Available at Amazon.com
Studio: World Wrestling Entertainment
Rating: Not Rated
Run time: 540 minutes
Number of discs: 3
Release Date: November 27, 2007
He’s charismatic. He’s cocky. He knows how to steal shows and break hearts. He’s Shawn Michaels, arguably the best sports-entertainer of all time. If not the best, top five – easy. Small in stature, but stalwart and headstrong, Michaels has done it all. You name the championship, and he’s won it. WrestleMania? Been there, stole that. Perhaps that is why one of his nicknames proclaims him “Mr. WrestleMania.”
When I first started getting back in to wrestling, a Shawn Michaels match was my reintroduction. It was a TV match on USA’s Monday Night Raw in 1993. He was on the wrong end, losing his Intercontinental title to his long-time tag-team partner Marty Jannetty. I was on the edge of my seat; afterwards I wondered just who was Marty Jannetty? It dawned on me later: Michaels and Jannetty were The Rockers.
That partnership and Michaels’s singles career are chronicled in The Shawn Michaels Story: Heartbreak & Triumph. It is again another stellar documentary produced by World Wrestling Entertainment. At two hours in length, surprisingly it doesn’t seem long enough. It could have easily gone another thirty minutes, because his career from his 2002 comeback until now seems rushed and certain feuds are either briefly acknowledged or glossed over completely.
Shawn Michaels (real name Michael Shawn Hickenbottom) grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Like some of his WWE competitors, at an early age he was captivated by wrestling. A student at Randolph High School, with a six-foot 240-pound frame, Michaels was one of the biggest kids in his class. Though when he actively pursued wrestling as a profession, he quickly found out that he was entering a land where being six-feet-six and 280 or 300 pounds was normal.
Vocal throughout the documentary Shawn Michaels takes us on a journey through his wrestling career. From jobbing to the likes of Billy Jack Haynes to finally breaking through that proverbial glass ceiling at WrestleMania XII, Michaels has had a career of highs and lows. In the beginning he was leapfrogging promotions trying to make ends meet, from San Antonio to Mid-South to Minnesota, before finally finding a home in Stamford, Connecticut (home operations for World Wrestling Entertainment). For his early years he competed as a tag team with Marty Jannetty. They were The Midnight Rockers. Their first stint with the World Wrestling Federation was short-lived as the two were fired in less than two weeks. Besides bewilderment, this was a lesson in humility. Michaels made the mistake of wearing boots when meeting with boss Vince McMahon about a certain barroom incident. Should any wrestler get in hot water with upper management remember to not wear boots to the meeting – McMahon may just make a joke about how they’re good for walking.
With loads of archival footage of Shawn Michaels in action plus comments from his family and friends within in the industry, over the course of two hours we see Michaels grow as a performer and as a person. The reminiscences about his four-year absence and his rock bottom decline help to humanize a man who had become jaded. Not at the business, but rather his desire to want to compete. This was a man who in 1996 was the showpiece of the World Wrestling Federation. He was a World Champion and had a string of pay-per-view title defenses and matches that would be unrivaled for years. While delivering in the ring, the WWF was failing financially; Word Championship Wrestling with its New World Order angle was hip and cutting edge.
When the WWF finally brushed passed WCW Shawn Michaels was nowhere to be seen. His last professional match had been at WrestleMania XIV when he dropped the World title to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Weeks leading up to the main event Michaels was on borrowed time. A serious back injury would force him away from in-ring competition. Four years later, a lot can happen. Marriage, a newborn son and religion, these became the three cornerstones of Michaels’s life and would help pave the way for his new beginning.
Sure, he may not to be the biggest, but Shawn Michaels does the little things that make you realize how fun wrestling can be. Michaels is an industry icon and a rock star whenever he steps out from behind the curtain. His story, appropriately titled Heartbreak & Triumph, is a great tribute to a wrestler who clawed his way to the top only to later have his career come to a crashing halt.
But now he’s back and he just may be better than ever.
A/V QUALITY CONTROL
With a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, both the documentary and extras have good video. Of course, some of the materials culled for the documentary do have lesser quality, but the photographs and home movies aren’t distracting when matched with the present-day interviews.
Most of the audio is a presented in a TV friendly 2.0 Surround mix, sometimes in Dolby Digital 5.1. Just like the video, the quality of sound is dependent upon the source material. All the bumps and devastating risks, plus the play-by-play commentary, come in loud and clear. Except for maybe the classic footage from WCCW and AWA. Also note that neither subtitles nor closed captions have been included with this WWE DVD release.
SPECIAL FEATURES
If you count the two Degeneration X releases, Heartbreak & Triumph is the fifth Shawn Michaels DVD that World Wrestling Entertainment has produced. But this three-disc retrospective has more in common with the 2003 From the Vault release than his days with team “SUCK IT!” It’s been four year since that two-disc DVD with wall-to-wall matches. Now, besides a 120-minute documentary and some promos, deleted scenes, and extra stories, we get two discs worth of matches.
Thankfully, there are no repeats with this release. We start at the beginning when he was wrestling as Sean Michaels in World Class Championship Wrestling. Then we get two AWA matches in which he teams with Marty Jannetty as The Midnight Rockers. The feud the two had with Buddy Rose & Doug Somers for the AWA Tag Team Championship is represented in this, the above-mentioned Michaels release, and the AWA retrospective WWE released in 2006.
By 1988 Michaels and Jannetty had found a home with the World Wrestling Federation. One of their greatest rivalries was with The Brainbusters (Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard). The Rockers got a tutorial – more like a college thesis – in wrestling psychology with those two; as the feud developed both teams began to tear the house down. For this release get a match they had in Madison Square Garden on January 23, 1989.
The next match is oftentimes referred to as the “phantom title change.” Having paid their dues for a few years, The Rockers were deserving of winning championship gold. The team was set to win the Tag Team titles at a Saturday’s Night Main Event taping in October 1990 against The Hart Foundation. It was a two out of three falls affair, but during the match one of the top ropes came undone. While The Rockers ultimately win the match, since the title change was never announced publicly, and went unaired, it went unrecognized.
The last Rockers match we get is the PPV opener against The Orient Express at Royal Rumble 1991. A surefire four-star classic, both teams deliver a great catch-as-catch-can match that had the Miami Arena buzzing.
Getting to Michaels’s singles career we see the evolution of “The Boy Toy” to “The Icon.” Included his is first singles title victory, as he defeats The British Bulldog in November 1992 for the Intercontinental Championship.
Like Ric Flair and his Ultimate Ric Flair Collection, Michaels celebrates his first Royal Rumble victory in which he went bell-to-bell at the 1995 pay-per-view spectacular. Some might say the feat is tainted because that year competitors entered the Rumble in one-minute intervals, as compared the usual two-minute periods. Though, leave it to WWE to confuse matters. (There have been times when intervals were 90 seconds.)
The third disc is on par with the third disc of Bret Hart’s The Best There Was, The Best There Is, The Best There Ever Will Be release. Well, maybe not on par, but definitely chock full of must see material. We get two great Raw matches, a hidden gem, the return of The Rockers (for one night only), a rematch from WrestleMania 21 and a glimpse at HBK’s first run with the WWF Championship in 1996.
First up is the match that was a first runner-up for Pro Wrestling Illustrated‘s 1995 Match of the Year: Shawn Michaels vs. Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Championship at In Your House II. Far from Michaels’s greatest match, a case could be made that this is Jarrett’s best match in the World Wrestling Federation, if not ever. The match was one of the highlights of an otherwise dreadful PPV. Nothing beats a showstopper.
Next is a rematch against the British Bulldog at King of the Ring 1996. The two had met at In Your House: Beware of Dog in a match that ended in a draw when both men’s shoulders were on the mat for the count of three. Having defeated long-time friend Kevin Nash in a “No Holds Barred” match a few months prior, this match couldn’t compare, but it helped to cement Shawn’s legacy as a man worthy of being called champion.
Fast-forwarding to 2003, Shawn Michaels had a championship match with Triple H on the December twenty-ninth Raw that was a TV classic. It’s a match that is worthy of mention. It may have gained more notoriety had it been on a PPV, but this live telecast from San Antonio was top-notch. In the end, it is a close contest that is magnified during the post-match with GM Eric Bischoff crushing the dreams of Shawn Michaels and the San Antonio faithful.
Now it is time for a little nostalgia. Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty, who went from teaming to feuding, let bygones be bygones and reformed The Rockers for one night only. The reunion happened on a March 2005 Raw telecast against La Resistance. The contest is pretty much an afterthought; this is truly about the reunion of a revolutionary tag team.
Moving along is the WrestleMania 21 rematch Michaels had with Kurt Angle at Vengeance 2005. There is a deleted scene from the first disc about the feud Michaels had with Angle during that spring. It would have made sense to include the match mentioned in the scene, but the rematch still delivers.
Finally we get a match from April of this year and it is a great example of programming on the fly. For the April 23rd telecast of Raw, two matches were to transpire: Michaels versus John Cena and Randy Orton versus Edge. Only a small incident involving Orton left a slot open in the show. Needing to fill the time, Michaels and Cena man up and go the distance wrestling close to an hour. Except for a few televised Ironman matches, I don’t believe WWE has ever had, in recent years, a free one-fall match that went almost an hour. Considering the competitors in this match, I’m all for programming on the fly.
THE INSIDE PULSE
Lex Luger may have gone by the “Total Package” moniker, but honestly it is Shawn Michaels who fits that handle. Wrestling for twenty-plus years Michaels has many accolades to his credit. He’s had showstopping performances and classics against the likes of Mick Foley, The Undertaker, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho. Many of his competitors could rightfully say that Michaels has been the best person they’ve faced. With this three-disc retrospective, Heartbreak & Triumph is but another chapter in the legacy of HBK. Showstopper. Icon. Entertainer extraordinaire. A two-hour documentary, which takes us back to humble beginnings through what was to be a career ending injury, plus fourteen matches – some classics and personal bests – makes this an easy recommendation. Though, I don’t understand why the TV matches can’t appear uncut. Added footage of the Cena/Michaels match would have been a nice surprise. And too bad Shawn Michaels couldn’t have given us a lead-in to the matches selected for this DVD release. Still, if you are a fan of the Heartbreak Kid, this an automatic purchase.
WWE – The Shawn Michaels Story: Heartbreak & Triumph |
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