1. Shawn Michaelss Back Injury Was Only Supposed To Cost Him A Year
This tidbit only recently came to light after Shawn Michaels appeared on Steve Austins podcast. The back injury that Michaels suffered at the Royal Rumble was only supposed to cost him a year of his career, rather than the four years it actually took. Shawn rehabbed the injury from the Rumble so that he would be able to work Wrestlemania, which he did in unbearable pain. After the match, Shawn was given the option of surgery or rehabilitation, and he chose to rehab it, with the eventual endgame of returning in 1999. Shawn returned to television as an announcer and later as the Commissioner to test the landscape and how receptive people would be to his return. Whether by the rehabilitation not working, or Shawn resigning himself to the fact that his in-ring career was over, he got the surgery in 1999. There were also talks of bringing Shawn back full-time in 2001, but by that point, he was heavy into his addiction to painkillers. Triple H recalled a story how on the night WWF bought WCW, Shawn was found passed out backstage. This led to Shawn becoming a born-again Christian, and making his full-time return to the WWE in 2002, where hed have a stellar eight-year career. Be sure to follow me on Twitter @PocketSeagull.
