10 Times Wrestlers Blatantly Lied To Your Face

Admittedly, there was some truth to what Shawn Michaels was peddling on a special Thursday episode of Raw on 13 February 1997. At least one doctor had advised that he temporarily step away from the ring due to a serious knee injury, which led to HBK's "losing my smile" speech on the show. He then handed the belt to on screen authority figure Gorilla Monsoon and was deleted from WrestleMania 13 plans.

Backstage, Bret Hart was skeptical, and he had every right to be. Many years later, footage of Shawn squirming around in his seat during a highly-anticipated sit-down with Bret and Jim Ross for a WWE DVD set in 2011 proved telling. Michaels must've said, "y'know" about 18 million times as he tried to explain what was going on back in '97. The truth probably falls somewhere in the middle, but most believe he was laying it on a little thick with the knee injury stuff.

Hart sure wasn't buying it, and he pointed out that Shawn had performed a backflip off the top rope inside the ring shortly after handing the title over. To this day, the 'Hitman' reckons this was HBK's way of weaseling out of a title rematch between them at 'Mania 13. There, Shawn likely would've been asked to put Bret over and return the favour from 'Mania XII's polarising 'Iron Man'.

Michaels denies that, but it doesn’t seem like he was as badly hurt as he made out back in 1997. If he was, then he wouldn't have been able to land full force on a busted knee after flashy backflips from the top turnbuckle. Something was fishy about this whole saga from minute one.