18 years ago tonight, Shawn joined the nWo:
I remember by this time, I had given up on thinking Shawn would ever wrestle again somewhere around the late 2000/early 2001 time period. He had been gone since early 1998, and every time he came back I held hope that he would be back to wrestle, and every time I was extremely disappointed.
But when he came back this time and joined the nWo, you could tell that even though he was wearing an nWo t-shirt in this segment, if you look at his arms, he had been training. And not just to stay toned, but to be as big as he could be. Every time he came back before this, it looked like he was in shape, but not wrestling shape. In this segment, you can tell his arms are the biggest they'd been since WM 14 (the last time he wrestled). Plus, all those other times he came back, even as a commissioner and after that, he was sort off to the side of the story. THIS time, joining the nWo, he was IN the story. So, between that and his arms being bigger than they'd been in his entire 4 year+ absence, this appearance just felt different. Even though he didn't do his promo here and did it the following week on Raw, it felt different and looked different and for the first time in a couple of years, I had hope again that he might wrestle.
Plus, I just noticed this for the first time because I just watched this segment, but right before this segment ends and they put the Raw logo up on the screen, Shawn is looking at the hard-camera right into our TV screens, and if you read his lips, he says, "I'm back for good this time!" while pointing down at the ring. If I had noticed that live as it happened, I would have had more than just some hope that he was coming back, but I would've known for sure! But HD TV's didn't exist back then, so... :LOL:
Now, next week's Raw, he does a promo, and it's utterly fantastic. Can't wait to watch that next week!