10 Most Outstanding Career Revivals In WWE
1. What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted?
The Heartbreak Kid was not a popular man in the WWF. Obnoxious and arrogant, with a drug problem that made him weak and cruel, when he was invalided out of the business with a horrific back injury in spring 1998 he wasn’t exactly missed by the boys backstage.
A lot can happen in four years. Michaels had a moment of clarity, kicked drugs and found God in a big way. By 2002, reconciled with the WWE and having turned his life around, the Showstopper was quite simply a different person: restored to health, fighting fit, humble and determined to build on his legacy.
Largely having missed out on the huge boom in pro wrestling created by the Monday Night Wars and the Attitude Era, Michaels reintroduced himself to WWE fans through a barnstorming feud with uber-heel Triple H over summer 2002. The Heartbreak Kid was back.
Consistently one of the company’s best and most charismatic performers for the next eight years, Michaels was the man behind some of the greatest feuds in modern WWE history. From Chris Jericho to Kurt Angle, Hulk Hogan to Ric Flair, John Cena to the Undertaker: it seemed like everything he touched turned to gold.
Working a smarter, more creative style, ‘Mr. WrestleMania’ achieved more acclaim in this second phase in his career than he’d ever earned in the first. By the time he retired for the second and final time at WrestleMania XXVI in 2010, Shawn Michaels was considered one of the best, if not the best American performer in wrestling history.