10 Biggest Career Hangovers In WrestleMania History

2. Shawn Michaels (After WrestleMania XII)

WrestleMania XII was Shawn Michaels€™ crowning moment. He defeated archrival Bret €˜the Hitman€™ Hart in what many have called the greatest WrestleMania match of all time to become WWF Champion, and achieved his €˜boyhood dream€™ of becoming the greatest wrestler on the planet. For HBK, things seemed to be only going up. Unfortunately, that dream wouldn€™t last as long as Michaels wanted. Despite the praise towards his match with Hart, Michaels€™ run as WWF Champion in 1996 didn€™t bring WWF the popularity everyone was expecting. Shawn wasn€™t connecting with the audience as much as he had hoped, and he was actually an unpopular champion. Part of that came from fans who, at the time, didn€™t like the idea of a €˜pretty boy heartthrob€™ being the Champion, especially when there were tougher, and in some cases €˜manlier€™ wrestlers like Bret Hart and the Undertaker as possible champions. Adding fuel to the fire was the Madison Square Garden incident, also known as the Curtain Call moment, when HBK, Triple H, Diesel and Razor Ramon broke kayfabe and hugged in the ring. at the time, this was a cardinal sin for wrestlers to do, and it damaged the mystique of pro wrestling long before the notion of wrestling being scripted became common knowledge. Finally, WCW success with angles like the New World Order and an edgier program only made HBK€™s time as champion seem less popular, as did his continued real-life feud with Bret Hart. Indeed, HBK€™s backstage attitude at the time was causing so many problems for the WWF that many of his co-workers hated working with him, which only exacerbated WWF€™s problems. Shawn Michaels didn€™t have a good post-WrestleMania career after winning the big one at WrestleMania XII. From poor circumstance related to WCW, a lack of acceptance from the audience, and his general attitude problems all spelled disaster for him.