10 Wrestling Matches That Started Riots
5. Davey Boy Smith Vs. Shawn Michaels - One Night Only 1997
If Shawn Michaels wasn't one of the greatest in-ring performers of all time, he'd have been blackballed from the wrestling business before his career ever really got going.
Sure, his initial run in the then-WWF saw him and his Rockers partner Marty Jannetty fired for their partying ways, but Shawn would eventually carve out a singles career that sees him viewed as one of the best to ever lace up a pair of boots. But for so much of those years of the Heartbreak Kid running wild at the top of the card in the mid-'90s, Shawn was a complete and insufferable assh*le whose behaviour irked everyone in the back except for his Kliq buddies.
Often referred to as simply 'Shawn being Shawn', Michaels was a heat magnet both on screen and off during that time. And when it comes to having people hate him, few times was there more hatred directed the Showstopper's way than 20 December 1997 - the date of the UK PPV, One Night Only.
There, Davey Boy Smith was originally due to retain his European Championship against Michaels in a victory that was to be dedicated to the British Bulldog's in-attendance terminally ill sister Tracey.
As part of his ongoing real-life rivalry with Bret Hart - Davey Boy's brother-in-law - Shawn used his sway to convince Vince McMahon of a last-minute change of plans, with him instead beating Bulldog in his own back yard.
The Birmingham crowd hated it, and the ring became littered with anything that those fans could throw at Michaels - that hate amped up even further by a cocksure post-match Michaels promo mocking Bulldog and his fans.