10 WWE Wrestlers Who Lived Their Gimmicks
6. Shawn Michaels
Shawn Michaels is likely one of the first names you’ll bring up when considering the greatest wrestlers of all-time, and rightly so. Next to nobody can match his incredible legacy, and he has more world class matches and rivalries under his belt than anyone to ever enter a WWE ring.
Whether during his pre-injury run as a flashy show-stealer or his late career revival, HBK was at the top of the business for a long, long time. He’s not just one of the most decorated wrestlers ever, though: Michaels was a notorious backstage manipulator who wasn’t afraid of playing politics to get ahead, and this won him few admirers.
At his peak, HBK was one of the biggest egomaniacs in the business, and if you believe his peers, he was just as obnoxious behind the scenes as he was on camera. Bret Hart, Jim Cornette, and countless others have laid into him in the past, and while Shawn claims to have found God and changed his ways, he retains his fair share of detractors.
A true villain on-screen and off, Shawn Michaels was one of the best in the business, and he knew it.