20 Biggest Myths WWE Tells About Its History

The Myth: Shawn Michaels’ first title reign was a storybook tale of self-fulfillment.

The Truth: Shawn’s reign started in controversy, traveled through several months of lacklustre defenses, and ended when the fans turned on him, hard.

Shawn had a full hour to defeat Bret Hart, and couldn't. For some reason, despite the champion literally always retaining in case of a draw, the match was restarted by Gorilla “Deus Ex Machina” Monsoon and Shawn became champion. He had a phenomenal defense against Diesel right after WrestleMania, and then things took a hard left.

Shawn was accused of propositioning Diana Hart, and was subsequently forced to wrestle Davey Boy Smith. He briefly got to show real fire in a feud with Mankind, but derailed into constant, sometimes-onscreen hissy fits as he tangled with Vader.

None of this was helped by Michaels’ clear self-importance and Vince McMahon absolutely salivating over the guy on commentary. The fans started to Reigns on HBK, and things only got worse.

Overbooking in Michaels matches began to approach Hogan-in-WCW levels to protect the champ. In damage-control mode on commentary, Vince made it his mission to personally disagree with HBK’s critics, but the more he tried to convince the fans that they loved Shawn the less willing they were to do so.

This all reached a crescendo at Survivor Series 1996, when Sid (SID!) got a massive babyface reaction for going on a video camera-swinging rampage against both Shawn and José Lothario, winning the WWE Championship in the process.

Worse, it's 1996, so Vince can't send Triple H to cut a passive-aggressive promo about his friend Mark. Instead, he chose to open Raw with a bizarre editorial about how HBK was GREAT and a REAL MAN and DESERVED A REMATCH.