WWF 'Thursday RAW Thursday' Review: February 13th, 1997

Shawn Michaels Loses His Smile...

This segment indirectly shapes up The Attitude Era as we know it...

This moment is perhaps indirectly responsible for shaping up future events in The Attitude Era. But there are two sides to this story.

Let’s start with the one that we are presented with. Vince McMahon & Gorilla Monsoon are waiting in the ring, as Vince invites HBK to come out. HBK’s theme music hits, & it looks as if Shawn Michaels is less than thrilled to be here.

Vince McMahon gives too much credit to Shawn Michaels, but it looks like Shawn needs a knee surgery that might potentially keep him out of the ring for a long time.

The crowd is split here, to be honest. Shawn has been putting his body on the line constantly, & he musters up enough courage to say the following words...

“Over the last few months, I’ve lost a lot of things and one of the things I’ve lost is my smile, and I know it doesn’t mean a lot to everyone else, but it means a lot to me and I have to go and fix myself and take care of myself and find my smile because somewhere along the lines I lost it and I don’t care if its unpopular and people want to make fun of me because I’m an emotional guy. But this is…this is all I’ve ever wanted to do…”

Hence, Shawn Michaels ‘loses his smile’ & sheds a tear, just like I had (shed a tear, not in large quantities, just a trickle or two) when I watched this for the first time. But that was a long time ago.

Women in the crowd start weeping too.

Shawn Michaels is called "The Heartbreak Kid" for this very reason...

In the same crowd, Anti-Shawn members of the WWF Universe start chanting— “We Want Sid!”

It just goes on to show that Shawn Michaels’ persona became very divisive towards the end of the first run of his career. This business is hard, & it had clearly taken a toll on Shawn Michaels’ personal life at that point in time.

He thanks the fans, hugs Vince & Gorilla & walks away. It all appears so convincing onscreen. But like I said, there are always two sides to this story, & I personally lean somewhere in the middle after viewing it for the second time.

So here we go—

The WWF almost ran out of business at one point in time. Vince probably gives pre-2002 Shawn Michaels too much credit. Some say that the original plan was for Shawn Michaels to lose the title to Psycho Sid at Survivor Series 1996, only to win it back again at the 1997 Royal Rumble PPV. That did happen as planned.

The next phase was for Bret Hart & Shawn Michaels to face each other at WrestleMania 13 (like I hinted last week). Bret would eventually win the title in their encounter. The finish of their WrestleMania 13 match involved Bret breaking Shawn’s legs using the Sharpshooter, & the referee would, therefore, have to stop the match, declaring Bret as the victor.

In some alternate reality, Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels headlined WM 13...

But it never happened. Why? Well, looks like Shawn didn’t agree to the plan. He didn’t want to drop the belt so early, & HBK also had a bitter relationship with Bret Hart (& with almost everyone backstage). HBK’s real-life selfish attitude back then forced Vince to change plans.

So Vince sent him to a doctor that wasn’t much familiar with Pro-Wrestlers in the first place. The doctor told Shawn that he could never wrestle again. This gave Shawn a fine excuse to not drop the WWF belt to Bret Hart at WrestleMania 13.

In this way, Vince indirectly allowed Shawn to get away with his ego for the hundredth time. It seems as if Vince wanted to satisfy everyone back then. WCW was winning the ratings-war each week, & Vince couldn’t afford to lose a top-star again.

Plus, Psycho Sid was getting cheered loudly as champion, whether you like it or not. Sid even started drawing more as a champion in house-shows than HBK himself. It was clear that Shawn Michaels was losing his popularity during the late ‘96/97 period. But Vince still stuck with The Heart-Break Kid for some reason.

There you have it. Two sides to this story. I’ll let the reader decide which one sounds better. The main takeaway here is that The Attitude Era wouldn’t have been the same if Bret & Shawn headlined WrestleMania 13 together. This particular segment changes the course of the WWF altogether.

I’ll leave the readers with one important question though— “Would Shawn Michaels have been considered as one of the all-time greats in the WWE solely based on his run up until 1998?”