7 WWE Good Guys The Fans Hated

This is a very different example. Shawn is everything that most of Vince’s hand-picked main eventers are not. For starters he’s short (6’1”, short for the WWF). Secondly he was turned face after a surge of fan support during an extremely effective heel run in 1995. Michaels was beloved in general due to his work rate and bump-heavy ring style. He was viewed by the increasingly large number of fans that were smart to the business as a saviour for the WWF’s main event scene. This was ably demonstrated at WrestleMania X when a ladder match against Razor Ramon stole the show.

Where it went wrong for Shawn was outside the ring. The fans generally took a dislike to Shawn, as a babyface, during 1996 when he was at the apex of his career. In the ring Michaels was having one great match after another with a variety of opponents. Including an Ironman match with Bret Hart at WrestleMania XII, a surprisingly outstanding match with Diesel a month later and during the summer a wonderful contest with Mick Foley under his Mankind persona.

Michaels, often abusing drugs and alcohol, developed a habit of being a prima donna and the more clued in wrestling fans were aware of this. An example of Shawn’s petulance was during a match against the British Bulldog at In Your House: Beware of Dog. During the contest he was told the match would be finishing early due to time constraints, finishing in seventeen minutes instead of the planned thirty. Shawn had a hissy fit in the ring, threw in a ridiculous bump for no reason and argued with the referee while in a chinlock.

To make matters worse, and further stain his reputation, when it came time to work against the WWF’s biggest, baddest heel Vader, Michaels chewed the big man out for being too stiff with his punches. Vader was known for his realistic style, garnered during vicious matches in Japan, including one where Stan Hansen punched his eye out of the socket. Michaels wasn’t keen to have that kind of match and a long feud was curtailed to a single match that Shawn won.

Flash forward a few months to Survivor Series and the time came for Shawn to drop the belt to someone he preferred to lose to, Sycho Sid. The match took place in the hallowed Madison Square Garden and the New York fans let Shawn know that they were none too happy with his behaviour as champion. Normally Michaels was being cheered during matches but in New York that wasn’t the case. He was booed loudly before the match even started and as the contest continued matters only got worse.

Sid was cheered for beating up the companies top face and the typical McMahon reaction was to blame wacky New Yorkers for not reacting as they should. Vince is a known control freak, who dislikes sneezing as it’s not something he can control, and having an audience blow up on his top babyface was not something he expected. He persisted with the Michaels babyface experiment well into 1997 until turning him heel during a feud with the Undertaker. The difference between Michaels and some of the other guys on this list is that he was quite happy at the prospect of being turned heel.