Shawn Michaels vs Triple H (WWE, 6-13-2004)

WWE Bad Blood, Columbus, OH

This is a requested review. I’ve said many times on the online over the years how much I hate this match. It’s about 50 minutes long. It features two guys who are far from personal favorites, even if I respect Michaels’ greatness and appreciate Helmsley’s goodness. I hated this match in 2004. I doubt I ever rewatched it. So while I assume this request was made jokingly, in bad faith, I am going to watch it again anyway. The two had feuded since 2002, when Michaels returned at SummerSlam, and their rivalry was now being used to lead RAW, while Chris Benoit was world heavyweight champion and wrestled Kane on this undercard. So here we are for Michaels-HHH, Hell in a Cell.

HHH was wearing the white boots for this one, which I like. I like the white boots.

God I hate Shawn Michaels.

“You might as well say the steel executioner is being lowered around this very ring.” I might as well not, Jim.

They spend some time staring at each other before they go to it. Collar-and-elbow, aggressively worked around the ropes with HHH getting the better of it. Michaels with a couple right hands, HHH back with rights of his own. Michaels turns it around, lands a chop and more rights. Chop. HHH back but blocked and Michaels is winning the early fistfight.

Hard back elbow from HHH with Shawn coming off the ropes. Michaels with a double leg takedown, throwing right hands from a half-mount position, HHH shoves him off and throws Shawn to the floor, but Michaels rolls back in. Thesz press, more right hands. They’re expending a lot of energy right away, this is personal and they both came to fight.

Michaels out to the floor again, this time he doesn’t bounce back up. HHH out and misses a right hand, punching the cage. Michaels back with punches, tries to run HHH into the cage, but Helmsley blocks and we go back inside. Michaels with a swinging neckbreaker as HHH makes a cardinal mistake. Quick count for Michaels.

More brawling, Michaels drops HHH with a chop. Hey, Michaels sent back out to the floor again. HHH tries to run Michaels into the steel, blocked, HHH hits the cage. More brawling. Back into the ring. Another chop. HHH bleeding from the cage, Michaels targets it with right hands.

HHH gets a boot up in the corner, and hey, he tosses Michaels back out to the floor again. Michaels with a couple rights to the body, sends HHH into the cage again. Back in the ring, more punches and chops. Punches and chops. They should’ve worn jeans with kneepads over ’em if they were gonna do this many punches and chops.

Michaels selling his old back injuries a bit as he has the advantage on HHH. Hunter on the apron, Michaels can’t suplex him back in because his weak back is too weak. Stupid weak baby back. HHH reverses a whip, and Michaels cracks his back again. That’ll be Hunter’s target because he is The Game, The Cerebral Assassin.

Another whip, another hard shot to Michaels’ back. HHH driving elbows down into the back. “This is getting hard to watch.” Stomps to the back from HHH. Backbreaker. HHH’s blade job ain’t much, and I mean that because HHH usually taps a good’un, but then it is early. I remember Michaels’ blood from this match, but not HHH’s. He might be juicin’ it hard by the end. We’ll see.

Suplex gets two. Michaels in a bad way. HHH fetches a chair from under the ring. He sets it down in an open position for sitting down. That’s nice, offer Shawn a seat. Michaels flips out of something, but takes a knee to the gut. HHH folds the chair and comes into the corner with it, but Michaels cuts it off with a boot to the gut. Michaels with rights to the body and one to the head. Chop drops Hunter.

HHH thrown to the floor. Michaels to the apron, Hunter catches him in mid-air going for a double axhandle. HHH lifts Shawn up and drives him into the corner of the cage, then the ringpost, back-and-forth a few times. Fan: “Get up, ya sissy!”

Michaels sent into the cell again. Back into the ring. Side slam on the chair, HHH gets two. They’re talking about Michaels like he’s dead and his family is going to have to find a way to go on without him even though this match has like a half hour left.

Michaels back with punches. HHH with a knee to the gut, then a backbreaker onto the open chair. Another two count. Another two count. Another two count. HHH frustrated. More brawling stuff, and Michaels hiptosses HHH to the floor, Michaels collapsing in the ring and getting a moment to recuperate.

HHH back on the apron, Michaels with shoulders to the breadbasket. HHH lifts a knee and sends Michaels reeling back. Shawn with a chop. Then a punch. Then some more punches from both. Off the ropes, cardinal mistake, HHH goes for the pedigree, but Michaels hits a low blow. Hey, when in Rome, am I right?

Michaels back with an atomic drop, and another. He’s really plowing away on HHH’s nuts here. Michaels covers for two after all that nut work. Michaels with a knee to the back, sending HHH to the floor for the 13th time. Whip into the cage, HHH down again. Shawn staying on top of him, yells at a camera man, and whips HHH into the steps.

Shawn chucks the top of the stairs over yonder, and looks to use the base as a, well, base, for a piledriver. HHH blocks, and backdrops Michaels over to the floor. Shawn back in, HHH finds another chair and takes it in. Shot to the back. HHH tosses the top part of the steps into the ring. Michaels gets a foot up to stop the stairs from hitting him, back with some chops, off the ropes, flying forearm connects, both down.

Michaels kips up, but falls back down pretty quickly with the bad back. But he’s up before HHH. Sweet chin music is avoided by HHH, who cracks Michaels in the head with the steps. And Shawn is BUSTED THE FUCK OPEN.

I’ll give Shawn Michaels this much: the man could bleed OK.

Michaels struggling to pull himself up in the corner, blood flowing from his face, and all he turns around into is another stairs shot from HHH, who then tosses the weapon back out to the floor. Cover, two, no. HHH mounts and pummels. Michaels then unceremoniously tossed out to the floor for the 19th time.

“You want hell, Shawn? I got it for ya!” nneeeeerrrrd.

HHH sends Michaels into the cage, then does it again on the other side. Michaels staggering around like he’s in the back of a Ford Explorer rental in ’95. Into the steel. Then his face is raked on the cage. HHH scratches Michaels’ face on the side of the steps, which to me seems just real mean, just mean as hell.

SPINEBUSTER from HHH after they get back in the ring. Michaels fighting still, but HHH definitely in control. It’s a sleephold from Triple H. When I think of the hell of Hell in a Cell, I think of a Triple H sleephold. That same fan calls Michaels a sissy again after Michaels gets out and they’re fighting some more.

HHH sets for the pedigree, countered, Michaels hits a DDT. Michaels gets the chair as they both slowly rise to their feet. Michaels swings that sumbitch about as hard as he can and cracks the shit out Hunter, and yeah, there’s the proper HHH juicer. Fuck yeah.

Another massive chair shot! HIT THAT MOTHERFUCKER. Back to it and HHH hits the facebuster, and Michaels rolls to the floor. He wants another weapon. He finds a ladder. Michaels knows about ladders. (So does HHH, of course, but more Michaels, to be fair enough.)

Michaels with a battering ram ladder shot to HHH’s head. Then he drives it down into HHH’s ribs, and again. Michaels stands the ladder up in the corner, as if he doesn’t know a ladder famously can stand on its own. A bunch of right hands from Michaels in the corner, just pounding on Hunter.

HHH sent crashing into the ladder in the corner. Michaels looking wobbly, but calling HHH to get up, so he can do it again. And then he does it again, and HHH takes the flying leap out to the floor, to boot. HHH raked across the cage, as he did to Michaels earlier, and Michaels hammers away at the cuts again.

“Tonight we’re gonna find out who is the better man, who is the best of all time!” OK, Jim, scale it back.

Back into the ring. HHH catapulted into the ladder in the corner. Scoop and a slam from Michaels, and he’s going up top. Flying elbow misses. HHH eventually drapes a hand on Shawn and gets a count.

Both on their knees now, trading shots. Michaels wins the fight with a bunch of right hands. Michaels eventually drapes an arm over HHH and gets a count.

Back to their feet, both about out of it. Michaels with right hands, but HHH digs deep and sends Michaels shoulder first into the ringpost. Loooooong breaks between things to sell the beatings. Michaels with right hands. He puts HHH on a table that HHH had set up. Michaels opens the ladder and climbs, and hits a falling elbow through the table. That wakes a pretty quiet crowd.

Michaels tunes up the band in the corner. HHH ducks and goes low. Pedigree! After a break to sell fatigue, HHH covers and gets a long two. Back up for both and Michaels hits the superkick. Both down again. Long break, DRAMA, two count.

Symbolically, they pull each other up to their feet. HHH goes to the body with a knee. Then he struggles but hits a second pedigree. Guess what? Long break. Lying around on the mat. JR going on about heart and soul. Demonic structure.

HHH hits a third pedigree. He’s lucky his finisher only requires to be halfway bent over and standing. Break, cover, and HHH wins it.

Rating: 2.5/5. There’s 15-20 good minutes in this match. Unfortunately it’s 47 minutes long. This is another attempt at a sweeping epic from HHH and Michaels, and there are parts of it that work. It feels like a blood feud. There is literally lots of blood. But there are long, bloated bits in the final rush that feel like they’re trying to convince you with a last-ditch desperation heave that they’ve given you an epic, incredible match. And frankly, a lot of the match was met with silence from the crowd, so it’s certainly not just me. I would say I appreciate the good parts of this more than I used to, but it’s still not a particularly good match, let alone a great one.