This week in WWE history (Feb 8-13) - Stephanie McMahon pregnant, Daniel Bryan retires

#1. Shawn Michaels vacates the WWF/E Championship - February 13th, 1997

Shawn Michaels captured the WWE Championship in January 1997, later being forced to vacate the title due to injury.

On a special episode of RAW in 1997, Michaels vacated his Championship and explained to fans that his knee injury was the reason behind it. The promo became famous after Michaels noted that he "needed to find his smile again."

"What I'm going to do is go back home and see what's left for me; whether it'll be in this ring... whether it'll be out of this ring. I know that over the, uh, the last several months I've lost a lot of things and one of them has been my smile. And, and I know it doesn't mean a whole lot to everbody else, but it means a lot to me. So I have to go back and fix myself, and take care of myself, and I have to go back and I have to find my smile because somewhere along the line I lost it and I don't care, really, I don't care if it's unpopular, and I don't care if, uh, people want to make fun of me because I'm an emotional guy. But, um, this is all I've ever wanted to do and uh, over the last year I got to do it and whether you like me or not, I just want to tell you that, uh, last year was the most wonderful year of my life. And, uh, if I never do get to do it again, it'll be okay because I got to live one full year as being the number one guy in this business and it was the single greatest year of my life. And I have you to thank, and I have everybody here to thank, and it means a lot to me and, uh, I'm gonna go home now. Okay?"

Many fans wondered if Michaels was actually injured enough to vacate the title, but in a cruel twist of fate, the former WWE Champion was legitimately forced to retire from the business a year later following a back injury.

Of course, Michaels later made his return and went on to turn his entire career around, HBK is now a 2X WWE Hall of Famer.