Ranking Who Was Really The Man In Wrestling Every Year 1990-2020
13. 2008 - Shawn Michaels
2008 was another year in which there was no true standout doyen.
Cena and Místico were still strong draws. Keiji Muto's dual reigns with the AJPW Triple Crown and IWGP Championship read more impressively in sequence than anything else, though he was clearly still a top star with gripping flashes of the old legend lurking within, ready to be unleashed when the big occasion demanded it.
Chris Jericho had his best year in an age - his work was rewarded with the World Heavyweight Title - but in a year of stagnant or stable box office across the breadth of the industry, the sheer artistic success of Shawn Michaels earns him a golden handshake.
Michaels retired Ric Flair in a storytelling masterclass at WrestleMania - a wonderfully textured match in which Flair's old heel schtick was cheered resoundingly, because we all knew it was the last time we'd see it in a WWE ring, but came off as desperate, deepening the pathos. His sprawling saga with Chris Jericho - arrived at, deftly, by way of a very good Batista programme - was a modern WWE triumph plotted with elegance and worked with convincing snugness beyond the showmanship flexing of 2003.