10 Most Unprofessional Wrestlers Ever
5. Shawn Michaels
Now, since the words "professional" and "wrestling" in succession are a joke, an oxymoron, it's hard to recall the "lost my smile" business and demonise Michaels entirely. He probably shouldn't have been made to work through his knee injury in the spring of 1997 even if that was the expected, toxic custom.
That was the least of his issues, in retrospect.
Shawn always found a very convenient excuse to not drop a title cleanly. He wasn't fond of doing business - look at the WrestleMania XII and SummerSlam 1996 buy rates, and that is literally the case - at the best of times. At the most critical juncture, his unprofessionalism was unacceptable. He outright said to Bret Hart's face that he wouldn't do a job for him. While Bret did hang around in the ring a bit too long in Anaheim, he lost clean in a more "pure" match than the WWF had ever presented. The idea was that Shawn had become the best wrestler. The specificity of that job was lost on Shawn.
Throughout this period, Shawn messed with Bret's life at home by insinuating that Bret was having it off with Sunny - the irony, the nerve - and spent much of the 1990s, if you believe countless testimonies, trying to make life hell for various peers.
Shawn - and this goes under-mentioned because the Bret stuff defined the business - campaigned to go over the British Bulldog at One Night Only when Davey Boy had promised victory on behalf of his terminally ill sister.
As ever, the favour was never returned.