The Shawn Michaels Appreciation Thread

[Showstopper]

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Hello, everyone! This is the Shawn Michaels appreciation thread for posting whatever you want about him: Discussion of matches, moments, career, photos, gifs, videos, whatever you want. Mostly, I'll be posting stuff about his career that happened on certain dates of his career because I have a really good memory with dates of my favorite sports teams, wrestler, and stuff from the past. For example:

25 years ago today, Shawn won the 1995 Royal Rumble. He was the number one entrant and won the distance and won it all:

 

[Chris]

I love Shawn, gonna get my first few criticisms out of the way first though. I used to love him way more, but I was really drinking WWE's kool-aid painting him as one of the GREATEST OF ALL TIME! Which I mean he is, I just felt like WWE overrates him historically compared to others that I now rank higher. That being said, Shawn is definitely one of the bests, his 90s run was insane personal issues aside, but his return run really solidified his legacy. And even though the superkick has been bastardized more than any other move thanks to his influence, we can't disregard the impact he had on this current generation.

 

[Showstopper]

I love Shawn, gonna get my first few criticisms out of the way first though. I used to love him way more, but I was really drinking WWE's kool-aid painting him as one of the GREATEST OF ALL TIME! Which I mean he is, I just felt like WWE overrates him historically compared to others that I now rank higher. That being said, Shawn is definitely one of the bests, his 90s run was insane personal issues aside, but his return run really solidified his legacy. And even though the superkick has been bastardized more than any other move thanks to his influence, we can't disregard the impact he had on this current generation.

I seem to be one of the few that liked Shawn's 90's run more than his 2000's run. Not that his 2000's run wasn't great; it obviously was. But as a character and promo, he was superior in the 90's, IMO. Look-wise and charisma he was at his best from 1994-1998, IMO. But his 2000's run did further solidify his legacy, especially in-ring/match-quality wise. To me, he had a great run with character/charisma/promos in the 90's, and a great run in the 2000's with match-quality (not that his matches in the 90's weren't excellent, they were). Those two seperate runs of his that IMO were based on different aspects (that I mentioned above) is why I have him as the second greatest ever behind Flair.

 

[Grimoire Lenin]

If Shawn stayed retired in 1998, he would go down as one of the biggest missed opportunities and cancers in the locker room. That he didn't, and came back with his STELLAR 2002-2010 tour, is nothing short of incredible and shows how much he managed to grow as a person and a performer in that time span.

Love me some Shawn.

 

[Kiffy Lube]

He's okay.

 

[Hoss]

Insane that he had to retire due to injuries, only to come back and have an even better career in the 2000s and, in my mind, be the overall best worker of that time period, when you consider his consistency and ability to create epic matches. I rank him in my top 5 of all time greatest WWE superstars, considering his ring work, mic work, influence, legacy and popularity.

 

[Jimmy King]

I started watching regularly around the time after WM14 so I missed all of Shawn’s original run unfortunately, but I was aware of who he was and why he was so beloved. That’s why I love Shawn’s second run after he returned in 02 because that was my first real chance to see HBK perform regularly and he’s one of my all time favorites for that period.

Thanks to the award winning WWE Network I’ve been able to go back and see all of Shawn’s classics from back in the day, even before the network I had DVDs with some of his classic matches.

Out of the two from his most famous rivalry, I actually prefer Bret but I still love me some HBK.

He does have one of the GOAT theme songs too.

 

[Showstopper]

31 years ago tonight at an MSG House Show; Rockers vs. Brainbusters in a great tag match. Rockers/Brainbusters had such great chemistry with eachother:

 

[Showstopper]

27 years ago tonight; Shawn vs. Marty at the 1993 Royal Rumble. First half of the match was slow, but second half was quite awesome:

 

[Showstopper]

23 years ago tonight, a fantastic house show match at MSG; HBK vs. Mankind. Highly recommended if you've never seen it before:

 

[Showstopper]

28 years ago tonight, a really, really rare house show match that took place at MSG on 1/31/92, HBK vs. 'Superfly' Jimmy Snuka. This was literally just a few weeks after The Rockers broke-up. Shawn wasn't even with Sherri yet, so he doesn't have his patented 'Sexy boy' theme song sung by Sherri yet. He's just using some random, generic, awful theme music for his entrance. Thank goodness they changed that pretty quickly, haha. I'm not 100% sure, but this might be Shawn's first single match post Rockers. Pretty basic back and forth match. Shawn's finisher wasn't even the superkick yet. He used the superkick as his set-up for his back suplex finisher. Either way, had to be a pretty good feeling to beat a legend like Snuka in MSG in one of his first (if not his very first) singles match post Rockers:

 

[Hoss]

People have really retroactively tried to paint Michaels as a bad promo. I think it's lunacy. This is one of his all time best, as a HEEL during his SECOND RUN when he was usually the most beloved guy on the roster.

 

[JakeYourBooty]

Yeah HBK could fucking talk was he Rock or Austin? No but he was up there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Chris]

God that HBK Montreal promo is one of the best ever no cap

 

[Hoss]

Rarely has a wrestler ever shit on a whole city so effectively.