The Shimmy 08.18.08: Becoming What You Hate The Most

Posted by Andy Clark on 08.18.2008

Batista once criticized Shawn Michaels for the way he treated other people, but has The Animal become the type of person he once claimed to despise? Find out in this week's edition of The Shimmy!

Back in the spring we were treated to a violent and personal rivalry between Shawn Michaels and Dave Batista. The main contention in the rivalry was that Batista strongly disliked the type of man he felt Shawn Michaels was. An egotist, a man that would take whatever measures possible to win, and a man that by no means could be trusted. Batista decried HBK's politics and the fact he always has to have things happen on his terms. Batista felt wronged by Michaels for not only ending the career of Ric Flair, but for stooping to cheap tactics to defeat him at Backlash, taking exception to the fact that Michaels would fake an injury in order to win. As a result of this Batista vowed to hurt the "Showstopper" and deliver the payback he felt Michaels so richly deserved. At One Night Stand Batista delivered on that promise, seemingly righting some of the wrongs committed by Shawn Michaels.

Michaels' past is no mystery to those that have been watching wrestling for an extended period of time. Just this year alone Batista and Chris Jericho have made note of HBK's dubious past. We've all seen the video package, first developed by Rated RKO a year ago and recently updated and reused by Chris Jericho. Marty Jannetty going through the Barbershop window. Diesel getting a taste of Sweet Chin Music and then hearing how Michaels "made that guy." Brawling between World Tag Team Championship partners Stone Cold Steve Austin and HBK. Michaels hitting X-Pac with a chair, turning his back on D-Generation X and aligning himself with the Corporation as Commissioner. Superkicking Booker T right out of the nWo. Surprising Hulk Hogan with an attack as the Hulkster posed for his fans following their victorious tag team match. Finally delivering Sweet Chin Music to his World Tag Team Championship partner John Cena as they went for double Five Knuckle Shuffles. And of course, ending the career of the greatest wrestler of all time, and supposed "friend" of Michaels, Ric Flair at WrestleMania XXIV. Partners and friends of Shawn Michaels have not faired well, and you only need to ask Bret Hart (Survivor Series 1997) and The Rock (the first regular SmackDown) of what happens when you get in Shawn Michaels way.

With a past like that it is no wonder Batista had issues with Shawn Michaels. But after watching Batista ignore the tag request of John Cena in their World Tag Team Title Match two Mondays ago on Raw, I have to wonder, has Batista turned into the man he claimed to despise just months ago? Or has Batista been that man all along?

Batista is no stranger to being the betrayer in a relationship. It was mentioned in last week's column that Batista entered WWE as the lackey of D-Von Dudley. It was also mentioned that that partnership ended badly. Batista turned on D-Von and bolted for Monday Night Raw. On Raw he would become a member of Evolution and play relatively nicely. In 2004, however, when Randy Orton won the World Heavyweight Title and Triple H made the decision that Orton would no longer be welcome in the group, Batista had little problem joining in on the vicious beatdown of his former partner. And in 2005 when Batista had his own sites set on a World Title, he chose not to work as a unit and run SmackDown while Triple H ran Raw, but to challenge for his mentor's championship.

It would be later in 2005 that Batista would show a more manipulative streak, a la Shawn Michaels. As Eddie Guerrero was coming off of a long, violent and clearly emotionally taxing feud with Rey Mysterio, he also found himself next in line for Batista's World Heavyweight Title. Instead of manning straight up to Guerrero he decided to play along with Eddie act of trying to "be friends" even uttering the famous line "Friends don't shake hands…friends gotta huuuuug!" When their match came at No Mercy Batista took advantage of a clearly conflicted Eddie Guerrero and retained his championship. While it appeared as if a the two men actually did start a friendship, Eddie Guerrero died shortly thereafter so we will never no if Batista would have stayed the course with Eddie or not.

And then of course we have the Undertaker. Batista teamed with Undertaker, his WrestleMania 23 opponent, in the main event of the No Way Out PPV a month before their big clash. For the majority of the match the two men worked together well…until Batista turned on him. Batista delivered a spinebuster to the Deadman, costing his team the match but sending a message to his opponent. He would also engage in a series of battles with Undertaker's brother Kane, and also Batista's off-again-on-again tag team partner later in the summer when Kane tried to get in his way to the World Heavyweight Title.

Which leads us to two weeks ago on Raw. Batista and John Cena, two men that have teamed together in the past, challenged for the World Tag Team Titles. Despite the fact that everyone knew that Cena's punch from a few weeks earlier was unintentional and despite the fact that they had worked well on both the previous week's Raw and at Saturday Night's Main Event, Batista was rather reluctant to tag into Cena. When he finally did make the tag thanks to Cena slapping him across the face he made sure to steal the spotlight and win the titles himself. After the match both men tried to take center stage and outpop the other.

The similarities between Batista and Shawn Michaels do not stop at who they have turned on. They share similarities in who they have kept close to them as well. There is one man that both men remained friends with no matter what transpired between them: Ric Flair. In 2003 Shawn Michaels seemingly broke Flair out of the role of Triple H's lackey only to be doublecrossed by the Nature Boy, starting a feud between the two. Even after that doublecross though Flair and Michaels managed to patch things up.

Likewise, when Batista broke free from Evolution he had to battle Flair from time to time to get to Triple H. When Triple H took a brief hiatus it appeared as if Flair and Batista had became friends again, only for Flair to doublecross Batista much in the same way he did HBK. Even though he was once betrayed by Flair, Batista gravitated back to the Nature Boy the first chance he got and the two remained friends until Flair's retirement. Those that watched Batista and Michaels' tense words with each other this spring realize that it was this friendship with Flair that was the real impetus for their feud.

While Batista and Michaels both have a penchant for turning on their partners and both have a good relationship with Ric Flair, both men also have one person that they have yet to turn on. For Shawn Michaels that is Triple H. Yes these two men have had their differences and they even engaged in a bitter violent feud that lasted almost two years but it has always been Triple H that initiated the negativity. It was Triple H who kicked HBK out of DX following WrestleMania XIV. It was Triple H that ended the one-night-only reunion of DX in 2002. It was Triple H that put Michaels head through a car window just weeks later. Michaels on the other hand forgave all the stuff that Triple H had done to him when they reunited in 2006. Michaels gave up his good will with the fans by superkicking The Rock in his match with Triple H on the first regular edition of SmackDown. The closest Michaels has ever come to turning on Triple H was turning on DX as a whole when he aligned himself with the Corporation but I don't recall any individual incidents between the two men during that period. Even when Michaels threatened Triple H with physical repercussions if he did not join the nWo in 2002, a few weeks later he changed to his tune to a much more friendly invitation to join him on Raw. It's amazing not only how well those two meshed back together when they reunited in 2006 but the fluidity with which they work during moments of the WrestleMania XX main event Triple Threat Match during the peak of their rivalry. Just look at the way they communicate with their eyes as they put Chris Benoit through a table during the match. Even when they were fierce rivals they still shared a certain bond.

For Batista it seems like his sole friend is Rey Mysterio. Batista and Rey became friends shortly after Eddie Guerrero passed away, so perhaps Rey is just filling that gap. They became WWE Tag Team Champions together and when Batista had to vacate the World Heavyweight Title he endorsed Rey Mysterio as a future World Champion. They teamed some when Batista returned from his injury, with Rey Mysterio even taking out the man that injured Batista, Mark Henry. In 2007 when Rey Mysterio was feuding with The Great Khali over the title Batista came to Mysterio's aid and when the three men competed in a Triple Threat Match for the belt Batista and Mysterio's interaction was limited. In fact, presented with the choice of taking out Rey or Khali to win the title Batista forwent the opportunity to finish of Mysterio and went after Khali instead. With both men now on the Raw roster it will be interesting to see whether or not they maintain their relationship but there is no reason to think that they wouldn't.

Unless of course Rey is just the next man on Batista's list. Perhaps Batista will follow even more in HBK's footsteps and take out yet another partner. Maybe where Michaels manages to have, perhaps even needs, that balancing partner in Triple H, maybe Batista does not. Over the past few years Batista has shown signs of the egotism and narcissism that he has criticized Michaels for. He left fans, wrestlers, and general managers waiting in 2005 as a feigned making a decision over who he would challenge at WrestleMania. He pouted as John Cena, Booker T, and Big Show feuded over who was the "Champion of Champions" and made sure to interject himself into the feud. Twice he has allowed himself to be placed in championship matches where he should have already lost his title opportunity, taking away one-on-one title shots from both Bobby Lashley at No Mercy 2006 and Rey Mysterio at Unforgiven 2007. He has constantly kept himself in the title hunt despite coming up short numerous times and has often thrown temper tantrums after his losses, either attacking his opponent after the bell or destroying ringside property. He has seen fit to make himself the center of attention, muscling his way into captaining Team SmackDown at Survivor Series 2005 and answering the Raw challenge at WrestleMania XXIV, and it was indicated that he was offended that Ric Flair did not choose for him to be Flair's WrestleMania opponent. He has allowed small altercations to consume him whether it be a declaratory chokeslam by Undertaker, having a wrestler thrown at him at ringside, or a misplaced punch by John Cena. These are all traits that could be attributed to Shawn Michaels at one point in his career or another and are mostly traits that Batista would have criticized in the Showstopper.

Having put forth all these facts it appears as if my original hypothesis was incorrect. Batista has not become the type of man he claims Shawn Michaels is, he has always been that man. Perhaps one day Batista will change or perhaps one day he'll wake up to the reality that he is every bit the man he once claimed to hate. Until then, however, there will be a very dangerous man operating under a cloak of denial and there is no telling how many people will have to suffer because of it.

PPV in Review: SummerSlam

First of all, did JR have Chinese for lunch or something? He sounded like a fortune cookie at times last night. "It is better to be a diamond with a flaw than a stone without one." "Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan."

Jeff Hardy vs. MVP was a very solid opener, much better than their Judgment Day match. Both of these men have grown to being some of the most consistent all around performers. I like that they let Shelton Benjamin get in on things as well. I was afraid that if MVP ended back up in United States Title matches it would look like a step backward but so long as Hardy and Shelton continue to be featured as they are it should be a nice little program for all involved.

The Mixed Tag Team Match was fun, and the prematch interview was Maria was priceless. It's a shame Kofi didn't get a real chance to shine as IC Champion, but Santino is probably better in the long run. I think we may be in for a Honky Tonk Man-like reign for Santino, something I'll get into more next week.

We got the best we could have hoped for with the HBK segment. I wasn't to thrilled that we were getting what seemed like a Raw segment on PPV, but it turned out for the best. Fuck being TV-PG, that was great stuff. Michaels' wife was a real pro about everything and it was a great way to keep the feud going. I have been hot and cold on this whole feud from the get go, but now I an definitely hot.

The ECW Title "Match" was the only sore spot of the night. If they didn't want Matt or Henry to lose then they shouldn't have booked the match. This was a complete joke. I guess they did the right thing business wise to give the fans a mini Hardys reunion but that still doesn't erase the bad taste this left in my mouth. I think it would have been funny if Striker had gone on a tangent about how awful it was considering they essentially did the very same thing with the CM Punk vs. Big Daddy V match at No Mercy when Striker was managing V.

CM Punk and JBL delivered a pretty good match as well, much better than I figured they would have pulled off. That cut on Punk's head looked nasty and it sure seemed like they went home early because of it. Lawler was kind of odd on commentary during this match because he seemed to be muttering to himself throughout the contest.

Triple H vs. Khali was a whole lot of fun. Khali looked like he had a realistic chance of winning and both guys told a great story. The crowd was into the match as well, even though "You can't wrestle" is just only a little less disrespectful than "You fucked up."

Cena-Batista had some great heat early, but I felt that most of the match was just any other match. Things picked up great as the match concluded and the finish was really awesome. I can't wait to see the next match between these two because I think the best is yet to come. I sure hope those Cena haters are happy because 2008 seems to be the Year of the Job for Cena. As much as I liked this match and as big of a Cena fan as I am, I'd be remiss if I didn't note that that may have been the worst STFU I can remember seeing.

Hell in a Cell was off the charts. It was spot after spot for the most part but all the spots made sense in the context of the story. People said this needed to be a MOTYC and it definitely fit the bill. I will say that the very end seemed a bit out of place as 1) They lost the crowd, 2) It took to long to set up, and 3) Taker seemed particularly heelish, but I will say that the pits of Hell swallowing up Edge was a pretty cool visual.

Overall this was a great show that overcame a lot of obstacles to pull off what they did. Aside from the ECW Title debacle there wasn't a bad match on the show and much like most of the big matches it built beautifully.

Andy Enjoyment Index: SummerSlam

1) Taker-Edge
2) Cena-Batista
3) Triple H-Khali
4) Punk-JBL
5) MVP-Jeff
6) Kofi & Mickie-Glamarella
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7) Henry-Matt

The Shimmy Likes It Raw!

Last week I was live in the house for Raw. This week I'll be live in the house to see The Boss, and I don't mean Vince McMahon. Bruce Springsteen is coming to Richmond which means Raw is going to have to wait.

There was a rather interesting edit in last week's show. If you watched on TV, you saw that Cena prevented Batista from hitting the Batista Bomb and the announcers were all like "What the hell?" What you didn't see during the commercial was that Cena had tried to FU Cody Rhodes but Batista stopped him. Cena was just retaliating but for some reason they didn't put that over on TV. You also missed a good promo by Jamie Noble where he informed William Regal that in America "We don't have queens, we have the Batman."

Well that does it for this week's column. I'll see you next week, right here at 411mania. Accept no imitations, the real talent is at 411, right Wade? Until then, don't die. Clark…out.