10 Greatest Special Guest Referee Performances In WWE

This is the absolute epitome of dramatic theatre in wrestling. Thankfully, Shawn had retired his impossibly short referee shorts by the time 2012 rolled around and, together with fellow battle-hardened vets Triple H and Undertaker, put on one hell of a show at The Show Of Shows.

HBK's reaction to 'Taker kicking out of the Sweet Chin Music/Pedigree combo was straight out of the Al Pacino Acting School, and we loved every tremor of conflict running through The Showstopper that night. This was not the Shawn Michaels of the Attitude Era, bouncing around the ring in his stupidly tiny shorts. This was a man who was tortured, resigned to the fact that the man he respected more than anyone in the business and his best friend of two decades-plus were pushing each other to the limit. The fact that Michaels refereed this match pushes it into the conversation of all-time great 'Mania encounters. Without him, we're looking at another half-hour Triple H plod that we've seen far too often.

Shawn Michaels: a man worthy of his own referee action figure.