[Shawn Michaels Wife Nude
Addison Mauldin
Michael Shawn Hickenbottom (born July 22, 1965), better known by his ring name Shawn Michaels, is an American retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he is the Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative and oversees the creative aspects of the NXT brand, the promotion's developmental territory.[6] Regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, he is known by the nicknames "The Heartbreak Kid" (often abbreviated as HBK), "The Showstopper", and "Mr. WrestleMania".[7]
Michaels wrestled consistently for WWE, formerly the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, renamed in 2002), from 1988 until his first retirement in 1998. He performed in non-wrestling roles for the next two years, resuming his wrestling career with WWE in 2002 until ceremoniously retiring in 2010. He returned for a one-off final match in 2018. In 2016, he began working as a coach at the WWE Performance Center, and from 2018 as a producer on NXT, before becoming the Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative for the NXT brand itself.
In WWF/WWE, Michaels headlined pay-per-view events between 1989 and 2018, main-eventing the company's flagship annual event, WrestleMania, five times (12, 14, 20, 23 and 26). He was the co-founder and original leader of the successful stable, D-Generation X. Michaels also wrestled in the American Wrestling Association (AWA), where he founded The Midnight Rockers with Marty Jannetty in 1985. After winning the AWA World Tag Team Championship twice, the team continued to the WWF as The Rockers and had a high-profile breakup in January 1992. Within the year, Michaels twice challenged for the WWF Championship and won his first Intercontinental Championship, heralding his arrival as one of the industry's premier singles stars.
Michael Shawn Hickenbottom was born in Chandler, Arizona, on July 22, 1965.[9][10] He has an older sister named Shari and two older brothers named Randy and Scott. He was raised in a military family and briefly spent some of his early years in the English town of Reading, Berkshire,[9] but grew up primarily in San Antonio, Texas. As a child, he disliked the name "Michael" and convinced his family and friends to address him by his middle name.[11] Ever since, he has been referred to as Shawn. Additionally, Hickenbottom moved around frequently since his father was in the military.[11] He knew he wanted to become a professional wrestler at the age of 12 and performed a wrestling routine at his high school's talent show, complete with fake blood.[10][12] He was a keen athlete while growing up, and his sporting career began at the age of six when he played football.[13] He was a stand-out linebacker at Randolph High School on Randolph Air Force Base and eventually became captain of the football team.[2][14] He attended Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, but dropped out to pursue a career in professional wrestling.[15] His cousin Matt Bentley is also a wrestler.[16]
Hickenbottom began to train under Mexican professional wrestler Jose Lothario.[4][17] During his training, Hickenbottom adopted the ring name, "Shawn Michaels".[1] After his training with Lothario, he debuted as Shawn Michaels with the National Wrestling Alliance's (NWA) Mid-South Wrestling territory on October 16, 1984, against Art Crews, losing to Crews via swinging neckbreaker. Michaels's performance in his debut match impressed many veterans, including Terry Taylor. Michaels made his televised debut on October 20, 1984, teaming with Jim Hornet in a losing effort against the tag team of Hercules Hernandez and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams.[18]
In January 1985, he debuted for World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW), the NWA territory in Dallas, Texas. In April 1985, Michaels went to work for another NWA territory in Kansas City called Central States Wrestling.[19] There, he and tag team partner Marty Jannetty defeated The Batten Twins for the NWA Central States Tag Team Championship, later losing it back to the Battens.[10]
After leaving Kansas City, he returned to Texas to wrestle for Texas All-Star Wrestling (TASW).[1] During his time with TASW, Michaels replaced Nick Kiniski in the American Breed tag team, teaming with Paul Diamond. Michaels and Diamond were awarded the TASW Tag Team Championship by Chavo Guerrero Sr.[10] The team was later renamed American Force.[20] While in TASW, Michaels and Diamond feuded with Japanese Force.
Michaels made his national-level debut, as Sean Michaels, at the age of 20 in the American Wrestling Association (AWA), in a victory over Buddhakhan on ESPN. He was once again teamed with Marty Jannetty, billed as The Midnight Rockers. The Midnight Rockers won the AWA World Tag Team Championship, defeating Doug Somers and Buddy Rose.[4]
In 1987, The Rockers were signed by a competing promotion: the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).[4] They were fired from WWF two weeks later, for a bar incident (a misunderstanding, according to Michaels's autobiography).[4][21] They then returned to AWA, where they won the AWA tag team titles for a second time,[10] but were re-signed by WWF a year later.[21]
The Rockers redebuted at a WWF live event on July 7, 1988.[22] Due to WWF chairman Vince McMahon's desire to have his performers carry WWF-exclusive ring names, Michaels and Jannetty were renamed, as simply The Rockers.[1] The team proved popular with both children and women[4] and was a mid-card stalwart of television and pay-per-view shows for the next two years.[23] During this time, Michaels headlined his first pay-per-view for the WWF when The Rockers were involved in the 4-on-4 Survivor Series match main event of Survivor Series on November 23, 1989, which they won.[24]
On October 30, 1990, The Rockers unofficially won the WWF Tag Team Championship from The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart), as Neidhart, half of the championship team, was in the process of negotiating his release from the company.[23] The match was taped with The Rockers winning the title, but soon after Neidhart came to an agreement with management and was rehired.[23] The championship was returned to the Hart Foundation, while the title change was never broadcast or even acknowledged on television (though The Rockers did have a successful title defense on November 3, 1990, against Power and Glory (Hercules and Paul Roma) before the title was returned to the Hart Foundation).[23] When news spread, WWF explained that the original result was void due to a collapsed turnbuckle in the ring during the bout. A buckle had indeed broken, but not to a noticeable or dangerous extent during the match.[1] The Rockers continued their partnership, eventually splitting on December 2, 1991, aired January 11, 1992, on Wrestling Challenge, during an incident on Brutus Beefcake's televised Barber Shop talk show promotional segment.[25] Michaels superkicked Jannetty and threw him through a glass window on the set of Beefcake's talk show.[4][26] Jannetty returned to the WWF the following year and enjoyed moderate success before leaving the company in 1994, while Michaels became a prominent villain of the early to mid-1990s as "The Boy Toy".[25]
At the suggestion of Curt Hennig, Michaels adopted the nickname "The Heartbreak Kid".[4] Along with his new name came a new gimmick as a vain, cocky villain.[27] He was put together with mirror-carrying manager, Sensational Sherri, who according to the storyline had become infatuated with him.[25] Sherri even sang the first version of his new theme music, "Sexy Boy".[1] During that period, after Michaels had wrestled his scheduled match at live events, his departure was announced with "Shawn Michaels has left the building", alluding to the phrase "Elvis has left the building".[28]
At WrestleMania VIII on April 5, 1992, Michaels defeated Tito Santana in his first pay-per-view singles match after both men had simultaneously eliminated each other from that year's Royal Rumble.[29] Michaels subsequently became a contender to the promotion's singles titles and failed to win the WWF Championship from champion Randy Savage in his first opportunity to compete for that title at British event UK Rampage, held on April 19 at the Sheffield Arena and broadcast on Sky Movies Plus[30] (the match later aired in the US on the edition of June 15 of Prime Time Wrestling).[31] Michaels was also unable to win the Intercontinental Championship from Bret Hart in the WWF's first ladder match at a Wrestling Challenge taping on July 21, which was subsequently made available on multiple Coliseum/WWE Home Video releases.[32][33] However, he won the title from The British Bulldog on Saturday Night's Main Event XXXI, which aired on November 14.[34] He faced Hart for the WWF Championship at Survivor Series on November 25, but lost the match.[35] Originally the secondary main event, Michaels and Hart became the primary main event after The Ultimate Warrior was unable to compete and was replaced by Mr. Perfect (Curt Hennig) in the tag team match that involved Randy Savage against the team of Ric Flair and Razor Ramon.[36] During this time, Michaels and Sherri split and he engaged himself in a feud with former tag team partner Marty Jannetty.[4] Michaels lost the Intercontinental Championship to Jannetty on the May 17, 1993, episode of Raw,[34] but regained it on June 6 with the help of his debuting "bodyguard" (and off-air friend) Diesel.[1][34]
In 1994, Michaels entered a rivalry with Razor Ramon, who had won the vacant Intercontinental Championship during Michaels's absence.[39] Since Michaels had never been defeated in the ring for the title, he claimed to be the rightful champion and even carried around his old title belt.[39] This feud culminated in a ladder match between the two on March 20 at WrestleMania X.[39] Michaels lost the match, which featured both his and Ramon's championship belts suspended above a ladder in the ring.[38][39] This match was voted by fans as "Match of the Year" by Pro Wrestling Illustrated.[4] It also received a five-star rating from Wrestling Observer Newsletter editor Dave Meltzer, the first of nine WWF/E matches to do so. Over the next few months, Michaels battled various injuries and launched the Heartbreak Hotel television talk show segment, mainly shown on Superstars.[40]
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