The Wrestling Menu - DaveyBoy, HBK & Family
Submitted by DaveyBoy on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 at 4:33 AM EST






THE WRESTLING MENU #24

Welcome one and all to the 24th edition of The Wrestling Menu, the column that is sure to satisfy your taste buds when it comes to discussing all things wrestling.

Just some housekeeping before I get started today; Firstly, congratulations to Snapple, who has been promoted from the LOP Columns Forum to here on the main page. I recommend that everybody give his column, 'Wrestling In A Bottle', a read. He always has a very entertaining (& different) perspective on anything that happens in the wild world of professional wrestling.

Secondly, just a reminder that next Wednesday will see the unveiling of the 25th edition of The Wrestling Menu. I see a 'Quarter Of A Century' as a major milestone & am currently putting together a special column that all readers should find an excellent, informative & entertaining read.

Finally, I'd like to thank all of those readers that took the time to send me an e-mail after column #23 last Wednesday. I received an enormous amount of feedback, which really pleasantly surprised me. As per usual, everyone has received a reply from me. I'll always endeavour to respond to all those that are kind enough to provide me with their feedback on my column.

Apart from having heaps of positive feedback, I had many readers inform me as to the specifics of what Christopher Nowinski did on Raw with a skull, during his hardcore match with Al Snow. This was in response to me stating: "Was Nowinski imitating The Undertaker when he was holding up that skull? Don't do that Chris, or your career will be over before it started." I did actually realise that Nowinski wasn't doing this, but actually re-enacting a scene out of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. I'll be honest in saying that I didn't know it was specifically Hamlet, as Shakespeare is definitely not my strong point, but I did know that it was something out of classic literature (if that's the right term to use). Before starting my Raw comments last week, I also stated: "I'll warn you now that it's not as serious as the 'PPV Review' & I will throw in the odd sarcastic comment." The Nowinski comment was definitely an example of this, as I was trying to be sarcastic about the rumour/perception that The Undertaker has held down wrestler's who he has deemed to have disrespected him in the past.

I just thought I'd throw that clarification in, as those of you that are literature-challenged to some degree (like myself) may have wanted to know what Christopher Nowinski was actually doing. Anyways, your meal will now be served:


APPETIZERS - DaveyBoy

Also in feedback to my first couple of columns here, a couple of people have asked about the DaveyBoy name I carry & what, if any, significance does the late great Davey Boy Smith have to it. Well, the only significance is that this a wrestling related column & Davey Boy Smith was indeed a wrestler. He is not my favourite wrestler ever, nor would he make my Top-10 favourites of all time. The truth is my name is David & some people call me Davey Boy. Simple as that. Having said that, if I was writing a column on another topic, say video games or basketball, I probably would not have chosen this name. So there is some significance, I suppose.

Davey Boy Smith may not be my favourite wrestler, but I will give him 2 things. Firstly, he took part, in my opinion, in the greatest wrestling match I have ever seen. The event was SummerSlam 1992, the setting was Wembley Stadium in England & he was the challenger for the Intercontinental title. His opponent on that night in front of 60,000+ fans was none other than his brother-in-law, Bret Hart. The match was as close to perfect as possible, and when coupled with the crowd & the family storyline, hasn't been bettered since.

Secondly, Davey Boy Smith was one half of maybe the best tag-team in WWF history; The British Bulldogs. Historically, it's hard to judge tag-teams like singles wrestlers, as their shelf lives don't seem to be as long for one reason or another. But in The British Bulldogs, you had the young entertaining powerhouse in Davey Boy, teamed with the serious professional veteran, The Dynamite Kid. They complemented each other well without being too different, stuck around for many years & battled many different types of opponents to excellent matches.

Add to this, Davey Boy's handy heavyweight title run at Shawn Michaels in mid-1996 & underrated tag-team with the late great Owen Hart for a few years, and you have quite a great career for the man known to us as The British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith. A career that's definitely worthy enough of having my user-name associated with him.

So, I hear you all asking, if Davey Boy Smith isn't your favourite wrestler of all time, then who is? Well, it's not an easy question to answer as over the years there have been many different types of wrestlers competing in different types of organizations. But, if I had to name one, it would be.....


MAIN - HBK Shawn Michaels

Just as a further introduction to myself, I will let you all know that I began watching wrestling in 1985 at about the time of the first WrestleMania. I was a keen little fan who continued to watch whatever Australian televison threw at me until approximately 1990, when wrestling disappeared from my screen. When I returned to the wonderful world of professional wrestling in May of 1996 (when cable tv arrived down under), I noticed that the heavyweight champion was Shawn Michaels. The name rang a bell & the face rang a bell, but I couldn't quite place him. Then I realised that he was one half of the tag-team known as The Rockers. If you told me back in 1990 that either Shawn Michaels or Marty Jannetty would be the WWF heavyweight champion of the world within 6 years, I would have pointed the direction to the nearest looney bin.

What I saw over the next 9 months (& the proceeding 6 months through video rentals) was a wrestler who put on a great match everytime he came to the ring. Whether he annoyed you or not, his matches were often the best of the night. He showed an ability to mix up offences within the same match. One moment, he would be mixing it with whoever he was facing with mat-wrestling holds & then out of nowhere, he would get a burst of energy leading to minutes on end of fast-paced, high-flying action. He could wrestle a five minute match just as well as a sixty minute match, but most importantly could make a great match no matter what style his opponent used. Think about those opponents he wrestled between February & November 1996 on pay-per-view. Owen Hart, Bret Hart, Diesel (Kevin Nash), Davey Boy Smith, Vader, Mankind, Undertaker & Psycho Sid. That's quite a diverse range of individual styles. Of those matches, none of them were stinkers & 4 or 5 of them were match of the year contenders.

Speaking of Match Of The Year honours. Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) readers voted a Shawn Michaels match to be the match of the year in 4 consecutive years. 1993 versus Marty Jannetty, 1994 versus Razor Ramon, 1995 versus Diesel & 1996 versus Bret Hart. On top of this, he took third place versus The Undertaker in 1997 & second place versus Steve Austin in 1998. That's quite a record, especially considering the fact that at this stage there were two great wrestling promotions around. Some would say that his lasting power wasn't as great as some of the legends like Hogan, Flair, Steamboat or Savage, but the above match of the year honours coupled with the fact that The Rockers started in the WWF in the late-80's would tend to suggest that he wrestled for long enough. Also remember that it wasn't lack of popularity that seemingly ended Shawn's career, nor was it his in-ring ability (that runner up spot in 1998 was his last match since his comeback this year), it was a genuinely bad career-ending injury.

Furthermore, let's not forget that his career went from heel to face & back again, a few times. On most of the occasions, the transition was seamless. But most importantly, Shawn Michaels played both the face & the heel perfectly. When he was a heel, everyone but a few screaming girls hated him. Alternatively, when he was a face, all but the roughest men liked him. Bottom line; either way, he performed well in the ring & on the microphone.

Shawn has obviously had his detractors, but most of them would be related to the Clique running the political backstage area for a few years, or his part in the infamous screwjob in Montreal at Survivor Series 1997. Both of these were basically backstage incidents where he may have to plead guilty... who knows? The main thing was that when he stepped into the squared circle, whether heel or face, whether ppv or tv show, whether for a title or not, he put on a great match. I struggle to come up with another wrestler who consistently did that over a longer period of time.

Another criticism of The Heartbreak Kid, is the comment that he was not a draw. You see, when he was the top star in the company, the ratings & overall business, were predominantly low. While this is a fact that I cannot argue, I do believe that there were extenuating circumstances that made it difficult for Shawn Michaels to succeed. His championship reign started on March-31, 1996. Less than 6 weeks later, Scott Hall debuted on WCW Monday Nitro & began what snowballed into probably the best angle of all time; the NWO. Come June, when Kevin Nash & Hulk Hogan had joined Hall, everyone was watching Nitro. Even myself, a huge fan of HBK, was watching Nitro, if given the choice. The NWO coupled with the simultaneous emergence of the amazing WCW cruiserweights (too many to mention), basically made it unfair for Shawn Michaels to be judged on ratings & business figures of the time

HBK's seemingly finished career made a few attempts at a comeback in 2000 & 2001. But for one reason or another, they were aborted. When Shawn became involved in an angle with Triple H this past July & it was revealed that he would finally make his comeback to the squared circle at SummerSlam, I initially reacted to the news with great trepidation. Sure, selfishly, I had always wanted to see him wrestle one more match, only because I was a huge fan of his. There was no doubt that Triple H was the correct opponent for him, as they are close friends & he would have given Shawn that extra little bit of confidence. But to expect what eventuated was not even a possibility in my mind. A 28 minute match that almost had everything, I'm already calling this contest the match of 2002.

Maybe, as a great fan of his, I should never have doubted what the man could do in the ring. Either way, to say I was pleasantly surprised was a huge understatement. I wasn't sure what would happen following that match. The storyline layoff was expected due to the aftermatch sledgehammer shots he took, but once more, I felt that placing Shawn Michaels in the Survivor Series Elimination Chamber match was a risk. Having him win the World Heavyweight Title in the same match is also a calculated risk that the WWE has taken.

I will be honest; I thought that Booker T or Chris Jericho winning would have been a better idea, but a short-term transitional reign for HBK may indeed spark some excitement in the Raw brand, the likes of which we have not seen since before Triple H was (controversally & incorrectly) handed the title that fateful Monday night in early September. While not setting the earth on fire, HBK's main event match vs Rob Van Dam on the past Raw, was a totally acceptable television main event (except for the ending of course). What gave me hope though, was that apart from not winning the title, RVD seemed to get a good rub off of HBK. Apart from the good backstage segments, the match itself seemed better structured than the usual RVD 'flurry-at-the-end' match. Am I going too far by asking if this was HBK's doing? Oh well, I guess we'll find out in the weeks or months to come.


DESSERT - Family

I cannot recall why, but I was having a look at the event calendar on the WWE website the other day. This is the one that lists when & where shows will take place. Now I have always known that the WWE's schedule is a hectic one & anyone that is a part of the company is on the road for a huge proportion of the year. This obviously takes a huge toll on the wrestlers, as moving from city to city means that they can never settle in one place too often & are seemingly always away from their families. When I combined this with compiling my facts & thoughts on Shawn Michaels, who has only recently been married & had a child, I realized that there is a group of people that are very important to the WWE product, yet we don't even know their names.

I am talking about a wrestler's family. The importance of their role to the success of their partner cannot be under-estimated, in my opinion. A lot of the wrestlers are married & some do have children. Can you imagine what it is like for the wrestlers to be away from their families for so long. I know people in other professions also have the same problem, but with a wrestler it is a little further accentuated, because they perform in front of millions of people on television worldwide.

If, for example, a wrestler was having problems at home, it could have an adverse effect on the wrestler's performance. The problems could come from a number of reasons; family sickness, partners occupation, or children having problems at school. The possibilities are endless. How's this for a silly example; the child's dog dies, the mother tries to explain to the child about death, the kid won't listen & wants his dad to talk to him/her, but won't take the explanation over the phone. Remember that kids are kids. Can you imagine this in The Ross Report; The Rock was unable to perform at Raw on Monday as he had to fly back home to Miami to explain to his child about the death of her dog.

As we all know, anything that takes a persons mind off the job at hand could lead to a sub-par performance. It's definitely exaggerated in the wrestling ring, as a mistake will usually be easily noticed by an audience, both live or on television. Even worse, it could result in an injury to themselves or their opponents, which can hinder the entire career of either performer. Once more, let's take Shawn Michaels as an example. Due to his serious back injury, there must have been huge pressure on his decision of whether or not to return to the ring. That pressure is probably still there to some extent & may inhibit his performance in the ring. Subsequently, this effects his opponents.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that we should never forget the importance of the unseen elements when it comes to a wrestler's performance. In my opinion, the families of a wrestler play a very under-rated role in the end product that we all get to see. So I end this column by thanking the families (especially the spouses) of the WWE performers, who hold things together at home & understand the importance of their partners career to fans such as you & I.


As always, please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail letting me know what you thought of any of the 3 discussion points (DaveyBoy Smith, HBK & Family) raised in this column. Like I said a few weeks back, the aim of The Wrestling Menu is to provide at least 2 good discussion points pertaining to professional wrestling, in each column. Hopefully I have done that thus far. I can assure you that all feedback will be very appreciated & I will attempt to respond to all e-mails. My e-mail address is DaveyBoy123@bigpond.com

As mentioned at the beginning of this column, next Wednesday will see the unveiling of the 25th edition of The Wrestling Menu. I will only give away that I have been putting together the column over the past 3-4 weeks & it's still not finished. The amount of time & research I have put into it will hopefully show in the end result. I'll see you at the same time & place next Wednesday. Until then, this is Davey Boy signing off & asking you to remember that dinner is best served in 3 courses.









*NEW GALLERY* Must See LEAKED Photos of Velvet Sky! AMAZING!

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