10 Most Notorious Shawn Michaels Urban Legends

1. He Did The "Lost My Smile" Speech Because He Didn't Want To Lose WWE Title In A Match

Story: The most infamous moment in Shawn's career might have been the "I Lost My Smile" speech that he delivered on February 13, 1997. He was the WWE Champion. He was in tears and he said that he couldn't wrestle anymore because of some knee injury. Three months later, Shawn was back in the ring on Raw having incredible matches including winning the Tag Team Titles with Steve Austin. According to Bret Hart (there we go again mentioning him), the original plan that year was to do Shawn against Bret in a rematch from WrestleMania 12. This time, Bret would beat Shawn and he would win the WWE Title. That match didn't happen because Shawn said he was hurt. In Bret's opinion, Shawn refused to put him over and he made up the knee injury. There's a belief in wrestling that if you can walk then you can put somebody over in a match. If Shawn was hurt then that's fine, but they could have had a short match where Bret beat him and done the job that way. It's better than crying about how hurt you are. The other important fact was that Michaels didn't have knee surgery at that point. He was just told by one doctor that he couldn't wrestle. Months later, a different doctor said he could. That's the story that Michaels has told. Why People Believe It: When Shawn came back in May of 1997 he looked like he hadn't missed any time at all, much less three months due to a knee injury. Plus, his history as a guy that refused to put people over really hurt his credibility on this subject. Should We Believe It: It's a tough one because he probably had a knee injury of some sort, but the whole "lose my smile" speech was ridiculous. He should have dropped the title in a match to put somebody over whether it was Bret or somebody else. Was he really hurt? Probably to some extent, although he definitely handled it the wrong way. There is likely some truth to the notion that he didn't want to put Bret or anybody over for the WWE Title. Now you know why, one year later, The Undertaker threatened to kick his ass. ----- That's it for this week's urban legends. Previous urban legends features have been written about Hulk Hogan, Vince McMahon, Triple H, John Cena, Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, CM Punk and Stephanie McMahon. Who do you want to see next time?