Friday, September 10, 2004

1995 Starts out great but......
In the eyes of many people, 1995 was supposed to be the year in which Shawn took that giant leap from midcarder to main eventer. He continued his role as a heel and was successful in terms of getting over. He "hired" Sid Vicious as his bodyguard because he claimed that he was too important to the WWF to get hurt. Although it was for the storyline, there was some validity behind it. He won Royal Rumble '95 as he became the first wrestler ever to be the first participant in the match and come out of it as the winner. He earned the shot to face Diesel (Kevin Nash) at WrestleMania XI for the world title. It seemed as though it was the perfect time to put the big belt around the qualified waist of Shawn. He seemed ready, he seemed qualified but it did not happen. He lost to Nash cleanly in the center of the ring in what turned out to be a pretty good match. Maybe it's because Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy were at ringside for that match. Nevertheless, Shawn's stock rose after his great performance at WM XI.

The next night on Raw, Shawn was powerbombed by his "bodyguard" Sid Vicious who claimed that Shawn was stealing his spotlight. With every powerbomb the sympathy for Michaels grew. He took a short break in order to sell the powerbombs and when he returned he was one of the biggest babyfaces in the company.

At the July '95 IYH PPV Shawn captured the IC title for the third time in a matchup against Jeff Jarrett. To this day the pop that Shawn received at the end of the night was one of the loudest that I have ever seen. I think it was important to Shawn because it was the first title he won while he was wrestling as a face. He defended the title at Summerslam '95 against Razor Ramon in the aforementioned second ladder match. This time around, they were both babyfaces and after twenty-five minutes of showstopping action the two hugged in the ring to the delight of the crowd. Sadly, all of that jubilation was quickly forgotten due to an unfortunate incident that took place a few months later.


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