Posted in: The Classic Paper Review Michael and Paul – Part 1 – Legendary Collaboration
By Mazza
Dec 1, 2009 - 1:21:15 PM
Michael and Paul – Part 1 – Legendary Collaboration
(paul)
Say say say
What you want
But dont play games
With my affection
Take take take
What you need
But dont leave me
With no direction
(michael)
All alone
I sit home by the phone
Waiting for you, baby
Through the years
How can you stand to hear
My pleading for ya dear
You know Im cryin
Oo oo oo oo oo
In 1979 a talented young singer by the name of Michael Jackson teamed up the legendary composer/conductor/producer Quincy Jones to make the album Off the Wall. This phenomenal partnership would change the face of production, music videos and pop music in general in the 1980’s. In 1982, the much anticipated follow-up Thriller blew the world away. Singles such as the title track, Beat It, Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ and Billie Jean defined the era but the first single to be released on the album was a track called The Girl Is Mine.
20-odd years before Thriller, a quartet of Scousers sent the UK wild with their rock/pop musical tones. In 1964 John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Paul McCartney arrived in the USA for the first time. What followed was a media frenzy and the Beatles went on to become the biggest group on the planet.
The Girl Is Mine saw Michael Jackson collaborate with Beatles Singer-Songwriter, Paul McCartney. In 1983 Michael and Paul teamed up again on McCartney’s Pipes of Peace album with the single Say Say Say. The track was number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 from 10 December 1983 until 14 January 1984… WHAT THE FUCK???...
…BREAK IT DOWN
Come on now guys, as good as they were, you didn’t really think that the legendary LOP collaboration of Degenerate and Mazza would do a column on Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney? No chance, the Michael and Paul we are talking about have much funnier names, that’s right, Messer’s Hickenbottom and Levesque.
Michael Hickenbottom
Michael Hickenbottom was a young boy with dreams and aspirations to become someone who could make a difference at whatever he did, just like all of us. However, Hickenbottom didn't want to follow some clichéd career that we had when we were young, like be a doctor, an astronaut, or perhaps the President of the United States of America. No, what Michael wanted to do was to be a professional wrestler, and stand in the middle of the ring as a world champion, just like his television idols. Well, it was either that, or he just wanted to bang some chicks after being seen on TV. Hey, if I looked at good as Shawn Michaels did when he was younger, I'd be looking for some tail any way I could.
Sure, it was a lofty dream, since it's pretty much impossible to be a mega-star in the world of entertainment. However, he would have wrestling on his mind most of the time, doing faux matches in his schools gymnasium, or practicing high-risk maneuvers at the pool. After wasting a year in college at his father's expense, Michael convinced his dad to let him enroll into wrestling school, to see what came out of it. He reluctantly agreed, and the search for a school began. Michael found local trainer named Jose Lothario, a former NWA wrestler, who agreed to train him. Of course, if someone offered you $3,000 for some training, you would accept too, wouldn't you? A mere two months passed, and Lothario declared his understudy to be ready, so Michael debuted at the young age of 19 under the ring name "Sean Michaels" for smaller wrestling federations in the southern states.
He worked his way up the ranks, especially within the tag team division, and would soon make his national debut for the AWA. Upon arriving at the AWA, Michael would be teaming up with another rookie named Marty Jannetty to form the Midnight Rockers. They had both teamed up previously in smaller wrestling promotions in the South, but now they had the chance to show their skills for more people. And show their skills, they did. After winning the AWA Tag Team Championship and developing a reputation of being one of the most exciting tag teams in professional wrestling, they caught the attention of the WWF. Their first run would last a whopping two weeks, though, after a supposed 'misunderstanding' stemming from a bar fight. My guess on what happened is that someone said that Shawn Michaels had pretty hair, causing Marty Jannetty to go on a jealous rage.
The Rockers would find their way back into the WWF, and although they never (officially) won the Tag Team Championships, they were one of the fan-favorites in the entire company. Then, the unthinkable happened - they started to grow apart, and one super-kick and broken plate glass window later, The Rockers were done for good, and the solo era of Shawn Michaels would begin. His first work as a heel was brilliant. He adopted his now-famed "Heartbreak Kid" persona, making everyone instantly jealous of his killer looks, or at least that's the way I saw it. But besides his easy-to-detest character, the real breakthrough came when he started having great matches against mostly anyone in the company. This resulted in multiple Intercontinental Championships, making him one of the brightest stars in the WWF in the 1990's.
Shawn Michaels not only was making himself to be a huge force in the company during this time, he was also making other people into stars, as well. After watching one Kevin Nash on TV, he was impressed by the big man and before he knew it, Nash was on WWF television, standing tall as HBK's bodyguard, Diesel. Together, they won the Tag Team Championships, but behind the scenes, they were forming a tight friendship that would not only prove to be personally fulfilling for Shawn Michaels, but also an important professional strategy later on in his career. This team didn't last too long, as Diesel went on to win the WWF Championship that Shawn wanted so badly for years, and their on-stage friendship ended. Their off-camera friendship, however, would continue to grow.
During this time, the WWF was pushing themselves away from the era of the "Big Men" that dominated the '80s, going with smaller, yet more skillful wrestlers. Shawn Michaels fit this mold perfectly. After turning face, he would finally achieve his boyhood dream and win the WWF Championship. His career was at an all-time high, having millions of adoring fans. Backstage, however, it's been reported that he was distancing himself from everyone else in the locker room, with the exception of some people...
Paul Levesque
Paul Levesque started out his young adult life with aspirations of being a bodybuilder and at the age of 19, was crowned Teenage Mr New Hampshire. His first moves into wrestling came at Killer Kowalski’s wrestling school which lead him into the Independent Wrestling Federation where he adopted the rather amusing-in-a-lame-way name of Terra Ryzing. He very quickly rose through the ranks there and very soon was the organization's top name.
As IWF champion, the big boys stated to take notice and in 1994, Paul joined WCW, initially using the Terra Ryzing name. A gimmick change saw Paul reinvented as a French nobleman by the name of Jean-Paul Lévesque. He would make his only WCW PPV appearance at Starrcade 1994, losing to Alex Wright before leaving the company in January 1995. Who knew that WCW were letting in go a future legend?
It did not take log for Paul to resurface in the big time. As early 1995 the WWF started to run a series of vignettes hyping the debut of a character who seemed to have a lot of similarities to Jean-Paul Lévesque. An episode of WWF Wrestling Challenge on 30 April 1995 saw the in-ring debut Hunter Hearst Helmsley. The only major difference between Lévesque and Helmsley was nationality, with the French snob becoming an American snob. His first WWF PPV appearance saw Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeat Bob Holly at SummerSlam 1995. The rest of 1995 and early 1996 saw Hunter involved in low level feuds with Fatu (Rikishi), Henry O. Godwin and Duke “The Dumpster” Droese before becoming fodder for the Ultimate Warrior at Wrestlemania 12 where he lost in 96 seconds. Paul had paid his dues and the management had taken notice and he was now being prepared for his first decent push. However, Paul had started to develop a behind the scenes friendship with a group of more established stars.
The Kliq and the Curtain Call
The personal life of Shawn Michaels wasn't in the best possible shape. Despite being one of the better performers of the company, there was a lot of 'partying' going on in his life. All of this led to him to abuse of alcohol and drugs. I'm guessing that due to this, Shawn Michaels needed what would be somewhat of a support group. This led to real-life friendships forming between him and his fellow comrades. A tight bond formed with Kevin Nash, Scott Hall (Razor Ramón), Sean Waltman (1-2-3 Kid / X-Pac) and Paul Levesque. The group was so close (and really, who wouldn't want to be close to HBK?) that they were lovingly - or perhaps not-so-lovingly - coined 'The Kliq' by none other than Lex Luger. Who knew Lex was sharp enough to come up with that all by his lonesome?
As Shawn Michaels continued to perform at a high level (despite the rampant drug abuse), his influence backstage grew stronger. This led to rumors that Shawn and the rest of The Kliq were starting to seize the ear of the higher-ups in the company, making themselves look good in the process while keeping everyone else down. Some of the alleged incidents were having Shawn Michaels forfeit his Intercontinental Championship against Shane Douglas, only to lose it soon thereafter to another Kliq member, Scott Hall, and having pirate Jean-Pierre Lafitte fired for not wanting to put over Kevin Nash, who was the WWF Champion back then. We truly don't know if these incidents were 100% true or not, but one thing was clear - The Kliq felt like they were a powerful entity that could do what they felt like.
19th May 1996 saw probably the most controversial moment involving the Kliq at a Madison Square Garden house show. The undercard featured a heel Levesque taking on a face Scott Hall. The main event saw a face Shawn Michaels taking on a heel Kevin Nash in a cage match. After the match, Hall and Levesque returned to the ring and the Kliq proceeded to hug each other (see clip >>>HERE<<<). With WWF wanting to stick to kafaybe at all times and the Kilq doing their own thing, someone would have to be punished. The problem was this, the whole reasoning for the hug was that Hall and Nash were about to leave the WWF to go to WCW. Michaels was close on untouchable as the top guy in the company and WWF champion leaving Levesque the only man involved to feel the wrath of the WWF management. He had been pencilled in to win the King of the Ring event which at the time was a move that would see a push to the main event. The honour that year would be bestowed onto Steve Austin and it was the time and place of the infamous “Austin 3:16” speech which may well have changed the face of wrestling and sowed the seeds of the Attitude Era.
With Paul’s first class ticket to the top revoked, he would have to work a lot harder to earn that main event spot and that is exactly what he did. He secured his first Intercontinental Championship in October 1996 with a little help from a man who would become his manager for a short while, Mr Perfect. Having a manager turned into having a bodyguard as Mr Hughes also had a brief spell with Levesque before finally finding an accomplice with staying power. Hunter was feuding with Goldust in early 1997 and his new bodyguard, a woman by the name of Chyna, debuted. Chyna would go on to play a big role in the developing career and personal life of Paul as they would go on to date. With Chyna by his side, Hunter would beat Goldust at Wrestlemania 13 and go on to win the King of the Ring a year later than originally planned, beating Mankind in the final. Hunter’s feud with Mick Foley would continue for much of the year (and their careers) but with Chyna by his side, and with Shawn the only other Kliq member in the company, something big was in the works.
While Hunter was floundering for a while, Shawn Michaels continued to be on the peak of his career. He continued to be the face of the company throughout the rest of 1996, sans a two-month hiatus from being WWF Champion. At the beginning of 1997, he once again went out to forfeit a championship, this time the WWF Championship, in a now-infamous speech where he claimed he 'lost' his smile. Depending on what you believe, he had to because he had a serious knee injury, or he didn't want to have to face Bret Hart at Wrestlemania XIII and drop the title to him. Regardless of the true reason, HBK would be out of the picture for a couple of months.
Upon his return, Shawn had a brief run with an up-and-coming 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin, winning the Tag Team Championship again. At the same time, Bret Hart had established himself as the top heel in the WWE, thanks to his anti-American rhetoric. Backstage, there was a real-life feud was brewing between Shawn and the aforementioned Bret Hart, in which HBK claims that Bret had done multiple interviews where he implied that Shawn was faking his knee injury. Things got worse when HBK was tapped to turn heel himself, leading Bret to think that he was being undermined by the ring leader of The Kliq. Shawn's heel turn occurred when he was included as the guest referee in the Bret Hart / Undertaker WWF Championship match at Summerslam 1997. The popular Undertaker lost his WWF Championship, thanks to Shawn Michaels knocking him out with a steel chair and being forced to make the three count to have the hated Canadian regain the WWF Championship in U.S. soil.
So now, both Bret and Shawn were full-blown heels. Bret Hart teamed along with his family and friends in a renewed version of the Hart Foundation. Shawn was still alone, but not for long...
Degeneration X
The birth of Degeneration X came on the 20 September 1997 at the One Night Only PPV in Birmingham, England. That's right Deg, just one more thing you should be grateful that the British bought you. The main event of the evening would see The British Bulldog defend his European Championship against Michaels and following interference from Hunter, Chyna and Rick Rude, The Heartbreak Kid would take the title and hand Davey Boy Smith his only home soil defeat whilst with the WWF. The heel faction would officially take their name Degeneration X on the 13 October during an episode of Raw. DX would quickly become the most intriguing part of WWF programing with their risqué skits and getting under the skin of Vince McMahon and Commissioner Slaughter. Their main feud however was with Bret Hart and the Hart Foundation and it was only one month later at Survivor Series where Paul and Michael would be involved in the highly controversial Montreal Screwjob.
I am sure that we all know the story by now (if you don't, feel free to check out >>>this<<< column) but the result was that Shawn won the WWF Championship from Bret Hart via a submission that never happened. The reason was that Bret was leaving the company for WCW and had refused to lose the title on home soil. This led to Vince McMahon (believed to be with the help of Michael and Paul) coming up with a plan to get the title onto Shawn. DX received a lot of heat in some circles for their part in the Screwjob but they continued to entertain on television and the heel faction were getting a lot face pops from the fans all over America (Canada, not so much!). One of the highlights of this time was the 22 December 1997 episode of Raw where Shawn was forced by Commissioner Slaughter to defend his European Championship against Hunter. What ensued was vintage DX and I strongly suggest that you check it out >>>HERE<<<.
The shenanigans continued throughout the early stages of 1998 and during the lead-up to WrestleMania 14, Mike Tyson joined the faction and seemed to be a perfect fit. Tyson would be a special enforcer for Shawn's WWF Championship defence against Stone Cold Steve Austin. Unfortunately, behind the scenes, there were other issues. HBK had successfully defended his title at the Royal Rumble against The Undertaker but during the match took a nasty bump to his back. He battled through until WrestleMania but the match against Austin was due to be his last before retirement from wrestling. At the event, Hunter successfully defended his European Championship against Owen Hart but a turn by Tyson would result in Stone Cold winning his first world title and following the match, Iron Mike would deliver a knock out blow to Shawn that would mark not only the end of a great career, but maybe also the end of a great faction based on a great friendship. The world looked on in anticipation of what would happen. How would Paul cope without his buddy around? What would Michael do without the industry that he had spent his career reinventing?
(Hunter)
Say say say
What you want
But dont play games
With my affection
Take take take
What you need
But dont leave me
With no direction
(Shawn)
All alone
I sit home by the phone
Waiting for you, baby
Through the years
How can you stand to hear
My pleading for ya dear
You know Im cryin
Oo oo oo oo oo
Well it didn’t actually take too long for Levesque to find his direction. On the Raw following Wrestlemania 14, Hunter questioned Shawn’s decision making abilities for trusting Mike Tyson and announced that as the new leader of Degeneration X, he was creating a DX army. The first member of this army would be returning Kliq member Sean Waltman, now going by the name of X-Pac. He came to the ring and proceeded to shoot on his former employers, Eric Bischoff and WCW. Later that night, the New Age Outlaws also became members of DX. The antics of The Road Dogg Jesse James and The Bad Ass Billy Gunn had been a perfect fit for the faction for quite some time and they had worked with Shawn and Hunter in the past. Now Hunter had made their inclusion in the group official, DX would hit dizzy new heights. They became so popular that the inevitable face turn came very quickly. This new version of DX created some of the most memorable moments in wrestling history including an invasion of WCW in order to “rescue” Hall and Nash and an ongoing feud with the faction, The Nation of Domination (The Rock, Mark Henry, D’Lo Brown, The Godfather and Owen Hart) which gave us one of the most loved segments in Raw history (which can be seen here >>>HERE<<<).
Bah, that stupid little cheap Degeneration X imitation. All I got to say is two words: X-Pac. Oh, sure, you can argue it was more popular than the original DX, and that they sold more merchandise, but when was this all happening? Ah, yes, during the peak of the Attitude Era. Had it not been for Stone Cold Steve Austin's meteoric rise to the top, along with a slew of supporting actors like The Rock, Mick Foley and The Undertaker, this little version of DX wouldn't be as 'revolutionary' as many put them out to be. And while Stone Cold and this DX rehash were credited for boosting the Attitude Era to unprecedented heights, who started with the 'Attitude' first? It wasn't Stone Cold's foul mouth and finger-gesturing - It was someone who had the balls to go out there and do what he wanted: put the Canadian flag up his nose, moon the crowd, walk in public with a roll of gauze stuffed down his shorts, hump the ramp... Yeah, stuff like that.
Come on Deg, you know that DX would have been nothing if wasn't for Paul. He proved it by making it work with Sean Waltman for crying out loud. No way Michael could have done that. Anyway, I think it is time we put this on hold for a while and come back and break down just who is the better man. We all know the history and how Michael couldn’t stay out of the limelight for long when he saw Paul’s legacy about to surpass his own. How about this, we come back in a few weeks and break down that little feud they had when the so called “show-stopper” returned. Plus it will make us look better in the eyes of anyone who said we did a wiki column. You down?
Alright, alright. I can wait for a few weeks to shut you up and prove you and all the other little Paul lovers wrong. Michael was, and always will be, the talent behind this dynamic duo. And if you're not down with that, I have two words for you...
