violation, which explains his abrupt loss to the former Rocker. This victory catapulted Michaels to the upper mid-card level as he went on to have a very successful run with the IC Championship, and his first PPV appearance with the belt was against the Hitman at the 1992 Survivor Series.

Although Bret Hart had just lost the IC strap to Davey, he had moved on to bigger and better things. Prior to the Survivor Series, Bret had defeated Ric Flair for the WWF Title in Saskatoon with the Sharpshooter. Shawn had been booted out of his scheduled match with Bret at SummerSlam because Vince wanted to capitalize on the Bulldog’s popularity, but soon Sawn won the title anyway and was given his PPV match with Bret. In their first main event meeting, Bret Hart successfully defended his newly-won WWF Championship again the new Intercontinental Champion when Shawn Michaels submitted to the Sharpshooter. This concluded their feud (for the time-being) and Shawn moved onto work with a returning Marty Jannetty. Shawn worked with and defeated Jannetty at the 1993 Royal Rumble, but again their program was cut short when Jannetty was fired the day after their Royal Rumble match. For the second year in a row, Shawn Michaels’s WrestleMania opponent was a replacement for Marty Jannetty when Tatanka challenged for the title in Las Vegas, Nevada. Michaels was able to leave WrestleMania with the belt, but he would also leave Caesar’s Palace with a new enemy.

Also on the card at WrestleMania IX was Mr. Perfect vs. The Narcissist Lex Luger. Luger stole a victory over the former Intercontinental Champion despite Perfect’s feet on the ropes while the referee counted his shoulders down for three. This led an enraged Mr. Perfect on a chase behind the curtain in search of Luger, but he was blindsided by Shawn Michaels instead. They brawled all throughout Caesar’s Palace’s backstage area and immediately Mr. Perfect had refocused his sights and set them on the Intercontinental Champion.

Throughout the next few months, Mr. Perfect and Shawn would confront each other, and almost on every occasion they came to blows. The most famous of which was May 17 when Monday Night Raw opened with pre-recorded footage of the two brawling just outside the Manhattan Center earlier in the day, damaging Howard Finkel’s rental car in the process. Later in the evening, Michaels issued an open challenge for his Intercontinental title when a hooded figured hopped the railing and entered the ring. The man under the hood turned out to be Marty Jannetty, the constant thorn in Michaels’s side. He ended up being granted an IC title match for that night and, with the help of Mr. Perfect’s distractions, defeated Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental title. Jannetty had finally beaten his former tag partner and according to PWI, their match was named the 1993 Match of the Year. This furthered the feud between Michaels and the duo of Jannetty and Perfect, but Shawn would soon even the odds.


June 6, 1993 was the date in which Shawn Michaels regained the gold and did so with the help of his debuting bodyguard, a no-named 7 footer. If you’re wondering what was the reason for such a brief run by Jannetty, here’s why. Rewind things back to two nights before the 1993 Royal Rumble, a house show in Denver, Colorado to be exact. Jannetty and Michaels just had an unbelievably good match according to those in attendance, and the road agents of the WWF were hyping the former Rockers to Vince McMahon as the potential show-stealers of the Royal Rumble. The match was disappointing by Vince McMahon’s standards, but still a pretty good match. Jannetty later claimed the involvement of Sherri, who was previously not involved in their run of house show matches, threw the timing off of the match and caused it to come off as an underachievement. Rumor has it that Jannetty partied a little too heavy the night before the big Pay Per View and showed up at the Arco Arena in Sacramento in less than prime condition. Michaels claimed that Jannetty was drunk in the ring, which caused him to miss several spots and that Shawn had to “lead him around by the nose”. Upon hearing this, Vince fired Jannetty the day after the Rumble at their television tapings in San Jose. Time went by and Jannetty was out of the WWF, when Curt Hennig (Mr. Perfect) called Marty and told him that he had helped get him his job back. Apparently, Vince had heard a different version of the Royal Rumble situation and blamed Shawn Michaels for the misunderstanding and accusations made about Marty’s condition during their match. McMahon’s punishment for Shawn was to re-hire his former tag team partner and have him defeat Michaels for his precious Intercontinental Championship live on Monday Night Raw for all the world to see. The title win for Jannetty was never supposed to amount to anything, but was more to put Shawn in line, which is why he won the title back several weeks later.

On the same night that Michaels had become a two-time IC Champion, he brought in a new monster of a man to be his bodyguard whom he revealed as Diesel during a backstage interview segment at the 1993 King of the Ring. Diesel helped Michaels to win the belt back from Jannetty, and would make several more involvements leading to a Shawn Michaels victory before his days as bodyguard were over. Michaels retaned the strap against Crush at the King of the Ring and his next scheduled title defense would be against Mr. Perfect at the 1993 SummerSlam. The two men laid legitimate claims to being the greatest Intercontinental Champion and, hopefully, this would be decided at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit, Michigan. The entire event was surrounded by the Lex Luger vs. Yokozuna WWF Championship match. The Palace was draped in red, white and blue, but the undercard featured a mini “dream” match for the Intercontinental title. It wasn’t that long ago that Mr. Perfect was retired from the ring due to a back injury sustained in the Summer of 1991. Many fans thought his career was truly over, having moved on to the role of “Executive Consultant” of Ric Flair as well as being a regular commentator on WWF television programming. Perfect had set himself up for life outside of the ring, and was doing quite well at it. Almost immediately after Perfect went on the disabled list, Shawn Michaels began his rise as a singles star and many fans were reminded of Mr. Perfect by the wrestling and bumping style of Shawn Michaels. Comparisons began to be made and many fans wondered just who was the better wrestler and, more specifically, the greater Intercontinental Champion. Once Perfect returned to the ring at the 1992 Survivor Series, the possibility of a match between the two became much more real.


So less than a year after Mr. Perfect’s return to the ring, the two had their match at SummerSlam ’93. Perfect was looking to become the first ever three-time Intercontinental Champion, while Michaels was trying to prove that his time had come and that he was better than Perfect. The two had a good match that had an cheap finish. Instead of getting a true winner, or even a dirty pinfall, the match ended when Mr. Perfect was counted out thanks to Diesel’s involvement. This helped to setup a Perfect/Diesel feud going forward, but was scrapped due to Perfect’s recurring back injury. Fans were frustrated with the finish of this match since it was one of the more heavily hyped matches of the card and there was no decisive finish. It’s one thing if their feud would continue and we would eventually have been given a winner and a payoff, but that didn’t happen for a number of reasons. By the time SummerSlam ’93 was over, two out of three advertised Championship matches had ended via countout, and for what is supposed to be the second biggest show of the year, the WWF really dropped the ball.

Soon after this event, Shawn Michaels failed a drug test that indicated he had used anabolic steroids. It is an accusation that Michaels denies to this day and was adamant with Vince McMahon that he not suffer any punishment for an act he did not commit. According to Shawn, Vince gave him an ultimatum: either admit he used them and it would be kept between the two of them, or continue to deny it and be suspended for 6 weeks, off-television. To quote Michaels, “I said f you and I took the six weeks off.” Classic HBK. Whether the plan was to continue his feud with Perfect or transition Perfect over to working with Diesel, is not fully known. What did seem to be happening was that Mr. Perfect did not have the type of success during his second run as an active competitor that he had during his first run, but more on that later.

Since Michaels was legitimately suspended from the WWF, a tournament was held to crown a new Intercontinental Champion with the reason given that Michaels had refused to defend his title within the mandatory 30 day period. As many of us remember, Razor Ramon went on to defeat Rick Martel for the “undisputed”, though it was anything but and absolutely disputed, Intercontinental Championship on an October edition of Monday Night Raw. Once Michaels came back to television, he was once again paired with Diesel and a natural feud was started between Shawn and Razor, both men claiming to be the real Intercontinental Champion. The next year was devoted to IC Championship matches involving Shawn, Diesel and Razor and it brought much prestige to the Intercontinental title.


PARTICIPANT #1 WRAP-UP

Shawn retained the title at SummerSlam ’93 via countout. It was far from a decisive victory and the feud between Shawn Michaels and Mr. Perfect did not continue after this match. If Michaels did not walk out as Intercontinental Champion, then some of the greatest feuds of the 90s may never have happened.


PARTICIPANT #2


Before we get to SummerSlam ’93, let’s take a look back at Perfect’s career since returning at the 1992 Survivor Series… Curt Hennig, aka Mr. Perfect, was one of the greatest in-ring workers of all time. His bumping ability was second to none, and almost anytime he was in the ring, his opponent came out looking a lot better than when he went in. He had an influence on many other superstars of the 90s such as Razor Ramon, 1-2-3 Kid, Diesel, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Marty Jannetty, and of course Shawn Michaels. It was only fitting that eventually the teacher would face the student for one match.

Perfect seemed poised for a run in the main event scene upon his return to the ring at the Richfield Coliseum in November of 1992. He was linked with former WWF Champion Ric Flair since Flair’s arrival in August of 1991 and was now ready to get back into the ring, having given his back enough time to heal. Although not part of the original plan, Mr. Perfect teamed with Randy Savage to take on Razor Ramon and Ric Flair at the Survivor Series. Flair and Savage had spent the majority of 1992 wrestling back and forth for the World Wrestling Federation Championship and now Mr. Perfect was immediately thrown in the middle. The originally advertised match was the Ultimate Maniacs (Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior) vs. Flair & Ramon, but Warrior had been released for the same reason Davey Boy Smith was at this time – violating the company’s anti-steroid policy. Savage was left without a partner and he had convinced Flair’s associate and former Executive Consultant to join his team and with that, Mr. Perfect had turned babyface for the first time in his WWF career.

Around this time, Flair dropped the WWF Championship to a new and younger challenger, Bret Hart. This was the first new star to have made it to the top of the WWF that wasn’t a mainstay from the 1980s. Hart was a gifted mat technician with very pretty moves and great wrestling ability. Mr. Perfect was also a wrestler with the same reputation and, in fact, helped elevate the Hitman earlier in his career by having some wonderful matches against him. With Vince starting to push more athletic competitors to the main event, and Perfect returning to the ring in a main event match nonetheless, it seemed that Perfect would be the next one receiving a sustained main event level push. After the tag match, he moved on to the Royal Rumble and eliminated Ric Flair, the previous year’s winner, and it seemed he was on his way to the top.

I remember watching the 1993 Royal Rumble thinking and hoping for a Mr. Perfect victory, and if you followed the WWF at this time, you’ll know that this prediction was not an unreasonable one. Sure, Yokozuna had been squashing the Virgils of the WWF, but there was no reason to think that he would win the Rumble and advance to the main event so quickly. Although McMahon is famous for pushing the super-heavyweights, there were plenty of big men that never reached the top around this time: Kamala, Bam Bam, Bastion Ber, and Typhoon to name a few. Considering the obvious shift in main event level talent in late ’92, Mr. Perfect seemed a perfect fit to win the Royal Rumble and main event at WrestleMania for a WWF Championship match. Instead, they decided to go a different route with Perfect…

He was eliminated from the Royal Rumble rather early on when a group of heels led by an already-eliminated Jerry Lawler teamed against him. This looked like the start of a Lawler/Perfect feud despite Bobby Heenan unveiling The Narcissist earlier in the evening, but the Lawler/Perfect feud never materialized. The WWF went ahead with the Luger/Perfect rivalry culminating in a match at WrestleMania IX. Before this happened though, Perfect finished up his feud with former-friend Ric Flair in a Career Ending Match on one of the the first episodes of Monday Night Raw. Flair was headed back to WCW in reality, and so the WWF booked this match for Flair to put Perfect over on the way out. Perfect scored the clean win by catching Flair in the Perfect-Plex after a near twenty-five minute match. This allowed Perfect a clear future to feud with Luger.


At the time it was unclear how they would book the finish of the WrestleMania IX match. Luger was the hot new heel and seemed to be transitioning over to a feud with the Hitman, while Perfect was the extremely over veteran who the WWF wanted to keep in the upper mid-card. So the finish came when Luger had Perfect pinned in a backslide and the referee counted Perfect’s shoulders down, despite his feet being tangled in the ropes. The count should have stopped, the hold should have been broken and the match should have continued. Instead, Luger was declared the victor and while Perfect argued with the referee, the Narcissist knocked him out with his steel-plate loaded forearm.

As mentioned earlier, upon awakening, Perfect scrambled to the back of the arena and was greeted by an overzealous Shawn Michaels, setting the seeds for their forthcoming feud. So far since Perfect’s return to the ring, he had appeared in the Survivor Series main event tag match, ended Ric Flair’s WWF career, but found himself in the middle of the card, losing to Lex Luger and then battling for the Intercontinental title. This was not exactly the road to the top for a veteran WWF superstar. To make matters even worse, before he would battle for the Intercontinental title, he struggled mightily to qualify for the King of the Ring tournament in June. His involvement and more specifically, the booking of Mr. Perfect in this tournament for the most part, did little to help him.

In 1993, the WWF held qualifying matches for the King of the Ring tournament in which wrestlers participated with the winner being added to the PPV tournament. Because of the WrestleMania IX debacle, Bret Hart was automatically given the #1 seed, though it carried little advantage save for avoiding a qualifying match. Mr. Perfect’s qualifying match was against Doink the Clown, whom he fought to a draw two different times before being able to defeat him and advance to the tournament. In the ever-changing world that was and is the WWF/WWE rulebook, during the 1993 qualifying matches, a draw would not eliminate both men as it did in the later years. To make matters more confusing, during the 1993 tournament, Tatanka and Lex Luger went to a time limit draw in the first round, but since this was in the actual eight-man tournament and not a qualifier, they were both eliminated As the King of the Ring progressed over the years, anything other than a win would eliminate the participants, even in the qualifying matches. At least this was supposed to be the “rule” each year, but there were many occurrences of inconsistent rules and booking when it came to the King of the Ring each year.

Anyway, it took Perfect three separate matches to beat a clown and although at this time in the WWF Doink was not a jobber, he certainly wasn’t Perfect’s equal and shouldn’t have been booked as such. This did much more to hurt Mr. Perfect than it did to help Doink the Clown. Moving on to the actual PPV matches, he wrestled Mr. Hughes who was only eliminated when he decided to bash Perfect with the urn that he had stolen from The Undertaker. So after coming off a heavy struggle to beat Doink, Perfect was only able to get past Mr. Hughes when Hughes decided to disqualify himself. The next match was a great little match against the eventual tournament winner, Bret Hart. The match was different than their SummerSlam ’91 match since both men were babyfaces, but just as entertaining to watch. It ended when the Hitman had reversed a small package to score the pinfall. This was definitely the most impressive win of the Hitman’s night and once again, Curt Hennig was a major factor in helping to elevate Bret Hart.


By this point Perfect had already started to lose his credibility as a potential main eventer. Previously, he could have been seen as Bret Hart’s equal, or close to it. Just a few months prior, Perfect was coming off a PPV main event victory as well as a career-ending victory over the legendary Nature Boy and most recent WWF Champion. Now he was going broadway with a clown on more than one occasion and unable to defeat Mr. Hughes without a DQ? Instead of saving the Bret Hart/Mr. Perfect rematch of the decade, the WWF hotshotted it to the second round of the KOTR tournament. Although the match definitely furthered Bret Hart’s career which was the point of the whole tournament, I still feel it would have been better used if it had been heavily hyped and advertised prior instead of a case of happenstance. After the King of the Ring, Perfect was lucky to be challenging for the Intercontinental title the way he had been booked upto the SummerSlam match!

So we get to SummerSlam and the match with Shawn Michaels. It was a good match for two of the WWF’s better workers of 1993, and really of all-time, but it didn’t live upto the hype it had been given as the battle of the two greatest Intercontinental Champions. Many fans were expecting a clash similar to that of Perfect and Bret at the SummerSlam from two years ago and while those expectations might have been unrealistic, or at least extremely high, this match fell short of what the fans had expected to see. Most of this had to do with the finish and the way their feud turned out. Perfect was on his way to capturing the title with Michaels locked into the Perfect-Plex, but Diesel had pulled Perfect out of the ring just in time to save him from the 3 count. Diesel then tossed the challenger into the ring post, causing him to be counted out. This would be Perfect’s last PPV wrestling appearance until the 2002 Royal Rumble, almost ten years later when Perfect was well past his prime.

Mr. Perfect was set to captain his team at the 1993 Survivor Series against Diesel’s team, but was replaced by Randy Savage the night of the event when his injured back forced him to the sidelines again for over three years. While Perfect certainly could have been booked better than what he was during the middle of 1993, he still had the talent and charisma to rise to the main event scene of the WWF had he been able to remain healthy and continue to compete in the ring. Mr. Perfect had a brilliant career as a heel in the late 80s and early 90s, and although he was more natural in this role, the fans did get behind him when he made his babyface turn in 1992. His run as a good guy started off with a lot of momentum and could have led to some great main event matches for the WWF Championship. If Bret Hart had been elevated to that level, certainly Curt Hennig could be, too. Instead his second run featured more in-ring losses (most notably to Lex Luger, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels) that, in the long run, looked as though he was being used to put over every other opponent he faced. In fact, Mr. Perfect did not have one pinfall victory on Pay Per View during his entire babyface run that spanned November of ’92 –November of ’93. The only singles match he won was the cheap DQ victory over Mr. Hughes, a match in which Hughes appeared to have dominated.

As discussed last week, Shawn Michaels found himself in a similar situation in 1995 once he was turned babyface, but he was able to overcome being knocked down a peg or two due to his in-ring ability, perseverance and most importantly, avoiding serious, career-threatening injuries. Had Mr. Perfect been able to stay healthy after his SummerSlam match with Michaels, who knows where his career would have ended up? Before he would leave for WCW in late 1996, Perfect had teased returns to a WWF ring several times, but never coming through on any of them.

PARTICIPANT #2 WRAP-UP

Mr. Perfect was one of the greatest superstars of the late 80s and early 90s in the WWF, but never seemed to be able to catch the big break. Going over Shawn Michaels for the Intercontinental Championship might have popped the Detroit fans for one evening, but would do more harm in the long-run than a Shawn Michaels victory. Although the finish could have been altered to make Michaels look stronger, the way the match ended left it open for Perfect to save some credibility for his future plans. Unfortunately, in what would come to be an all too common occurrence for the next several years, original plans involving Mr. Perfect had to be changed due to his injured back.


REVERSED DECISION

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Matthew Davis

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