Backstage reason for Vince McMahon wanting to end 4-time WWE World Champion's run as top babyface

Vince McMahon is a man who is dead set on achieving something if he makes up his mind. Something like that happened when the Chairman decided that Diesel (Kevin Nash) would be the top babyface of the company and not Shawn Michaels.

Bruce Prichard talked on his podcast - Something to Wrestle - about the backstage dynamics during the time Diesel and Shawn Michaels was at the top of WWE. He revealed that while Pat Patterson and he wanted the Heart Break Kid to be the top babyface of the company, Vince McMahon was completely against the idea.

Prichard admitted that Vince was set and he wanted to get Diesel over and put the championship on Diesel, get behind Diesel, and move forward. He also said that it would have been a losing battle to try and put Shawn Michaels in that position instead.

Here is what Bruce Prichard revealed about being told never to bring up Shawn Michael's name as the top babyface of the company by Vince McMahon:

And we pushed so hard that around the Royal Rumble, we were given the edict, don’t bring it up again, don’t bring up Shawn being a babyface again, he’s a cocky little arrogant heel, that’s how the audience sees him, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Bruce Prichard further talked about why making Shawn Michaels a disliked heel was a very difficult task. He stated that even though the fans would hate the character of Shawn Michaels, they still appreciated the performer. They loved his work and applauded it.

while they did not like the character Shawn Michaels, and they did not like him in the role that he played, they loved his work and they respected it and they applauded it, so I always felt we were fighting an uphill battle to make him this nasty heel (h/t: 411Mania)

Shawn Michaels is one of the Superstars who can play the heel as good as the babyface. Even though Shawn would remain a babyface for the majority of his second run with the WWE which started in 2002; he was easily one of the best heels in the WWE during his first run.

Diesel had joined Shawn Michaels as his bodyguard initially and went on to become a WWE Champion. While Michaels' had his push delayed a bit, the legendary Superstar managed to win the World Championship on four different occasions throughout his career.