Bret and Shawn Couldn't Draw....So What?

[The Brain]

I have read over and over again on the forum that Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels couldn’t draw. Business was down in the WWF in the mid 90’s and Bret and Shawn get the blame because they were the top guys. I’m not here to argue whether they drew or not (although I could). Facts are facts. Business was down and some wondered if the WWF was even going to be able to survive. For those who criticize Bret and Shawn for not being able to draw I have one question. Why do you care?

Now to be fair a good percentage of the times I read this criticism it’s in a debate when discussing the greatest stars in wrestling history. I have no problem bringing this up when comparing Bret and Shawn to Hogan or Austin. I don’t have a problem when this is brought up when discussing the impact they had on the WWF and their place in history. What I’m confused about are the people who seem to have a personal dislike toward Bret and Shawn because they did not draw.

These two consistently put on great matches. Even though business was down, I think the matches during the new generation were better than both the Hulkamania and attitude eras and Bret and Shawn were always involved in the best matches. There may not have been as many people watching as during the other eras, but I was watching and I loved that era because of the matches they put on. The lack of audience does not make these matches any less entertaining. It’s a shame more people didn’t see them. If you didn’t like watching Bret and Shawn what did you like about WWF back then?

The bottom line is I don’t think people should hate on Bret and Shawn because they didn’t draw. If you didn’t like their matches and were not entertained by them that’s one thing, but their inability to draw has no effect on you. Haven’t you ever liked a movie that didn’t do well at the box office? WrestleMania X was 16 years ago. The WWF went on to survive and thrive after their mid 90’s slump. When I watch that event now I don’t think about how tickets weren’t selling and how ratings were low. Instead I kick back and enjoy the five star matches that both Bret and Shawn put on that night. As a fan can’t you sit back and enjoy the show and not concern yourself with problems that have been solved for a long time? It just bothers me when people blatantly ignore the great matches Bret and Shawn put on and look at things from a business standpoint. It’s not our business. We do not profit when business is up and we do not suffer when business is down. We’re the fans and wrestling is supposed to be fun for us. We need not worry about the business side.

 

[DDPandNWOfan]

You know the funny thing about this is back then when HBK wasn't considered a real draw is when I actually found him entertaining. I mean he's always been the best in the ring but back then his character was just at it's best. But nowadays when he actually is considered one of their top draws I've just found his character to be so boring.

But I agree with everything you said. To me it doesn't matter who can draw or not as long as I'm entertained by what I see. And once Razor and Diesel left Bret and HBK were literially the only reasons to watch WWF until Austin hit it big.

 

[GameOver]

I loved that era lol. Don't care what the ratings say, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were very good faces of the company. One issue was they were "wrestlers"
they weren't over the top characters who couldn't throw a decent looking fake punch to save themselves ie Hogan

back then in WWF it was about the wrestling with a bit of attitude thrown in, still had the comedy/characters style of the Hogan era and the fast paced wrestling of the new generation with a bit of attitude thrown in. It was a great mix, and HBK and Bret Hart portrayed it well.

IMO the problem was Hogan and many other WWF mainstayers had already or were going to WCW which had a huge impact on where a chunk of viewers went.
And ofcourse we all know that Vince seemed to dislike guys who weren't over 260pounds

WWF also had to make do with who they had and create a shit load more "characters" out of nowhere which they did, and in the end they not only survived but dominated

 

[Megadeth]

I always think its funny when people talk about Bret and Shawn not drawing. No one ever talks about how WCW was in roughly the same position prior to the nWo starting. According to Eric Bischoff's book (take that for what you will) before he was put in charge of WCW they were loosing about $10 Million a year. When Nitro first started, pre nWo, they were getting around the same rating as Raw was, yet no one ever says that Ric Flair, Sting, and even Hogan at that time weren't drawing. The fact is wrestling's popularity tends to go in cycles. The fact is that when Bret Hart took over as THE guy in the WWF/E, they had to deal with having all of their previous main events leaving. You had Hogan, Savage, Flair, Piper, the Warrior all leave in a fairly short period of time, and most of those guys never really bothered to put anyone over on their way out. Yeah, Bret beat Flair for the belt, but he wouldn't even do it on TV or PPV, they did it on a house show that was filmed and only released on Home Video.

The real fact is that wrestling's popularity tends to come and go in waves. Based on the numbers I could find, every wrestlemania after WM3 had a lower buyrate than the one before it, up until WM14 when the Austin era kicked in. Wrestling's popularity was already declining, and those guys decided to get out while they could. That left guys like Hart and Michaels in a really tough spot. Plus they had the whole steroid scandal at the time, hurting it's reputation, and the wrestling in general was no longer "cool".

So all that to say it's not really fair to blame it on Hart and Michaels, seeing as guys like Hogan, Flair, and Savage weren't doing any better during the same time period down in WCW. It took Hogan turning heel and the formation of the nWo, along with the Attitude Era and Stone Cold to get wrestling out of it's slump. If you compare the Raw ratings of today compared to 10 years ago, they are only getting about half the rating they use to. Yet no one says John Cena cant draw, or Randy Orton cant draw. I went to a Smackdown show earlier this year at an arena I have attended WWE shows at before, and it was nowhere near a sale-out, yet 10 years ago it would have been. Even Raw every week at this point isnt a guarantee to sale out anymore.
So, finally, Bret and Shawn were for the most part, just Victims of bad timing of when their reign was, and I think they are the reason WWE was able to keep going during such a rough time for wrestling.

 

[UseYourBrain]

Bret and Shawn COULD and DID draw. They just couldn't draw as big as Hogan had. Nobody could. Right before he left WWE, Hogan couldn't draw either. When he showed up in WCW, Hogan couldn't draw. It's not a reflection on the wrestler. It's a reflection on the times, market, and business. Nobody in their right mind would say that HBK couldn't draw as a wrestler in 2010. He could and did. Why? Because he had people around him who were helping to pull their share of the load. Hogan had Savage, Perfect, Andre, etc to help him put on a marquee-worthy show. Who did HBK have during the time people said he couldn't draw? Vader? Second string. Mankind? Wasn't a big star yet. Jeff Jarrett? The only top stars he had to work with were Taker and Hart. They were the ONLY 3 big names in WWE. By the same token, do you then say that Undertaker wasn't a draw during these years because the fans weren't pouring in to see him? No. It takes more than one guy holding a belt to get people to show up. All of this "big draw - no draw" talk is stupid.

 

[The Idiot]

Bret and Shawn drew me to the television...and that's all I give a damn about. Even before the internet..I understood good wrestling when I saw it. These two had my attention back in the late 80's when they were tagging. When you take a look back on wrestling history....this by far is one of the longest and most interesting feuds. Couple that with the fact that they put on great performances in the ring and you have something special.

Yeah Austin drew bigger numbers...but wasn't that because of Bret Hart playing such a great heel and helping him get there? Same with Austin and Shawn. The reason the numbers were low was because all the stars that everyone grew up watching in the 80's had all reunited again in WCW. The "newer" audience hadn't arrived until the attitude era. That's when people pulled their heads out of their asses and realized that what was happening in the WWF was superior to the crapfest with over-aged, out of shape has-beens in WCW. Austin was the star at the time, but again, alot of that can be credited to Bret and Shawn helping him get there.

When talking about the greatest professional wrestlers of all time...you can flush the ratings down the commode because they don't mean shit (no pun intended). Bret and Shawn, for me, will forever be remembered as the greatest of all time.

 

[Hulkamaniac]

Their drawing ability affects their place in wrestling history as a whole, but shouldn't have any impact on an individuals enjoyment of each guy. I personally liked both guys alright. Shawn's original sexy boy character was a bit different, and interesting to me, while Hart's in-ring ability was very nice. That said, I lost a lot of my personal affection for Bret Hart after this latest run, and Shawn as a face just doesn't do it for me at all.

 

[theHeadliner]

There were so many other factors that had to do with that period of the WWF's business problems that its laughable to just blame Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. The WCW had Hogan, Savage, Flair, the lucha libres. Hall and Nash were over when they jumped ship, and their storyline appeared to be a shoot and it drew the WWF viewers who like all of the wrestlers that Vince put over who were now in the WCW. When Shawn was the champ in 1996, Bret took time off and the only other main-eventer was Undertaker. Everyone else was new or on the rise. Also, the WWF was in transition from 1993 on. I guarantee that if Michaels never got hurt and kept the title with DX while Austin was still doing his thing as a character, Michaels would have drew 10x better than he did in 1996 because the product had changed for the better and found a formula to go head to head with WCW.

 

[mvalley]

The problem was neither Bret nor Shawn.

The company had a bad stigma at the time that took a while to go away. Suddenly, the kids who were cheering for Hulk Hogan found out that he wasn't all that he said he was. People started to see the dark side of wrestling which caused them to turn away and get others to turn away.


It should be noted that not only did the WWE stuff from the steroid trial, but wrestling in general. Pro wrestling wasn't seen as "squeaky clean" as it was in years past. WCW was able to turn this negative into a positive, creating more "reality-based" storylines. They promoted to a different fan base, one where they didn't have to care as much about making sure their show was "family-friendly".

This, of course happened during much of Bret's and Shawn's reigns. It wasn't until the Attitude era when things started to turn around.

 

[WWEWrestleFest]

if you like a guy, it doesn't matter what he drew. for example, one of my favorite all time wrestler's is akeem the african dream.

but when people "rank" wrestlers, drawing is an important criteria. because wrestling is a fake sport, these guys aren't really competing. the whole point of wrestling, from a promoters point of view, would be to draw as many fans as possible.

if you were starting a wrestling company, and needed to put fans in the seats and needed to sell merchandise and needed to get ratings.. would you hire the bigger draw or the better worker?

 

[UseYourBrain]

if you were starting a wrestling company, and needed to put fans in the seats and needed to sell merchandise and needed to get ratings.. would you hire the bigger draw or the better worker?

It's a good analogy but the argument works both ways. If you want to paint a picture because you're an artist, then you paint the best damn thing you can. If you want to paint a picture because you want to sell it, you dumb it down and paint something likely to be popular, even if it's not very good work. I'm glad that while the world is full of Cena's and Hogans - or in other lines of work, the Ashton Kutchers, there will always be Flair's, HBK's, and Robert DeNiros. I hope the business argument never truly wins because it'd be nice to have something worth watching sometimes - instead of something designed to impress morons.

 

[Hulkamaniac]

It's a good analogy but the argument works both ways. If you want to paint a picture because you're an artist, then you paint the best damn thing you can. If you want to paint a picture because you want to sell it, you dumb it down and paint something likely to be popular, even if it's not very good work. I'm glad that while the world is full of Cena's and Hogans - or in other lines of work, the Ashton Kutchers, there will always be Flair's, HBK's, and Robert DeNiros. I hope the business argument never truly wins because it'd be nice to have something worth watching sometimes - instead of something designed to impress morons.

Here's the problem with this entire argument, you have the elitists "if I don't like it, it's for morons"/"my opinion defines what is good and what is not." Comparing Hulk Hogan and John Cena to Ashton Kutcher is both ridiculous and fucking insulting. Both guys work/worked their asses off and put their bodies on the line for entertainment, and just because they have broad appeal as opposed appealing to a much smaller fanbase doesn't make them without substance. Some of the best angles in history involved Hulk Hogan. He's more like a Will Smith or a Bruce Willis or even a John Wayne then fucking Ashton Kutcher.

EDIT: Furthermore, it's not like it's Hogan or Cena's fault that HBK can't appeal to a more general fanbase, because he's damn sure tried. Unless you think that Degeneration X was some kind of high-brow concept art designed around penis jokes.

 

[mikeyboy]

im not a big wwf/e fan(or michaels fan) but for people to say that hart and michaels couldnt draw is ridiculous hart may not have been great on the mic but his in ring skills were some of the best ever and michaels like him or not is one of the most popular guys EVER in wrestling. some people just want to hate and not give credit where its due.