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Back in the spring of 2008, Shawn Michaels had just retired Ric Flair from the WWE ring after a masterful performance that served to solidify his legacy as the greatest WWE wrestler of all-time. Batista, a friend and wrestler mentored by Flair, took issue with HBK’s failure to ensure that their mutual friend’s career didn’t get to go on. The two had a match at Backlash, with Chris Jericho serving as the special guest referee. Jericho had returned a few months prior and had quickly gotten lost in the upper mid-card shuffle. Being a special ref in a match between HBK and Batista was pretty much the case in point for Jericho needing to make some sort of character change or risk becoming irrelevant. Michaels went on to defeat Batista after faking a knee injury during the climax of their match, buying himself the time needed to create separation and connect with the super kick. Jericho, on the Raw following the PPV, applauded HBK’s Oscar worthy performance in a very condescending tone. HBK swore that he was hurt, but Jericho wasn’t buying it. A match between the two was booked for Judgment Day. Batista waited in the wings to see if HBK’s injury was legitimate; Jericho became convinced that he was hurt after tagging with him against Miz and Morrison on Raw. However, the Raw before Judgment Day, HBK told Jericho that he wasn’t actually hurt. He apologized, but Jericho refused to believe him. It took Sweet Chin Music knocking him out cold for Jericho to realize that he’d been right all along and believe that Michaels was changing his tune about not being injured. Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels at Judgment 2008 In what was perhaps the most athletic match of the series of bouts that they had in 2008, Jericho and Michaels worked at a frenetic pace for much of the match, using a lot of their high spots early on. However, they also used several submissions in place of rest holds, so they were able to work fast, slow it down with a top notch tap out level finisher, and then work faster again. Michaels caught Jericho with Sweet Chin Music on the apron to turn the tide in his favor after Jericho had caught him in the Walls. The first chapter in a story is often the most unpredictable because you really don’t know where they’re going from there. This match benefitted from having no clear cut favorite. Jericho certainly could have used the win to get back up the ladder a bit, but HBK was on a bit of a roll and it could have easily continued. They never did reach a near fall that really brought you out of your chair, though. Each connected with their respective finishing moves and each subsequently kicked out, but they allowed the damage done from the submissions to prevent quick covers and, thus, a lot of the drama that would’ve been there was stripped away. Nevertheless, you got the feeling even then that this was just going to be part one of many. HBK reversed an attempt at the Walls for a roll-up victory. The two cautiously shook hands after the match, with each tentative that the other might strike a knockout blow (nicely playing off the hand shake after their match five years earlier at Wrestlemania XIX). (CMV1 rating - ***1/2) After the Judgment Day bout, Michaels returned to his feud with Batista and fought him in a Stretcher Match at One Night Stands: Extreme Rules, but then the focus went back to the budding story with Jericho. Y2J brought back the Highlight Reel and had HBK on as his guest for a second time in the last couple of months. Jericho berated Michaels for being a liar; a pathetic little worm that had been so great for so long but that had fallen far from the pedestal that he’d been in for much of his career. The two had a short brawl that ended with Jericho throwing HBK face-first into the insanely expensive Jeritron 5000, severely injuring his eye (kayfabe) in the process. At Night of Champions, Jericho defended his Intercontinental title against Kofi Kingston. Michaels came in through the crowd and caused the distraction that allowed Kofi to catch Jericho by surprise and take his title. The furious former champion attacked Michaels and punched him square in the bandaged eye. Despite the eye, Michaels was booked to face Jericho at the Great American Bash. Before the PPV, Michaels told Jericho that he now understood the real motivation behind why Jericho had made him a target. He originally thought it had everything to do with his little white lie from two months prior, but he now believed that it had more to do with Jericho trying to reach HBK’s status and not being able to accept that his own illustrious career just would never be able to match up to the Michaels legacy. “You’ll…never…be…ME!” Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels at the Great American Bash 2008 Building off their Judgment Day match, the pace of this return bout was similar to what we saw two months prior. However, it did not take long for the two to trade momentum via lengthy sequences of being in control. My wife likes to say that wrestling has a formula. In her opinion, the guy who gets beat up for the longest period in the first several minutes of the match almost always wins. Well, HBK was the guy that took early control, so Mrs. Doc instantly stated that Jericho would win. She was right. It went back and forth for a good while and they pushed the envelope a little bit more than they did in the first match. Michaels hip tossed Jericho over the top rope and onto Lance Cade (RIP), who was under Jericho’s tutelage at the time. HBK then performed one of his signature death-defying spots when he moonsaulted off the top turnbuckle down onto the waiting heel duo on the floor. To me, that has always been one of the riskiest moves I’ve ever seen someone do in a normal match (without furniture), and here we had HBK doing it routinely and making it look far easier than it could possibly be…and never being seriously injured in doing it. Soon after that stunt, Jericho elbowed Michaels in that injured eye, busting him open above the lid. HBK did a great, concentrated blade job. I loved the expression on Y2J’s face when he realized what he’d (accidentally) done. He immediately got bright eyed and bushy tailed and went after the injury like a shark. The referee repeatedly tried to stop the match, but Michaels would not allow it. Jericho just kept wailing on the eye. He punched at it, he kicked at it, and he even trapped Michaels’s arms in a cool looking grapevine and bashed the eye with his forearm over and over again. The ref had no choice but to stop the match and award the victory to Jericho. (CMV1 rating - ***3/4) The big question afterward was where they would go from there and how long would it take them to get there. Summerslam was approaching and most assumed that they’d have some sort of big match, but in a rare piece of foresight, Jericho and Michaels waited. They took their time building their story and instead teased that HBK might not actually return at all. Given his age, it would not have been altogether surprising, so that was one of the much hyped items for the summer classic. At Summerslam, HBK came out to the ring with his wife to announce that the doctor’s had suggested that he call it quits and that he was going to heed their word. Jericho interrupted and baited Michaels into a fight, but HBK would not oblige. Y2J was intent on getting the last word and punctuating the end of the Michaels era with one last pot shot. He grabbed hold of HBK’s arm as he turned to leave the ring and tried to land one more punch to that eye. Michaels ducked, but his wife was standing right behind him and she ended up absorbing the blow perfectly in the mouth. Her lip immediately swelled up and it was right up there with Eddie Guerrero’s mom’s acting job during the JBL feud as one of the greatest pieces of work ever done by a family member of a wrestler. After showing no remorse for his actions, Jericho made himself a target for HBK’s un-retirement. Michaels told Jericho that he would give him any kind of match that he wanted; no rules, not even sanctioned if he so chose…just any kind of match. Jericho obliged and Michaels vowed that he would show no remorse for what he did to Y2J at Unforgiven. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho in an Un-Sanctioned Match at Unforgiven 2008 At the Raw before this PPV, Michaels injured his triceps muscle legitimately and had his arm heavily taped for this match. It did not, however, stop Michaels from seizing a great deal of the momentum of the first several minutes of this bout. Motivation is said to always be a big determining factor in who wins a sporting contest, but it’s also often said that revenge can be a double edged sword, causing one to take unnecessary risks. HBK was unable to avoid those risks, but they worked to his favor in this match. Even though Jericho would seize control for a short time and go on to dominate thanks to Cade getting involved, Michaels was like a man possessed in his quest to inflict even a fraction of the pain caused to his family upon Jericho. Cade and Jericho had brutalized HBK’s injured arm with a steel chair and even gone back to work on the once injured eye, but Michaels battled back. He slammed Jericho in the face with a chair while he was perched on the top rope, causing Y2J to fall backwards onto a table. Afterward, Michaels placed Cade and Jericho on the announce table, climbed up to the top rope, and vaulted himself off with flying elbow drop that crushed the two of them under his weight and caused the table to shatter. Once back in the ring, HBK proceeded to use his belt to pummel Jericho until the referee stopped the match. It was a great piece of storytelling, but missing were the usual near falls and false finishes that you usually see from a truly epic match. In fact, much of the first three matches in this 2008 series were devoid of the classic elements for a four-star match. Up to this point in the feud, it wasn’t really the wrestling that was on full display, but rather the storytelling capabilities that both men possessed and clearly wanted to show off. Through their words, they were able to put over the personal rivalry and they backed it up through their actions. It felt almost real, rather than like a performance. (CMV1 rating - ****) Later that night, Jericho took CM Punk’s place in a Scramble match for the World title and won the championship. The next night on Raw, Jericho showed off his battle scars inflicted by Michaels, but was more than happy to follow up by hoisting the World Heavyweight Championship. It was interesting to note that, by this point, Jericho had done away with virtually every trace of the old Y2J character that he’d used to make his WWE name. He became a self-righteous, suit wearing, know-it-all inspired by the lead character in the critically acclaimed film, “No Country for Old Men.” The new character inspired some of the best work on the microphone that he’d ever done, but HBK was the perfect guy to help Jericho build it. He needed someone like that to play off of to work his way fully into that persona. It worked like a charm and is one of the primary reasons why Jericho’s second run in the WWE was so successful. Anyhow, considering Jericho’s title win, it seemed appropriate that the two have one more match since HBK had beaten him to a pulp at Unforgiven. The fact that it turned out to be a ladder match was icing on the cake given how well the two could tell a story with a ladder. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho in a Ladder Match for the World Heavyweight Championship at No Mercy 2008 The story was the key. Ladder matches are often knocked as complicated stunt fests that are sufficiently exciting, but that are lacking in the drama department because it’s all about the ladder and less about the wrestlers climbing/using it. You did not have that problem at all with Jericho and Michaels. With a more than sufficient – a downright brilliant – plot already set in place, the two just had to go out there and use the ladder as a part of the final chapter to the book of HBK vs. Jericho. Sure, there were some pretty risky stunts and they pulled them off beautifully, but the point of the match was not the ladder. Rather, the story revolved around the feud and the title. Jericho focused plenty of attention on HBK’s injured eye that had received so much attention throughout that summer and also made sure to hone in on the triceps that Michaels had hurt shortly before their PPV match the month before. Michaels, meanwhile, unleashed a little extra fury on Jericho that he had left over from all the dastardly things that Jericho had done to him – and his family – that year. As it should be, the finish of the match was the best part. In what I believe to be the best finishing sequence in the history of the ladder match, Michaels and Jericho fought at the top of the ladder and shared in the process of unhooking the belt from its position slightly above them. HBK grabbed one end of it, while Y2J grabbed the other. They each pulled on their respective ends of the belt, allowing the drama to build until the crowd was exploding with anticipation as to who was going to win. A tug and a pull later and it was Jericho that emerged victorious. Young wrestlers need to watch the finish to this match again and again to learn how to close a ladder match on the highest possible note without nearly killing themselves through some crazy stunt. (CMV1 rating - ****3/4) Jericho lost the title the next month, regained it right after, and then lost it again in November. Yet, there’s no question that his work with Michaels was the catalyst for the success of the remainder of his run through late 2010. I think this has to be considered one of the greatest WWE feuds of all-time. It was perfectly layered with so many twists and turns. Michaels, of course, went on to have one more epic feud (with Taker) before closing the book on his career. HBK and Jericho are, simply put, the two best storytellers I’ve personally ever seen in the ring. Summerslam Champions League Final Shawn Michaels-Triple H in a Non-Sanctioned Street Fight ('02) defeated Bret Hart -Owen Hart in a Steel Cage Match ('94) (CMV1 note – Certainly a tough call, here, but HBK vs. HHH won fairly convincingly. I do suggest, though, that any young fan go and watch the Bret-Owen cage match for an example of how to tell a story inside a cage without nearly killing yourself. It was just a brilliant match) Bret Hart-The British Bulldog ('92) defeated Undertaker - Edge in a Hell in a Cell Match ('08) and The Rock - Brock Lesnar ('02) (CMV1 note – Bret vs. Bulldog won fairly convincingly, as well, setting up a great final voting match-up with my two favorite matches in Summerslam history. Rock-Brock did really well in this tournament. I never expected it to make it this far and I’d say it’s inclusion in the Final Five – due to a tie in the last round – is probably the biggest surprise that we saw in this Champions League process) VOTE FOR THE WINNER OF THE SUMMERSLAM CHAMPIONS LEAGUE (DEADLINE: FRIDAY) Shawn Michaels-Triple H in a Non-Sanctioned Street Fight ('02) VERSUS Bret Hart-The British Bulldog ('92)
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