Saturday, September 11, 2004

ends badly
In October '95 Shawn suffered a beating at the hands of several men outside of a nightclub in Syracuse, New York. This was not a work, it was a true story. The details of the incident are not fully known although there are many things that we do know about the altercation.

Shawn Michaels, Davey Boy Smith (British Bulldog) and Sean Waltman (X-Pac) were at a bar in Syracuse. At some point during the evening the three WWF wrestlers were confronted by a pack of men. Nobody really knows how many men were there although it is believed that it ranged from anywhere between 8-14 of them. When they left the bar these men met them out by their car and began provoking them. A few of the men held back Smith and Waltman while the others attacked Shawn probably because he was the Intercontinental Champion at the time and the most famous of the three. On WWF TV, they said that nine men attacked Michaels although nobody really knows if that is true. For the purpose of storylines, they did not mention that Waltman and Smith were there. The extent of Shawn's injuries are not fully known although most believe that he had minor injuries because of the assault.

He appeared at the October '95 PPV and forfeited the title to Dean (Shane) Douglas who in turn lost the belt to Razor Ramon. On the episode of Raw following Survivor Series '95, Shawn took an enziguri kick from Owen Hart that forced Shawn to suffer from "post concussion syndrome." In reality, Shawn was 100% healthy by that time and only sold the Owen Hart kick so that he can return in '96 as the federation's top babyface. I repeat, it was an angle, he did not really suffer an injury from Owen during that match. It was one of the first “worked shoot” angles that the company ever did. They fooled a lot of people with it and it also helped build Shawn up as a sympathetic babyface that the fans could get behind at the start of the new year.


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