10 Most Effective Wrestling Babyfaces Of The 21st Century
5. Shawn Michaels
The resurrection of Shawn Michaels, from 2002-2010, was remarkable. He not only recovered from a devastating back injury; he banished both personal demons and his perception as a loathsome political nightmare to become one of the most loveable babyfaces in company history.
The essence of his metamorphosis was in how Michaels, always a maverick bumper, honed his selling to the level of Ricky Steamboat. He convinced everybody for years that the back injury which enforced a four-year hiatus was always threatening to enforce another. The manner in which he crumpled in agony was so realistic that he inspired sympathy within his fans and positioned many of his opponents on a level they never later surpassed.
His WrestleMania 21 dream match, with Kurt Angle - in which Michaels sold his Ankle Lock as if it was seconds from breaking it - was the Olympian's best work. His return match, with Triple H at SummerSlam 2002, was the best thing Trips managed all decade - a beacon of heel excellence amid years of counterproductive ego massage.
His 2008 series with Chris Jericho was so effective that it gave Jericho the best years of his career, inspiring him to adopt a straight-laced, sociopathic persona unfamiliar to him. Michaels got the absolute best of everybody in his latter spell, and he did it by restoring the art of selling. It's a lost art, these days - hopefully, his work as a trainer in the WWE Performance Center can inspire a new generation to recapture it.