Regarding Shawn Michaels' "Drawing power" in the 90s
Anyway, people give Bret and HBK hell for the ratings during the New Generations time at the top, I've had rants on here about Michaels being the only guy that Vince put the full WWF machine behind that didn't get over as a top line superstar too, but one thing that is rarely mentioned is how much Vince dropped the ball during the early to mid 90s.
Look at the WWF roster from Summerslam 1992 to Summerslam 1997 and you'll see a whole host of bad signings, mishandled characters and guys Vince blew it with. Lets look at a few of the big ones though:
Macho Man: Following Wrestlemania in 1993 Vince decided Savage was finished as a wrestler and should become an announcer. Macho Man disagreed and the resulting argument pushed Macho out to WCW to join Bischoff and Hogan. Thinking about how Bret Hart was their only star attraction by the end of 1993 shows how idiotic this idea was. Macho had legs as a babyface or even as a heel who could have feuded with Bret over the WWF title in 1993 to 1995.
Ric Flair: Flair's star had fallen slightly from the 1980s for sure, but in 1992 he had still won the WWF Title twice and was still recognised as a top heel. Bret took the belt off him and was starved of decent opposition, he had no main event heels to work with until Yokozuna came along. Flair would have solved this problem nicely but instead Vince let him go back to WCW and Bischoff and Hogan.
Bret Hart: Bret was given the most stop start main event push Vince had ever given any superstar up until the last decade. He won the title on a house show, feuded over his jacket with a pirate, beat guys like HBK and Razor who weren't over enough to make the audience really care, lost the title to Yokozuna, feuded over a Kiss My Foot match with Lawler, won the title again, was booked properly in the Owen feud but pushed back to feud with Issac Yankem after losing it to Backlund, beat Diesel (who had beaten Backlund in 9 seconds) so he could hand it over to Shawn at Wrestlemania.
Anyone who criticises Bret not drawing as much as Hogan or Austin needs to look at the differences in how those three were presented to the audience. Austin and Hogan beat the hell out of everyone and never came up short, Bret got all of that up above. He never got the full Vince push to the top even when he was all Vince had.
Lex Luger: Speaking of stop/start pushes. Luger was clearly being positioned to take Hogan's crown after he slammed Yoko and went up against him at Summerslam. For whatever reason Vince went against booking logic by a) not having the Real American win, b) not having him lose to build heat on Yoko either and c) not allowing him a rematch afterwards.
No one, not Luger, not Yoko or the WWF came out of that mess well. Luger never recovered but that didn't stop Vince messing up the obvious storyline of Bret winning the Rumble to try to take back his WWF Title from Yoko a year after he lost it either.
Undertaker: He may not have been the Phenom yet but he was over and WWF needed top faces or heels to be positioned correctly. For much of the mid-90s though Taker was put in the Andre freak show role and came up against such nonsense characters as Underfaker, Giant Gonzalez and Kama.
Shawn Michaels: Michaels run at the top during 1996 and into 1997 was abysmal, lets get that out of the way first. He got the SuperCena push times ten and the fans hated him for it, but I don't think he should take the lion's share of the blame for it.
First off, his face turn the night after Wrestlemania 11 was one of the worst executed ever. Here was have a heel character who has played a cocky asshole for years acting like a whiny, cocky asshole to his bodyguard Sid after losing a match the night before and Sid turns on him and kick his ass.
Seriously watch it, I'm not sure how anyone thought this is how you turn a guy face:
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The crowd cheer the hell out of Sid because you'd assume it was Sid turning face, not Michaels. (plus Sid is awesome obviously)
He then won the WWF Title from a very popular face champion who fans weren't sick of yet. The crowd was split at Wrestlemania 12 and many felt disappointed that Bret lost. Not a great way to rally the audience behind your new number one face.
After that he took on the ultracool heel Diesel, who was basically playing as Kevin Nash from the Wolfpac at that stage, and got booed out of the building when he made an ultra unrealistic comeback after Diesel beat the hell out of him all match long. This underdog formula had worked well for the Hitman for the past few years but didn't work for Michaels because they used it too often (Diesel, Vader, Sid) and he wasn't as sympathetic a character as the hard working, down to earth Hitman character.
That ended up with HBK's famous tantrum in the middle of Madison Square Garden as the New York fans turned on him and cheered Sid beating him all night. After that HBK was finished as a main event face champion. People hadn't accepted him, he couldn't even sell out his home town despite a massive push by the WWF to do so and he 'lost his smile'.
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A lot of it was his fault but Vince booked him poorly, just like he had done the entire company for years at that stage and that's the real reason why the WWF ratings, attendances and buy rates were way down.
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