Shawn Michaels Delivers a Sweet Chin Music to Owen Hart - WWF In Your House 6 : Rage in the Cage [2/18/1996]

The absolute crown jewel in a PPV that had not a whole lot going for it (save for the Razor Ramon/123-Kid “Crybaby” match), Owen vs HBK went for a full sixteen minutes in a #1 Contender match for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania. This moment here captures Shawn Michaels right before winning the match completely, getting sweet revenge on Owen Hart for putting him out of action months prior with an enzugiri that almost (kayfabe) forced Michaels to retire.

I don’t have any concrete evidence regarding the date, but I’m sure that it’s safe to assume that this was during the time both members of the Kliq were in the AWA, sometime between 1985-1987. That would mean that Shawn here would be around the age of twenty-years-old while “Big” Scott Hall would be in his late twenties.

Michaels has a bit of a derpy face going on here, doesn’t he?

Related: Shawn Michael’s Doof-Face

World Wrestling Federation TCA Advert [May 1992]

Fantastic ad with four of the biggest WWF stars of all time, and two jobbers that I do not recognize at all. Is anybody out there familiar with early 90’s WWF enhancement talent?

Yup, that is a photo of “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels wearing a Homer Simpson t-shirt.

We can shut this site down now, this is the best it’s gonna get.

Shawn Michaels, Mike Tyson, and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin WrestleMania XIV Promotional Shot [1998]

Eric Bischoff on the WWF bringing in Mike Tyson for WrestleMania XIV, taken from his 2006 book Controversy Creates Cash:

“Looking back, the storyline itself was relatively simple but extremely effective. WWE developed a feud between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon. Vince wanted to bring Tyson in as a world-class athlete to shake things up. Austin took exception. All the buzz around Tyson upped the excitement level exponentially. Even to this day, as I go back and look at it, they set the angle up beautifully. They wove in enough reality to get the audience to that important point where they would suspend disbelief. To this day then I see it, it feels real.

This wasn’t a storyline that appealed to a twelve-year-old kid. This was aimed at young males in the workforce, people who’d be upset at being passed over for a promotion, people who’d resent their boss, who had something to prove. It appealed to fans who wished they could spit in their boss’s eye.

One of the keys to the angle’s success was Vince McMahon’s decision to put himself out there as the owner of the company, something he hadn’t been willing to do until now. And they couldn’t have picked a better guy than Mike Tyson to give their show an edge. Tyson had edge the was dangerous — times ten.

The Pay-Per-View helped Steve Austin launch his bad-ass, rattlesnake character to the moon, Everybody wanted to see a wrestler stand up to Tyson and put him in his place, and there was nobody better to pull that off than Steve Austin.

Once I saw the tape, I knew we were in deep shit.”

Shawn Michaels Celebrates His WWF Championship Victory Against Bret Hart - WWF WrestleMania XII [3/31/1996]

I could use this space to talk about how thrilling the Bret Hart and Shawn Michael’s Sixty-Minute Iron Match was and how I remember barely moving an inch, glued completely to the television screen while I watched it unfold on the rented VHS tape — or I could just point out the fact that I like HBK’s pretty tights.

In fact, this is the favorite version of Shawn Michaels that I use for WWE ‘13.

“No More Mr. Nice Guy!” - WWF Royal Rumble Advert [1/19/1997]

It’s funny, I spent Saturday at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio to watch the UT vs OSU game which is coincidentally the same venue this PPV took place at. The overall attendance for this WWF event is STILL the highest attended Royal Rumble PPV on record as they ended up getting 60,525 people inside the stadium.  The Alamo Bowl on Saturday had a little over 65,000 people in the crowd, so I can easily imagine what kind of electricity a crowd that size can whip up.

I’m pretty sure the pop I heard whenever UT got two sacks in a row to solidify their bowl win can equate to the pop heard whenever Shawn Michaels won his second WWF Championship over Sycho Sid.

The “Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels - Wrestling All Stars #83 [June 1996]

I think this is the greatest photo I’ve ever seen of Mr. Hickenbottom.

Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels - WWF SummerSlam [8/27/1995]

In a rare re-do of their classic WrestleMania match in 1994, Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon fought again for the WWF Intercontinental Championship in a ladder match. The weird thing was that Michaels had built up a program against Sid for SummerSlam, but the match was canned at the last moment leading to this WrestleMania rematch.

The match wasn’t a classic by any means, but it was well appreciated, especially on a card where a Skip (Chris Candido) vs Barry Horowitz match is placed third on the bill.

“Iron” Mike Tyson Joins D-Generation X - WWF RAW is WAR [3/2/1998]

In another way to hype up the WrestleMania XIV main event between “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels, the WWF reached out to Mike Tyson to offer him a position as a special guest referee for the match. Austin (naturally) had an issue with this decision and made sure to voice his displeasure by shoving the “Baddest Man on the Planet” live on RAW. Tyson’s role was changed to a special guest enforcer afterward which lead to this moment where “Iron” Mike shocked the world by revealing an alliance with D-Generation X.