6 Ups And 11 Downs From WWE Crown Jewel

by Scott Carlson

1. HBK Sheds Ring Rust

While the match between Shawn Michaels and Triple H versus Undertaker and Kane wasn’t good by conventional standards, it was good to see that if HBK was going to get back in the ring, he didn’t embarrass himself.

Michaels stayed mostly in a safe zone, aside from a top rope elbow and moonsault press to the floor. But he looked fine in his first match in 8-plus years. Yes, it would have been better if he had been that one wrestler who actually hung it up, but if everyone else is going to return after retiring and get PPV paydays (Trish Stratus and Lita, we’re looking at you), then Michaels might as well cash in.

It will be interesting to see if this means that Michaels will compete infrequently again, or if this was a one-time deal and maybe we’ll see him once more at WrestleMania. But for one night, we got to see that Michaels still can go.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.