10 Wrestlers Who Turned Down Title Reigns

1. Shawn Michaels

Shawn Michaels World Title
WWE.com

The career of Shawn Michaels really was a tale of two halves. In truth, there is little point in considering them two sides of the same star's career. Shawn Michaels 1.0 was the king of backstage politics, an elite performer obsessed with perception and position, no matter who it hurt. Championships were everything, relationships meaningless. Michaels held titles when he wanted, and relinquished them without being defeated when he wanted.

Shawn Michaels 2.0 was the polar opposite of that. A cursory glance at the championship record will tell you that much at least; in the eight years of his second coming, Michaels only held one singles title, and that came right at the beginning of the return. The Heartbreak Kid was offered world title reigns on several occasions during that second coming, only to turn them down in favour of feuds that would make new stars and allow HBK to put on great matches without the politics of being champion. In a word, maturity.

Every wrestling fan dreams of lifting a championship above their head, preferably at the end of a WrestleMania main event with, I don't know, 100,000 fans celebrating. Lost in all of that is the pressure and politics that championships bring. Shawn Michaels 2.0 was fully aware of such things, fully aware of the pitfalls that come with titles.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.