True, his his backstage personailty sucked and he spent most of the latter part of his carrer looking out for himself, but as an in ring performer there was no better. In my opinion HBK is one of the greatest workers ever who could have good to great matches with nearly everyone. He carried Sid(one of the worst workers ever) and Kevin Nash (equally as bad) to ****+ matches. He also allowed Razor Ramon to participate in two of the greatest matches ever(WM 10 and Summerslam 95 ladder matches). And gave Mick Foley and The Undertaker there best matches ever. He also participated in some of the most memorable incidents and was an incredible talker and as charasmatic as they come. I beleive that it was HBK who kept the WWF alive during it's 1996 period. While Vince McMahon as having his ass handed to him in the ratings by Eric Bischoff and WCW, aside from the Undertaker, HBK was the company's only star. Deisel and Razor had left for WCW, Bret Hart was on vacation, the Warrior short stint ended on bad terms, Steve Austin had hust turned Stone Cold, Vader Flopped and Mankind hd yet to become a bona fide star. I truly beleive, had it not been for Michaels' great matches as champion, the WWF would have not survived this period.
When you think of the saviour of WWF and the star of the Attitude era, Stone Cold immediately comes to mind, and while I'm not disputing this, i truly beleive that had itt not been for Michaels, the Attitude ere would have not exploded as it did. Stone Cold had become a headliner since early 1997 and this did not have an impact in the ratings. In fact, it wasn't until after the post Survivor Series 97, Raw the ratings exploded. Due to the incident the previous night involving Michaels, the rating for the post Survivor Series Raw jumped a full point. This was probably out of curiousty as people were intrigued by the Montreal screw job. By this time,D-generation X had become the most heavily featured act on Raw. By the next weeks Raw, the WWF managed to maintain that full point they gained. Simpy put, the fan that tuned in out of curiousity, wereaptivated by the WWF product and decided to continue watchins. I beleive that this was he turning point in the ratings battle between WWF and WCW. Baisically, what i'm trying to get at, is that Michaels played a great but underated role in the WWF surval and eventual prosperity. He changed the business and performed some of the greatest matches ever. I think it's safe to say, there ill never be another Shawn Michaels.
