Shawn Michaels Vs Razor Ramon - Ladder Match, SummerSlam '95
A year and a half after watching an old episode of RAW and hearing about this match for the first time, I'm finally watching it. This is for the Intercontinental Title.
I have simple tastes. You can take your hardcore matches, and your blood, and setting people on fire, and whatever. Nothing makes me pop more than a good old fashioned table spot or a good ladder match. And my god, this is a good ladder match. Is this one of the best ever? I think it might be.
There's a fine line that wrestlers have to walk when it comes to selling things. Play it too safe and everything looks rehearsed and fake, like choreographed dance rather than wrestling. This is something that particularly plagues flyers and luchadores (and I say this as someone who really loves that style of wrestling). On the other hand nobody wants to see an actual botch or to see someone get seriously hurt. The sweet spot is right in the middle, where things look like maybe they're going a bit wrong but are still under control, where you can't tell whether a spot was meant to go that way or not. It adds a little frission of danger to the thing that makes everything that much more gripping and exciting.
This match has that by the fistful. I can't even begin to list the number of spots that made me flinch or shout at the TV. Michaels getting his leg caught in the ladder. Ramon stamping on it repeatedly while his leg is inside it. Ramon flat out dropping the ladder on Michaels. The brutal Razors Edge. Michaels bouncing off the turnbuckle and flopping onto the mat. Michaels going over the top rope and his leg bouncing off the barrier before he hits the ground. Some seriously huge impacts onto ladders propped horizontally in the corners. It's non stop action, a hugely physical match that you can never predict, with both guys giving a ton of offence.
It's often the case that knowing the stakes/the feud/the story elevates a match, but this didn't need any of that. This is pure spectacle, everything pro wrestling promises delivered over half an hour of action that only feels like it's ten minutes long.
This immediately became one of my favourite matches.