Like most legends, Shawn Michaels' career can be clouded by nostalgia. He was one of the WWE's biggest stars, and retired in 2010 as a bona fide legend, respected by fans and peers alike. In 1996 though, it was a slightly different story. WCW Nitro was spending huge money trying to take control of the industry, and were spending that money on luring top-name talent from WWF. Scott Hall and Kevin Nash had defected, joining Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and numerous others, leaving the WWF with a real lack of top talent. Watch any "historical" documentary produced by WWE and you'll learn that this was the reason that WWF flourished. They were forced to develop their own talent and, hey presto, Stone Cold, The Rock, Triple H and Mankind were born. But there's a period of time that these documentaries always gloss over. After the now famous 60-minute Iron Man match at Wrestlemania 12, Bret Hart took time away from the business. This left the company with Shawn Michaels in the Top Guy spot. HBK was an incredible talent, of course, but a mixture of bad timing and a bad attitude stopped him from thriving as the face of the company. He was pushed and over-protected relentlessly, and then faked an injury just to avoid dropping the title in a Wrestlemania 13 rematch to Bret Hart. Instead of leading his company into a new era, he let his company down. Of course, when he vacated the title before Wrestlemania 13, that meant that Bret Hart had to move down the card and have a match with a rising star called Stone Cold Steve Austin. It was that match that helped create the star that Vince McMahon could build his company around. And who did Stone Cold beat for his first world championship, causing Jim Ross to famously yell "the Austin era has begun!" at Wrestlemania 14?
Michael Palmer is a contributor at whatculture.com and thelineofbestfit.com, and he probably likes WWE slightly more than most people would call "healthy".
