Ranking The Biggest Rivalries In Wrestling Every Year 1990-2020

13. 2008 - Chris Jericho Vs Shawn Michaels

Chris Jericho Shawn Michaels
WWE

A programme so powerful that it felt restorative of WWE's crumbling creative system, Shawn Michaels Vs Chris Jericho was, in hindsight, the first high profile case of "trust the workers" rather than "trust the process".

A planned one-match feud became a bloody and personal war fought over several months with neither man able to claim a final moral "victory" in the end. Endlessly artful in a company that appeared to have lost sight on how to create such a thing, 'HBK' being smashed into a television screen and inadvertently leading his wife into the clenched right fist of his arch nemesis shouldn't have made for something so borderline beautiful.

Jericho came out of his most brutal beatings - at Unforgiven and No Mercy - nursing a broken body and the World Championship. The pivots to get to those points were simply sublime.

 
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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett