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Morning Glory
#26: Still The Showstoppa
This past Sunday, Summerslam 2003, marked a momentous occasion in the WWE. No, I’m not talking about the first time Goldberg was used correctly, nor am I talking about Triple H using the most cheap way yet to retain his precious World Heavyweight Title. No….this past Sunday marked something far more important. The one year anniversary of the comeback of Shawn Michaels. It’s been a year now since every wrestling fan that had been watching for more than four years wondered to themselves…can HBK still go in the ring? Can the ‘Showstoppa’ still steal a show like he used to do? I’ll admit this – in my earlier years as an internet fan, I was never that big a fan of Shawn Michaels. To me, Michaels was the man who, in 1996, stole Bret Hart’s spot as the figurehead of the WWF. To me, Michaels was the cocky, pretty boy that I loved to hate. To me, Shawn Michaels was the man who had been highly involved in the Montreal Screwjob, the moment where my favourite wrestler, Bret Hart, was forced out of the WWF for good. But since his comeback last year, just as Shawn himself has been converted to Christianity, I have been converted to become a huge Shawn Michaels fan, a mark for the guy.
Why? Because to put it in simple terms, Shawn Michaels is the greatest wrestler that has ever lived. He may not be as good technically as Bret Hart was, he may not have won as many titles and wrestled as many great matches as Ric Flair, nor has he captured a bigger audience for wrestling like Hulk Hogan or Steve Austin, but when you put everything together – personality, charisma, mic skills, ringwork, and the ability to put on a show for a crowd, to tell a story through a match, Shawn Michaels has it all. He’s the real total package. After his premature ‘retirement’ in 1998, many fans searched for the ‘new Shawn Michaels’. Jeff Hardy and Chris Jericho were just two of the men to be given that handle. While they are good – even great, in Jericho’s case, it was clear that neither man was as good as Shawn Michaels in his prime. So as the millennium reached two years old, it seemed as if another ‘Showstoppa’ would not come around, for the foreseeable future, at least. Michaels himself appeared on WWE Confidential, claiming that the ‘Heartbreak Kid’ character was dead, that he was now just Shawn Michaels, a Christian, a married man with a child.
When Kevin Nash, Michaels’ great off-screen friend, introduced Shawn into the nWo in June of 2002, though there were rumours about Michaels’ in ring comeback, none were concrete. Most seemed like desperate hope from the many HBK fans. Michaels was simply there to bolster the group, to give them an extra personality that they so badly lacked. In June, as Michaels paraded around in an nWo t-shirt, it seemed that while his comeback was closer than ever, it was still light years away. Michaels played cheerleader for the nWo for a few weeks – hitting Booker T with his infamous Sweet Chin Music at one point – but that was nothing new – we’d seen him nail both Vince McMahon and The Rock with the move, during his retirement, back in 1998 and 1999. Surely this would just be another one of those runs – work the mic for a while, give some guys the Superkick, and then once his work was done, return to premature retirement to be with his wife and kid. It didn’t seem like a comeback for HBK was on the agenda. That is, until Monday, July 8th, 2002.
According to most reliable sources, Shawn’s comeback match at Summerslam wasn’t even meant to happen. Shawn was going to manage Kevin Nash, his nWo stablemate, through a monster push, building to a showdown between Nash and the big babyface, Triple H, at Summerslam. The angle had even begun, with Michaels and Nash telling Helmsley to join the nWo, or go against them. July 8th’s edition of Raw was supposed to be the beginning of the Nash monster push, but of course, for whatever reason, it was not meant to be. During a ten-man tag match, Nash tripped over Booker T, and tore his quadriceps tendon. Big Kev would be out for at least nine months, if not a year. And so, just as the first Christians turned to Jesus Christ himself, the WWE turned to Shawn Michaels. HHH was swiftly turned heel, hitting Michaels with a Pedigree during the DX skit they were doing, and while the feud then degenerated into nonsense (someone put Michaels through a window, HHH swears he’ll find them and take them out, but it turns out to be HHH anyway), the hype was there – Shawn Michaels would be wrestling at Summerslam.
As the hype machine for the PPV kicked in, every fan was wondering the same question – could Michaels still go in the ring? Would he be able to put on a show-stealer with HHH, a man who had not really had a decent match since his comeback at the start of 2002? And, the biggest question, would his back be able to hold up? When Shawn attacked HHH on Raw, building to Summerslam, many reports of the after-show said that he was ‘holding his back and looked in pain’ on his way out. Would the match turn out to be a huge mistake for Shawn Michaels?
August 25th, 2002: WWE Summerslam
Non-Sanctioned Match: Shawn Michaels vs Triple H
The answers to the questions surrounding Shawn being able to wrestle were answered with a bang, as Michaels stole the show once again. Although the match was not a mat classic, like the matches Shawn had in his prime with the likes of Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith and others, it showed that deep down, despite the back injury, there was still nobody quite like the Heartbreak Kid. The match centered, obviously, on Triple H working Michaels’ injured back. Shawn took some absolutely sick bumps, including a backbreaker through a steel chair, making HHH look like a million dollars along the way. The only criticism I can give this match is for the use of the table and ladder spots. The story of the match (HHH goes for Shawn’s back, but Shawn makes the babyface comebacks) was there, and didn’t need garbage bumps to further it. What the garbagy bumps did prove, however, was that Shawn could still bump like a madman, almost as well as he did back in his prime. The match ended with Michaels reversing the Pedigree into a rollup for the pin, but after the match, HHH nailed him with a sledgehammer to the back, and in the weeks after the match, it appeared that the HBK comeback was a one off.
Helmsley, in storyline terms, moved away from Michaels, and onto Rob Van Dam, collecting the newly introduced World Heavyweight Title along the way. Shawn was not heard from, nor seen from…until late October, when Eric Bischoff announced that he would be one of the six men competing in the new Elimination Chamber match for HHH’s title! Michaels appeared at The World, leaping out of a wheelchair like the crippled man at Bethesda when Jesus healed him, and promising that HHH would not leave the Elimination Chamber with his title. As the build to the match continued, though it also involved Kane, Rob Van Dam, Booker T and Chris Jericho, it was clear that the match was all about Shawn Michaels and Triple H. The question, of course, was that in a six man bout, would Michaels even play that large a role? Or would more evidence be given that the Summerslam match was a total one-off?
November 17th, 2002: WWE Survivor Series
Elimination Chamber Match for the World Heavyweight Title: Triple H vs Rob Van Dam vs Chris Jericho vs Kane vs Booker T vs Shawn Michaels
Just as many had predicted, Shawn’s role in this match was greatly diminished. While he played a large part in the latter stages of the match, the major portion of the first Elimination Chamber was carried by Rob Van Dam and Chris Jericho. Michaels was released from his chamber as the final combatant, and involved himself in the elimination of both Kane and Chris Jericho. Finally, the match was down to two men – HBK, and Triple H. After around ten minutes of brawling between the two, Shawn reversed the Pedigree, and hit HHH with Sweet Chin Music, to win the match, and also the World Heavyweight Title. The reaction to Shawn’s win inside Madison Square Garden was HUGE – one of the loudest pops heard in 2002 – but the reaction from the internet fans, after the PPV, was less than encouraging. The HBK-Haters immediately came out and said that the World Title was now around the waist of a ‘cripple’ – something that was proven wrong both at Summerslam, and at the Survivor Series. The more logical complaint came that while Shawn was still a competent, hell, great worker, he was a part-timer, and would probably only serve the purpose of holding the title for a month before dropping back to HHH at Armageddon.
While I will say that I was highly cynical of that plan (and I’m really trying hard to make this part not another HHH-bashing column) I personally didn’t mind HBK’s title reign at all – for the simple reason that with one handshake, on the Raw following his title victory, Michaels put Rob Van Dam over more than Helmsley had during a whole month’s feuding with him. And the ‘Michaels is a part-timer’ argument was also blown away, as on the second week of his title reign, Michaels defended his World Heavyweight Title against Rob Van Dam on Raw.
November 25th, 2002: WWE Raw
World Heavyweight Title: Shawn Michaels vs Rob Van Dam
In a match that is largely overlooked, Michaels, to me at least, proved that he could still wrestle, as opposed to the garbagy brawls that he had put on against Helmsley. Pitted against an opponent that is not renowned for his mat wrestling skills and more for his spotty style, and in only his third match since his return, Michaels put on one of the best TV matches of the year. With Van Dam getting a full grasp of the psychology – even hitting his Five Star Frog Splash onto Michaels’ back (again the main target), the match got the crowd going, and was only ruined by the finish. In a criminal move, the match was robbed of a clean ending when Triple H emerged, and Pedigreed Van Dam before beating down Michaels. It’s very hard not to bash HHH here, as even a clean win for Michaels would have elevated Van Dam somewhat due to the quality of the match. Again, doing my best to avoid a long-winded Anti-Hunter rant, the match provided a decent way into setting up HHH-HBK II at Armageddon. Rather than going the ‘wrestling’ route, though, it was decided that the match would be 2/3 Falls, with the first fall being a Streetfight, the second being a Cage match, and the third being a Ladder match.
December 15th, 2002: WWE Armageddon
World Heavyweight Title: Shawn Michaels vs Triple H
This match was hampered right from the off, because as soon as the stips were announced, it was blatantly obvious that the match was a vehicle to get the World Title back on HHH, and also to put HHH over Shawn in ‘Shawn’s match’, the Ladder Match. As it turned out, the match was a huge letdown, not living up to the standards the two set at Summerslam. While it wasn’t actively bad, it was clear that HHH really shouldn’t have been wrestling – carrying a blatant quad injury, he limped through 90% of the match. Another let down in the match was the poor psychology. Since his comeback, all three matches that Michaels had been involved in featured the opponent working primarily on the back. This match was different – HBK was the one to work on Helmsley’s back, in a reverse of the psychology, which would’ve been fine – but seeing as HHH had a huge bandage around his left leg (even Lawler claimed that “the bandage was a target”), why didn’t Michaels go for that? Things got goofier, when HHH worked on Michaels LEG, of all things. The first fall went on for way too long, taking up well over half of the match, and was won by HHH with a Pedigree. If the match had finished here, it would’ve been considered a total failure.
As it was, the second and third falls managed to save the match. The Cage match wasn’t the best encounter. Again, the psychology was off, and Ric Flair interfered, stacking four tables outside the cage before entering and turning the match into almost a handicap affair, as Michaels gave both men the Superkick, before putting HHH through a table with a splash, for the pinfall. The cage never really came into effect – it didn’t keep Flair out of the match, and when Flair got involved, it was him that took the bumps using the structure, not HHH or Michaels. The Ladder match went even quicker, as the two men did about three climbs, before Michaels was pushed off the ladder, and in a sick, sick bump, fell through the stack of four tables, managing to miss the top one, and fall through the stack. One climb later, and HHH was champion once again. While the Cage and Ladder stages had even worse psychology than the Streetfight, and the Cage especially didn’t really come into play, they saved the match through the strength of Michaels’ bumps. The table bump was absolutely incredible – on a par with the worst bumps HBK ever took in the prime of his career – proving that not only could Michaels still wrestle with the best of them, he could take the biggest and best bumps too.
As 2002 closed, Shawn Michaels’ feud with Triple H was over, but it was clear that this comeback story was not finished by a long shot. This was immediately established when Chris Jericho, one of the men pegged as the ‘New Michaels’ during the retirement stage, interrupted a HBK interview, setting the stage for THE feud of 2003. The feud, based around Jericho’s obsession with bettering Michaels, a man who he once aspired to be like, was to me one of the greatest feuds the WWE has ever put on. This may be because I’m a huge fan of both guys, but I strongly believe that the feud couldn’t have been written much better. The first stage of the feud involved the Royal Rumble. Michaels entered the event, a match that he had won twice in the mid-90’s, and of course, Jericho entered too. Jericho’s quest was less about gaining the title shot that the Rumble winner would get, and more about bettering Michaels’ performance in 1995. That year, in a moment that helped to build the Heartbreak Kid legend, Michaels entered the Rumble at #1, and outlasted the 29 other participants to win the match. Jericho wanted to enter at #1, but Michaels had once again taken that spot, so Jericho did the next best thing, taking the #2 spot, and setting the stage for a huge showdown on PPV.
January 19th, 2003: WWE Royal Rumble
Royal Rumble Match
Michaels entered at #1, re-debuting the classic ‘Heartbreak Kid’ tights that he had worn throughout the 90’s, but as Jericho’s music hit to bring him out as #2, it was clear something was not right. Jericho had not come out on the stage at all – it was Christian, dressed as Jericho. The REAL Jericho slid into the ring from the crowd, and hit Michaels with a low blow, before proceeding to dismantle him during the first two minutes of the match, dumping him out for the shocking elimination. The crowd were shocked, the announcers were shocked, and I was shocked. I fully expected Michaels and Jericho to be in the final four of the match, maybe eliminating each other on the way to a Wrestlemania showdown, but I never dreamed that Jericho would eliminate Michaels so fast. Michaels pulled out an awesome bladejob, staring back at Jericho, who was laughing in the ring. To me, this was the equivalent of a clean job from Michaels, who had put Jericho over in a match that he had built a lot of his reputation on. In terms of their feud, Jericho was firmly 1-0 up.
Michaels got the equalizer later in the night, returning from the back to attack Jericho, an attack that resulted in his elimination at the hands of Test. While the Michaels/Jericho feud was still red-hot, it was clear that they were headed for a Wrestlemania match, rather than one at the next PPV, No Way Out. The WWE chose to sidetrack Jericho in a program with Test, restricting Michaels to run-ins throughout February, still keeping his in-ring time to a minimum. Test eventually no-showed a Raw, due to bad weather conditions, and this lost him his PPV slot against Jericho, who duly made swift work of Jeff Hardy at No Way Out. At the end of that match, Michaels made the save, and this brought the feud with Jericho back to the limelight, and the WWE began to build to that huge Wrestlemania match we’d all been waiting for.
The first two weeks of build continued as they had left off before the Royal Rumble. In fact, the segments became almost repetitive – Jericho beats down a face, Michaels runs in, Superkicks him, and gets the upper hand. I was beginning to wonder whether they’d blow the feud, but after Jericho beat Test to finally end that issue, Michaels ran in for the save….and got blasted with a steel chair. Jericho finally had the upper hand, and taunted a bloody Michaels, setting up the Wrestlemania match right there. On the final Raw before the big event, Michaels and Jericho did a face-to-face promo segment, with Jericho basically telling HBK that once, he wanted to be the next Shawn Michaels, but he’d grown out of that, and now he was simply the first Chris Jericho. The segment, one of, if not the best promo segment of 2003, ended with both guys slapping one another, and provided the perfect segue into their Wrestlemania match. The feud was perfect at this point – the young lion desperate to prove himself by defeating the grizzled veteran, who in turn is desperate to prove he can still do the business. Now all they needed was a great match.
March 30th, 2003: WWE Wrestlemania XIX
Shawn Michaels vs Chris Jericho
To me, this was the match that showed that the REAL Shawn Michaels, the Showstoppa, was back. After a disastrous entrance, in which half of Michaels’ pyro cannons failed to fire, HBK and Jericho went on to wrestle one of the greatest matches ever seen on the famous Wrestlemania stage. The match told an incredible story – not only did Jericho use the now required working of the back, but he also aped Michaels’ forearm and kipup spots, and even the Sweet Chin Music itself, determined to show that he had indeed surpassed the skills of Michaels. HBK played his part to perfection, always being one step ahead of Jericho, as if to say, “You’re good, but you’re not as good as me, yet”. The ending, while controversial, was also befitting of the story of the match, as Michaels caught Jericho in a fluke roll-up, and got the clean win. While the naysayers complained that Michaels had not done the ‘right thing’ and put Jericho over, it can be said that this was the right finish, as it showed that either man could have won, but Michaels came out on top through his experience. It’d be criminal to say that Jericho got nothing out of the match, too – he was elevated instantly, through putting on such a great match with Michaels – and got over more as a heel by low blowing HBK during the aftermath.
It was clear to me, and others at the time, that the return job from Michaels to Jericho would come eventually, and it was only a question of when. For Michaels’ part, he had helped to bring Jericho – a midcard player for most of 2002 after total burial by HHH – back to the main event, and had managed to put him over as the best wrestler on the Raw brand besides himself. Sadly though, the rematch that most saw happening at Backlash never came, as both Jericho and Michaels ended up being thrust into the emerging HHH-Kevin Nash feud. Nash made his ‘triumphant’ (nyuk nyuk) return to Raw in early April, saving HBK from a joint HHH-Jericho beatdown, and this subsequently set up a six man tag match for Backlash, with Jericho, HHH and Ric Flair teaming up against Nash, Michaels and Booker T. This match would also show that Michaels was becoming more than a part-time player, as it would mean that he had wrestled on three of the opening four PPVs of 2003.
April 27th, 2003: WWE Backlash
Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash & Booker T vs Triple H, Ric Flair & Chris Jericho
In a move that came as no surprise, Michaels and Jericho did the most work in the entire match, with Shawn playing the face-in-peril role. Again, Michaels’ work was of a very high standard, as he managed to get the crowd hot, playing his role to perfection before making the hot tag to Nash. And with that, the other four men took a backseat, as Helmsley and Nash’s feud became the centrepiece of the match, with HHH pinning Nash after a sledgehammer shot. How about that. This was easily the worst HBK match on PPV since the comeback, but that wasn’t down to him – he worked his ass off, as usual. Sadly though, Michaels’ feud with Jericho was pushed even further to the backburner, when Nash, who was pushed as an ‘angry face’ and never given a chance to work the mic – the one thing he IS great at, didn’t get over well as a face. Again, how strange. This meant that Michaels spent the most part of May playing manager/buddy to Nash in order to get him some kind of reception. Ironic really, that HBK’s in-ring comeback was slowed up by Nash, a man who if had managed to stay fit, would’ve meant that HBK’s comeback was unnecessary in the first place. Nash was such a non-entity as a challenger that his Judgment Day match with HHH was announced as “Kevin Nash w/ Shawn Michaels vs HHH w/ Ric Flair” in order to get SOME interest going. Of course, Michaels and Flair were ejected seconds into the match.
The one good thing to come from this mess, however, was the ‘dream match’ between the two legends, Michaels and Flair. While Jericho was pre-occupied with Goldberg, this provided an excellent aside for Michaels. The feud was set up nicely enough, with Michaels motivating Flair to fight HHH for the title, before Flair turned on HBK, preferring to manage HHH rather than go against him. While this was more of the HHH self-service that we’ve come to expect, it made for some excellent promos from Michaels and Flair, two of the greatest of all time in that aspect as well as in the ring. A match was set up for Bad Blood, and turned out to be the major selling point of that PPV. Michaels had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could still go in the ring, and Flair had shown some flashes of his former greatness since his WWE return in 2001, so going in, the expectation was high.
June 15th, 2003: WWE Bad Blood
Shawn Michaels vs Ric Flair
Sadly, in the one instance that it happened in Michaels’ comeback year, they failed to deliver. Rather than simply give Michaels and Flair – two of the three greatest wrestlers of all time, don’t forget – 20-25 minutes to put on a mat classic in the vein of Michaels-Jericho, the WWE cut the match time down to a measly 15 minutes. For a PPV that went off the air almost 20 minutes early, this was absolutely criminal. Apparently, Michaels was unhappy about this backstage, too, which would be totally understandable. Of course, as well as the lack of time, the match was harmed by a pointless table spot halfway through. As I said in my review of Bad Blood, they’re two of the greatest wrestlers ever, so let them wrestle! Any talentless garbage wrestler can go through a table – this is Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair! A lot of people also complained about the finish, as Randy Orton nailed Michaels with a chair, giving Flair the victory. I felt that this finish was fine, as it began another feud like Jericho-Michaels, in HBK-Orton.
While it seemed the logical thing to do was to build to a match between Orton and Michaels at Summerslam, the WWE decided that this was the right time to finally end the Michaels-Jericho feud. The feud was re-ignited on the July 7th edition of Raw, from Montreal, as Jericho called Michaels out to talk about the infamous Screwjob in the same city. Jericho was hugely over as a face, Michaels as a heel, and that would’ve been the perfect time to end the feud and put Jericho over – the reactions would’ve been a one-night thing, after all. However, in a sickening move from the WWE, they chose to force Michaels at the fans as a face, and Jericho as a heel, roles that the crowd did not accept. The match was made for the Raw in ‘Hollywood’ (Los Angeles), and once again, Vince McMahon had slapped the Canadian fans in the face. Of course, the one good thing to come from this mess? Jericho-Michaels II, baby!
July 21st, 2003: WWE Raw
Shawn Michaels vs Chris Jericho
In a match that never came close to matching their Wrestlemania classic (but really, what could?), Michaels and Jericho put on the best WWE TV match of the year here. In the same vein as the Wrestlemania match, Jericho worked over Michaels’ back once again, but this time, rather than have Michaels always one step ahead, it seemed that Jericho was the one with the constant upper hand. Yes – a run-in featured in this match, as Randy Orton furthered his issue with Michaels, hitting him with a diamond cutter, but really, this didn’t matter. Michaels kicked out of that, before finally falling victim to the Walls Of Jericho, actually tapping out to give Jericho the clean victory. Some fans complained that Orton had run in, but personally, I didn’t have a problem with it. Orton’s diamond cutter didn’t figure into the finish – it merely kept Michaels down while Jericho recovered from the Superkick, while the finish was all about Jericho. The Walls Of Jericho put pressure on the back, which Jericho had worked on throughout the match, and Jericho using the turnbuckle for leverage was smart wrestling on his behalf. The other huge thing, of course, was the tapout victory, as it was only the second time in his WWE career that Michaels has submitted (the first being against Bret Hart, Survivor Series 92). Rather than have Jericho pin Michaels off Orton’s interference, he got the tapout victory through his own wrestling move, getting a huge rub off Michaels. I’d love to see these two programmed again – preferably over the World Title (tHHHougHHH tHHHat’s unlikely) because they have a rare chemistry in the ring.
Michaels’ next step was logically towards Randy Orton, and they seemed to be building to the Summerslam match between the two, before HHH’s groin injury threw a spanner in the works, and both men, along with Jericho and Kevin Nash (the other major Raw feud) into an Elimination Chamber match rather than have an abortion of a Goldberg-HHH one-on-one main event. Going into the match, the odds of Michaels winning were very low – although he had been wrestling more than ever going into the match, the fans still saw him as a part-timer, and unlike the Survivor Series, the story here wasn’t about Michaels. A Michaels victory could have set up Michaels-Jericho III, for the World Title, at Unforgiven, but of course, that wouldn’t sit well with HHH. The odds weren’t good for the Heartbreak Kid going into this one.
August 24th, 2003: WWE Summerslam
Elimination Chamber Match for the World Heavyweight Title: Triple H vs Randy Orton vs Chris Jericho vs Kevin Nash vs Goldberg vs Shawn Michaels
Surprisingly, the fact that this was HBK’s one year anniversary after his comeback wasn’t really made into a big factor – although his winning of the first Elimination Chamber was. Again, due to the other four competitors not really being great workers, it was left to Michaels and Jericho to carry the brunt of the match. Again showing their great chemistry, their opening segment was great to watch, as they showed another aspect of their psychology – the knowledge of their opponent. Eventually, after helping Jericho to eliminate Kevin Nash, Michaels fell victim to Goldberg, as the match was revealed to be mostly about getting Goldberg over as a killer. I’d be fair to say that Michaels’ selling of the Spear and Jackhammer were awesome, though.
So, a year into his comeback, what does the future hold for Shawn Michaels? All indications, from this week’s edition of Raw at least, point to the long-hinted feud with Randy Orton. This should be a highly enjoyable feud – Orton’s ringwork needs some improvement, and who better to learn from than the greatest wrestler of all time? Right now, rumours suggest a match between the two at the September Raw-only PPV Unforgiven, and if this is true, it’ll certainly be the match I’m most anticipating. The WWE seems to be ready to invest a lot of work into Orton, and I’d guess that some elevation from Shawn Michaels would be one of their first plans of action. After all, as Michaels proved with Jericho, even a man who’s been Undisputed Champion can use a great match with the Showstoppa as a ladder back up the card.
Since his return, nothing about Michaels’ backstage behaviour or demeanour has popped up on the dirtsheets, which is surprising, considering the hell-raising reputation that he earned with full reason in the latter part of the 90’s. Then again, the Shawn Michaels we see on our screens today is a different man to the one who was involved in brawls with Bret Hart back in 1997. Shawn’s married, has a kid, and is a born-again Christian now. And to add to that, he’s four years wiser, and four years more mature. Rather than acting like a petulant kid, Michaels is one of the veterans of the locker room – a man, who, no doubt, the younger wrestlers look up to, and aspire to emulate. I’m sure Shawn Michaels knows this, too, as he’s suggested with his work against Chris Jericho, and now Randy Orton. Of course, Michaels still has a ton of naysayers – even on this site – but what he has more of, more than likely, is fans. Some of Michaels’ antics in the late 90’s would’ve made me almost ashamed to be a huge fan of Shawn Michaels, but now I’m proud to count myself as a mark for the Heartbreak Kid. Shawn Michaels returned from a four year absence from the ring, and managed to re-capture the magic that made him a legend in the first place. Rarely having a bad match, always entertaining, Shawn Michaels is, and will always be, the Showstoppa. There’s nobody quite like him.
Scott Newman
OratoryMorningGlory@hotmail.com
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