When you watch pro wrestling as a kid, every performer seems immortal; especially Hulk
Hogan, who started being marketed as "The Immortal Hulk Hogan" in the 1980s after Marvel
smashed Hulk financially for calling himself "Incredible."
Of course, his immortality temporarily died at Survivor Series in 1991, when the Undertaker
delivered a Tombstone piledriver to Hogan and won his first world championship.
That year also marked the start of the Undertaker's undefeated streak at WrestleMania.
No one realized it at the time, but that streak would eventually bring an end to Shawn Michaels'
career.
Though known as the "Heartbreak Kid," Michaels had a habit of stealing hearts along with
the show.
Whether it was his iconic Iron Man match with Bret Hart, his classic matches against Kurt
Angle, or his ridiculous DX antics, his performances were as sweet as his Chin Music.
And contrary to his theme music, Michaels wasn't just a sexy boy;
“Thankfully I’m a single man, so I handle a lot of relationships.”
...he was also a Playgirl model.
More importantly, he was "Mr. WrestleMania," a man you always believed would outshine the
spotlight on the brightest stage of them all.
So when Michaels vowed to retire if he couldn't end the Undertaker's streak at WrestleMania
26, diehard fans hoping that Michaels' career would live forever had to believe the Dead
Man's undefeated streak would die.
The streak did die, but not that night.
That night, the Heartbreak Kid truly lived up to his name, shattering the hearts of longtime
devotees in what might be the greatest storyline in WWE history, and what the WWE describes
as possibly "the greatest collective loss in WWE history."
Since, as we illustrated, Shawn Michaels is immortal like the rest of your favorite wrestlers,
you might ask, "Why couldn't his career be immortal, too?"
The WrestleMania 26 showdown between the Heartbreak Kid and the Undertaker felt like the physical
equivalent of a love letter to fans.
It had passion and poetry of motion.
It had the Undertaker’S impressive top-rope attacks and Michaels moonsaulting the Undertaker
through a table.
It had thrilling near-falls and brilliant in-ring psychology.
Bleacher Report contributor Jon Alba said of that epic encounter,
"Being 100% unbiased and detached from the situation, this may have been the greatest
match I have ever seen.
Ever."
For a moment, it seemed like Michaels would win.
In the final moments of the match, Michaels delivered his trademark superkick, Sweet Chin
Music, and the WrestleMania crowd roared with the visceral joy of a child who believed they'd
never have to grow up.
But the Undertaker kicked out at two.
Michaels tuned up the band again, but just before it seemed like they reached the crescendo,
a chokeslam from the Dead Man silenced Michaels temporarily.
Yet the Tombstone piledriver that followed failed to bury his career.
Nevertheless, the end was coming.
The finality was written across Michaels’ face.
The Undertaker hesitated to strike the final death knell and shouted, "Stay down!"
But Michaels taunted the Undertaker with his own throat cut motion, rose to his feet, and
slapped the Dead Man across the face with every ounce of heart he had.
In response, the Undertaker sealed his fate with one last furious Tombstone.
Somehow Michaels and the Undertaker simultaneously gave fans everything they could hope for in
a match and the one thing they dreaded the most: the end of the legendary Heartbreak
Kid's career.
On the Monday Night Raw following WrestleMania 26, the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels looked
every bit as heartbroken as the fans awaiting his farewell speech.
The ring looked lonely even though Michaels was standing in it, and the fans looked like
a mass of cheering tear drops.
In that sweetly awful goodbye, Michaels uttered these once seemingly unspeakable words:
"At 23 I started coming into each and every one of your homes every week.
And the idea of now being 44 and not coming into your homes on that TV set every week
is gonna be [...] a little tough to get used to."
As he thanked those who did right by owning up to wronging others in the past, fans were
feeling a mix of appreciation and denial.
The crowd shouted, "Thank you Shawn," "One more match," Please don't go," and "HBK."
Their chants lacked the athletic poetry of the previous night's match, but they brimmed
with the raw emotion of a true goodbye.
For many who grew up watching him and tried vicariously through his character to feel
larger than life, it wasn't just goodbye to a career; it was a hello to the passage of
time.
It was a moment when one had to accept that Michaels was awakening from his boyhood dream,
and fans were letting go of a slice of their childhood.
In the years that followed people would ask pro wrestling's beloved showstopper to restart
the show.
But as Michaels matter-of-factly explained in an interview,
"I wouldn't have retired unless I was ready to walk away.
I'm flattered that every year when WrestleMania comes up people talk about me coming back,
but I enjoy my time with my family, I enjoy watching WrestleMania and I also enjoy watching
WWE move into the future."
Michaels returned to the ring in 2018 to compete at WWE Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia, but didn't
see it as exiting retirement.
As Michaels put it,
"To me it wasn't coming back as the Heartbreak Kid.
[...] I know that’s not the same, and I know nobody will understand it, but in my
mind, it was like a glorified house show, a live event.
[…] I don’t mean that to be intellectually insulting to the wrestling fan, but in my
mind, it was just so not the same.”
And the world of professional wrestling hasn't been the same without Shawn Michaels.
We miss you, Heartbreak Kid.
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