5 Strange booking decisions in SummerSlam history

#3 Shawn Michaels beats Vader

This was the match that killed Vader in WWE.

While Shawn Michaels should have beaten Hulk Hogan, this was a match he should have lost. Vader was unbelievable, one of the greatest big men in wrestling history. He was huge, strong, incredibly menacing and surprisingly athletic. Vader could do it all and was tipped for heavy success when he signed for WWE. After dominating Japan and WCW, there was only one destination for the Mastodon. He was set to conquer WWE when he debuted in 1996, but he then hit a massive brick wall called "Pissing Shawn Michaels off".

It has been well documented that Michaels came off as an extremely unlikeable being during his run in the late 90s, with the prime being when he was the WWE Champion. He would intervene in booking decisions and politick his way out of losing various matches. He even went as far as faking "losing his smile" to avoid putting Bret Hart over at WrestleMania 13. That was the kind of egomaniac Shawn Michaels was back then. The champ would overturn a planned Vader title victory at SummerSlam 1996, claiming that he was too stiff and hated working with him, from the pair's matches during tours.

A Vader title victory would have cemented him as a world-beating conquerer, but he ended up looking ridiculously silly. After the match was restarted twice, Vader was beaten by the politicking Heartbreak Kid. This was quite possibly the death of Vader's credibility as a top headliner in WWE as he would never recover from this loss. Michaels would lose the title at Survivor Series, to Sycho Sid, and win it at back at Royal Rumble, in his hometown of San Antonio. Had Vader received that spot, his WWE career would have been much, much more fondly remembered.