Shawn Michaels, an icon in the pro wrestling world lost his retirement match to The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 26 this past Sunday, and gave his farewell speech to the WWE on Raw. I'll say it now. I legit cried for the first time for anything that's happened in the WWE the six years I've been a fan. But, this isn't about me, it's about the greatest wrestler to ever step foot into the squared circle.
I was born in 1990, so even if I did get into wrestling at a young age, I doubt I'd remember much. But, going back over these last six years I wish I was a fan. Cause in the 90s, Shawn was the man. I mean he had epic feuds and matches with all the greats. Bret Hart, Owen Hart, British Bulldog, Vader, Undertaker,Razor Ramon, Diesel, and the list goes on. Shawn was also at the forefront of matches the WWE fans had never seen before. Such as the first Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Championship with Razor Ramon at Wrestlemania 10, the first Iron Man Match with Bret Hart for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania 12, and the first Hell in a Cell match with The Undertaker. So here I go with a run-down of HBKs career.
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Before all of the above started with the Legend HBK, in 1985 he was just starting out working where he could for $50-75. But everyone's gotta start somewhere. Finally him and Marty Jannetty get together and bam instant tag team success. They were smaller than all the other tag teams, but man they did stuff in the rind no one had dreamed of. Tandem moves at blazing fast speeds keeping the crowd wondering what kinds of hat-tricks they were going to pull off next. Their in-ring skills propelled them to become 5 time tag team champions. But, Shawn was destined for greater thing, whether he knew it at the time or not. We all know the promo, Shawn turn on Jannetty, superkicks him, and throws him through the Barbershop window. Again groundbreaking cause no one had ever seen anything like that before. Enter the newly dubbed "Heartbreak Kid". Boys and girls, heel Shawn Michaels has arrived in single competition. Now before I get into more of his career, I'd like to point out that Shawn is no slouch in the ring. The man can wrestle, and he can do it well. Sure he'll doing his high flying moon-saults and the top rope elbow. But, combine that with charisma in the ring, and ability to get the crowd going. Not to mention a ground move-set with holds and counter-holds, you've got the complete package. As we're going along, here comes cock-heel Michaels and his new manager Sensational Sherri. He wasn't big time yet, but he garnered great heel heat from the crowd, and even starting having them say "Shawn Michaels has left the building." Nice. He's good at roles, he can be heel or face, whats next you ask? My answer is singles titles. And at this point the WWE didn't have Smackdown or two sets of titles. So when one wants to climb the ladder, so to speak, they start out in feuds for the . He had matches with Bret Hart, The British Bulldog, and even his old tag partner Jannetty wining, and losing the belt. He then gets suspended and has to vacate the belt. Shawn comes back and claims he's the rightful champ, cause he never got pinned. Que his biggest rivalry to date, with Razor Ramon for the . We all know where this is heading to, Razor v Michaels in a Ladder Match at Wrestlemania X. This match was, in my opinion, his best match to date. Sure he had good matches, and he was good in-ring. But, until then he had never had that match, that one match that's so good even you have to think it's good yourself. He did too, and I quote, "I feel that me and Razor did something special that night." From Shawn's mouth, to my typing, to your reading. He goes back to some tag glory with his "bodyguard" Diesel and then cost Diesel the Intercontinental Championship. Their feud ensues. With Shawn Michaels winning his first Royal Rumble, and Diesel winning the WWE Championship, we have out main event set up for Wrestlemania 11. Though Michaels came up short, it led to him going away for awhile to be able to come back to be a crowd favorite.
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So HBK is back, on the fans side, the leader of The Kliq and has some more Intercontinental title reigns. Yeah, Shawn holding titles and giving the fans what they want. We have in infamous MSG Incident that got caught on camera the clique hugging before Razor/Diesel went to WCW. Big time pro wrestling moment cause it was the first time people had seen a real moment in something so perceived as fake. Dare I say all of this is vintage HBK. So HBK get's "injured" and takes a little more time off. But, before we all know it he's back in the Royal Rumble, entered at #1, and wins the whole thing for the second year in a row. Unheard of to win twice in a row, it's only bee going for that 10 years at this point? Awesome. Bret Harts the WWE Champion going into Wrestlemania 12, and we have the Royal Rumble winner Shawn Michaels going in to challenge. But it's not going to be a singles or a cage match. No it's going to be a 60-f***ing-minute long Iron Man match, where the person with the most pins/submissions at the end wins. WTF? Who came up with this, 60 minutes with no breaks? These guys are nuts sure maybe 30-40 minutes but an hour, oh my God. Silence all ye nay-sayers as Bret and Shawn put on whats widely regarded as not only the best Wrestlemania match of all time, but also the best match in WWEs history. The match went a hour and it had everything. High-flying, , pins, submissions, finishers, oohs, ahhs, and at the end no winner! My Lord, no one got a pin or submission in 60 minutes. So the match is restarted under sudden-death rules. BAM! Sweet Chin Music, the cover, 1-2-3, ding-ding-ding, omgwtflolbbq, the boyhood dream has come true and Shawn Michaels is finally WWE Champion. Nothing remarkable happens in this part of HBK's career, he loses and wins the WWEC to and from Sycho Sid and officiated a WWEC Match between Bret Hart and The Undertaker. Enter Hell in a Cell, the first of it's and it was brutal. Blood, solid action, holy crap the got out of the cage, BAW GAD HBK FELL 15-FEET OFF THE TOP OF THE CAGE, HE MAY BE BROKEN IN HALF! Michaels wins though with help of Undertaker's brother Kane debuting. Also over that same summer we have Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and Chyna form D-Generation X, no not to poo slinging, fart jokers of the 2006. They were the irreverent, Canadian flag humping, cursing at the fans, doing what ever they wanted unscripted guys that made us laugh at "I'd Rather Be In Chyna" and dick jokes. The Hart Foundation was never impressed haha. On screen that is. Now skip to England in September, we have an epic match between The British Bulldog (RIP) and Shawn for the European Championship. It's on the new My Journey DVD and I must say it's well worth the watch, England hated Shawn and him using his undermining ways with Chyna, Triple H ,and Rick Rude. The fans across the pond went mad as HBK won the title from Bulldog to be the first ever Grand Slam Champion of the WWE. Another first, it's crazy.
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We come to the infamous, taboo, we never talk about this (until 2010) Survivor Series of 1997 aka The Montreal Screwjob. We have Bret Hart, the WWEC, his contract is up and we all know he's going to WCW. Vince thinks he's gonna take the belt, Bret says he never was gonna, HBK is really the only guy Vince can use for this match. So late match HBK puts the Sharpshooter on Bret, Earl Hebner immediately rings the bell, new champ, Bret didn't tap, the crowds going nuts, Bret's spitting, Vince is in shock, HBK and Hebner are already in the back, and Bret isn't on good terms with Vince for the next 13 years. Fast forward past this "Bret Screwed Bret" nonsense and we hit Royal Rumble 1998. We have to of the biggest WWE stars of the 90s, The Undertaker and HBK in a Casket match for the WWEC. We have a great match going, when Shawn get's back-dropped over the ropes and hits his lower back on the casket. He herniated two discs, and crushed a third. He wins the match and goes on to Wrestlemania 14 and lose, essentially passing the torch to Stone Cold Steve Austin to run the rest of the Attitude Era. Shawn retired for four year after that Wrestlemania with his broken back. We saw him sparingly throughout 1998-2002 years, he was Commissioner of Raw and officiated the Triple H/The Rock Iron Man match, but other than that he was out of the biz.
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But the end was not to be. I don't know if it was him getting married, staying clean, having a kid, or finding the Lord Jesus Christ, but Shawn Michaels is back in the WWE. And who better to feud with than his best friend Triple H. He hasn't had too many memorable feud and matches in his second run, but this was one of them. They had three classic matches, ending with Shawn winning his match back at Summerslam, only to be killed by Triple H after. Next he became World Champ for the only time in the 2000s by winning the World Heavyweight Champion in the first ever (there's those two words again) Elimination Chamber match. But a month later, he loses said title in an awesome, brutal, Three Stages of Hell match to Triple H. Enter the current, self proclaimed, best in the world at what he does, Chris Jericho. They feuded going into Wrestlemania 19 on the premise that Chris was the next Shawn Michaels. Que a 5 star match between the two with Michaels winning and the famous (or infamous if you will) Jericho/HBK hug ending with Y2J kicking him below the belt. Nothing big happened for Shawn until he got into the feud with Triple H and Chris Benoit where he had (yet again) another 5 star match. It was in losing effort though as Benoit beat Triple H and Michaels to become the World Heavyweight Champion. Nothing big happened between Wrestlemania 20-21, though him an Triple H had a very nice 4.5 star Hell in a Cell match at Badd Blood, and he screwed up his knee. Never the matter, we now have Kurt Angle, possibly the best pure athlete ever in pro wrestling vs the best ever in pro wrestling. Besides the 7 out 5 star match they had at Wrestlmaina 21, they had a nice build-up with Kurt covering "Sexy Boy." A classic Shawn/Kurt/Sherri promo I'll never forget. Moving on Michaels loses his incredible 'Mania match to Kurt Angle, via tapout and we roll on. Summer 2002, the Superkick Heard Round the World. Shawn takes out the icon (well not nearly as much anymore) Hulk Hogan. And he also takes out Roddy Piper demanding a match at Summerslam. Well he get's it and I think it's one of HBK's best matches. No joke. Hogan never put anyone over and Shawn made it look like a cartoon was being filmed in that ring. Anywho he cuts one of the best heel HBK promos ever, in Montreal, on Hart and Hogan and the crowd is into this match. But he loses, he shakes Hogans hand and he moves on. WE won't talk too much about the 2nd incarnation of DX, cause we all know it wasn't great. Although I do like the promo when Triple H plays Vince and Shawn plays Shane McMahon (as if he were high on crack), I think I always be the only one to like that promo. Haha Triple H said "Dick" like 20 times on live TV. Crazy. I do wanna focus on their one match with Rated-RKO (Edge/Orton) and Cyber Sunday, cause it was one of the only matches I liked with them together at that time. Good action, between the four mega stars and it it was a solid 3.5/5 stars tag team PPV match. Also the promo where Shawn has to vote for the ref and ends up superkicking Steve and all the random people cause he's not "controversial" anymore is another great HBK promo I'll always remember. Triple H gets injured, but Michaels carries on the DX theme. Him and then WWE Champ John Cena defeat Rated-RKO for the World Tag Team Championships. Then HBK goes on to best Edge and Orton in a No.1 Contenders Triple Threat match to face off against his tag partner, John Cena, at Wrestlemania 23 for the title. Long story short, Cena makes HBK tap in one of Cena's finest matches, even though I don't like the guy Shawn made him look good, and 20+ minute epic end in Heartbreak (see what I did thar) for Shawn Michaels. Next he goes into a feud with another up-and-comer, The Viper himself Randy Orton. They had a nice feud leading to Survivor Series where Shawn basically superkicked Orton every week. So Orton got the stipulation added that if Shawn uses Sweet Chin Music he'd be DQ'd, but if Orton tried to get intentionally DQ'd he'd lose the WWEC to Shawn. It was a very nice actual wrestling match, one of my favorite HBK matches and Orton won after an RKO.
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Fast forward to the Wrestlemania 24 season. We all know it well, I don't even need to go into detail. It was gut-wrenching when Shawn said to Ric before the final superkick, "I'm sorry, I love you" and then ended Ric's WWE career. It was, I believe, his emotional match to date and you can add another accolade to his list. Retired Ric Flair from the WWE. Y2J is now back in the WWE and him and Michaels go at it. Jericho throws him through the Jeritron 5000, we think he's gonna retire at Summerslam, Jericho jacks Rebbecca, his wife, in the face, HBK says he's not retiring. Shawn beats Jericho in a Brutal (with a capital 'B') unsanctioned match. In the following month Jericho becomes World Heavyweight Champion and HBK and Chris have a mighty great Ladder Match at No Mercy. (Don't worry I'll make list of all of Shawn's best matches in a separate blog.) Shawn then had an okay storyline with JBL where he became his employee cause he didn't have money saved up and wanted his kids to go to college and him and his wife to have a good life. It was a decent premise. He won his "freedom" and "payment" from John when he beat him in an "All or Nothing" match. HE also defeated Vladimir Kozlof for the first time to go against Undertaker at Wrestlemania 25 to try and break the streak. We all know it, arguably the best Wrestlemania match ever. Shawn came out on the losing end of the 25 minute epic, but made the silver anniversary of Wrestlemania worth the watch. Amidst all the guest hosts on Raw Shawn returns at Summerslam, united with Triple H for the third, and consequently final incarnation of DX. They beat two of the 3rd generation up and comers in Ted DiBiase Jr./Cody Rhodes. Ted and Cody made Michaels tap in their Breaking Point tag match with DX, and ultimately came up short in their Hell in a Cell match with DX at the Hell in a Cell PPV. Enter Unified Tag Team Champions Chris Jericho and The Big Show, otherwise known as Jerishow. DX becomes No.1 contenders for the titles and at TLC, HBK and Triple H, for the first time as DX became Tag Champions. Bret Hart comes back and HBK and him reconcile over the whole Montreal Screwjob and that was a huge moment on screen.
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Which leads us into his final Wrestlemania season. Shawn says he knows he can beat The Undertaker, and challenges him to a rematch at Wrestlemania 26. The Undertaker decline, so HBK forces the issue by costing him the World Heavyweight Championship at Elimination Chamber. The next night Undertaker accepts his challenge, but under one condition, if Shawn loses his WWE career is over. The rest is history they have a second 23 minute epic battle in which Shawn goes out like the brash you kid that broke into the business. Slap to Undertaker, and a second, running, Tombstone piledriver and it's all over. This past Raw, Shawn gave his farewell speech. Thanking Vince, Triple H, us fans, the announcers, and even the video people in the back. As chants of "One more match", "Thanks Shawn", and "HBK" echo through the area, he ends by saying "Shawn Michaels has left the building." Thus ending the epic, outstanding, 25-year career or Shawn Michaels.
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My favorite pro wrestler ever, best all-around wrestler ever. I'm still sad thinking, for now, I'll never see another new HBK match, or hear another Cole "Vintage Michaels!" I loved him since I got into wrestling six years ago. Me being a Christian I feel like we're connected somehow too, on a spiritual level. I have his DVDs, I've enjoyed his matches for years, I've read his book too. I've never personally met him or saw him live at an event. And I don't think I will ever meet him, or see him live. That's unfortunate too, but I have to look at the positive. He did his job for 25 years, through the thick and the thin, the highs and lows, the good and the bad. Shawn gave us something to look forward too each week or each Par-Per-View. While I may not have grown up with him, per-say, I know a lot of people have. There's been a lot of great matches and moments over the years. Some funny and upbeat and some sad and dreary, such as Monday. But it's his career, his life, he's done everything there is to do but be with his family. Will he ever come back for a match? I don't know. He seemed like he was definitely done for now. Do I want him to do another match? Yes, and I don't know anyone who would say no to that question. But right now we need to rejoice in the fact that he gave us 25 years of his life, and 25 years of memories. Whether I call him Mr. Wrestlemania, Showstopper or The Heartbreak Kid, all I'm really saying is, thank you Shawn Michaels.
Sincerely,
Matthew "Fat Jesus" Day
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