WWE: Different shades of Shawn Michaels

Shawn Michaels

For the past few days, I’ve been watching some old footage of the WWF. Starting with the Savages to Bret Harts, I finally wound up watching Shawn Michaels‘s work, starting with his earlier days in the AWA and Memphis to his stint in the WWF.

What started out as a young man’s journey to stardom quickly escalated to a man loathing his very existence. Shawn Michaels once famously said that there was a point in his career where he didn’t want to do anything except for taking pills. And during one such instance, he wanted to end things, and thought if he had a gun in his hand, he would definitely pull the trigger!

Shawn Michaels wasn’t known as a “good guy” like he has been to the WWE Universe in the past decade back in the 90s. Shawn Michaels was a lot like Razor Ramon, when he had to fight his demons for his very existence.

In professional wrestling, Shawn Michaels has been the most polarizing character, with fans either liking him or hating him. Shawn Michaels the performer was top notch, being the very best in the organization.

But today, I won’t talk about Shawn Michaels the performer, but Shawn Michaels the person. For some, Shawn was a role model, but for many others, he was a bad example.

Shawn Michaels during the 90s was one of the most controversial superstars in the history of the business, so much so that he had a bulls eye on his back every time he walked into the locker room. The other superstars didn’t like Shawn Michaels, and he didn’t care.

Shawn’s journey in the WWF began when he and Marty Jannetty were called up by Vince McMahon, and soon, the entire locker room turned against them. They were known as the “Party boys” in the WWF, and Shawn’s image was that of a cocky, arrogant individual.

They were soon let go by Vince due to a scuffle they were involved in, but were signed back later and were pushed. Shawn Michaels always had the “arrogant” tag which didn’t help his case. So when Shawn didn’t have any friends, he brought in the guy whom he could relate with, Kevin Nash.

Soon, Shawn, Kevin, Scott and later Triple H joined forces, and were notoriously known as “The Kliq”, who would use their influence over Vince McMahon to get what they wanted.

Shawn Michaels is one of the very few performers in this business who either lost titles to his best friends, or dropped titles without losing them. Many credit Shawn’s refusal to “job” to others as the reason for this. Shawn’s first run as the WWF Intercontinental champion ended when he was stripped of the title, with him failing a drug test, when he tested positive for steroids.

Shawn Michaels

His second IC run ended when he dropped the title to his good friend, Marty Jannetty, and his third run ended when he forfeited the title to Dean Douglas. Although the reason given was that he was assaulted outside of the ring, many believe it was an excuse, as Shawn didn’t like Dean Douglas (Shawn’s friend Razor won the title soon from Dean and Shawn won it back from Razor).

Shawn Michaels won the tag team titles on four different occasions in his career, and all of them ended without him/his partner dropping the titles to some other team. The list only gets worse, as Shawn’s first WWF title run ended when he lost to Sid, but forfeited the WWF title during his second run (During the infamous ‘HBK lost his smile’ segment), and then lost to Austin at WrestleMania 14.

It is rumoured that Undertaker threatened Shawn that if he didn’t drop the title, he would personally take care of him (And proceeded to wait at the Gorilla position until Shawn lost). After the match, Shawn stormed out of the press conference during which Austin was being interviewed.

In a way, Shawn was also responsible for the rise of Steve Austin in the WWF. Shawn was supposed to face, and lose the WWF title to Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13, but he ‘lost his smile’ and forfeited the title, which forced the creative to change plans and Bret faced Austin in arguably the greatest WrestleMania match of all time, and the greatest double-switch of all time!

Shawn Michaels himself said he couldn’t stand that Austin’s run began a new period in the WWF. Shawn had to take a hiatus from the WWF due to his back injury, and the next time he showed up, he was “in no condition to perform”, which was another way of saying he was on drugs/alcohol.

Another fact that Shawn blamed Austin of “not willing to job” to Triple H at SummerSlam ’99 put Shawn in bad light once again.

After HBK returned to the WWE in ’02, things changed dramatically. The once ‘Prima donna’ was now willing to put the other guys over. Although people still claimed that he had the same attitude, Shawn showed signs of changing for the better, and was willing to put the younger guys over.

Shawn Michaels claimed that he “found God”, and was a born-again Christian. For the next 8 years, Shawn Michaels competed in the WWE, and even buried the hatchet with Bret Hart in 2010, when Bret finally returned to WWE television!

There is no one in the history of the industry that sparks an emotion, good or bad, among the fans quite like Shawn Michaels. Shawn finally beat his demons, and has since been away from all the drugs and pills.

Although the fans will keep debating about the realities of what happened during the 90s, no one knows all the answers except for Shawn Michaels himself. With Shawn ending his career on a high, the most controversial figure in sports entertainment brought down the curtains on his career.

I’ve always been a fan of Shawn Michaels the performer, and all the fans have their own opinions about Shawn Michaels the person.

Shawn is perhaps the prime example for ‘Gray shades’ in professional wrestling, and his career will go down as the most controversial in wrestling history.