Just four months after Shawn Michaels' heartfelt WWE farewell where he went out the right way, comes the somewhat stunning news that he's being given the Randy Savage treatment by Vince McMahon. Yes, like Vince did with Savage for many years, he is currently nixing any merchandising projects that would involve marketing Michaels, as Dave Meltzer reported in his July 26th 2010 Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
Not sure what happened with Shawn Michaels but those in marketing were told a few weeks ago that Vince has put the thumbs down to any usage of things related to the image of Michaels.
So what would cause this shocking turnaround in WWE's treatment of Shawn Michaels? Dave Meltzer doesn't seem to know for certain, but an obvious sticking point may be Shawn's commitment to staying retired, which seems a lot more sincere today than it did in the build up to his retirement match. Between Batista quitting the promotion, Triple H filming movies and being injured, and Bret Hart's strange absence for a month, the star power for their flagship show Monday Night Raw has been pretty depleted of late, so it would have been a logical move by Vince to ask Shawn a few weeks ago to return to Raw in a non-wrestling role. Indeed, he would have been a logical replacement for Bret Hart in the role of Raw General Manager, instead of the corny mystery GM gimmick they came up with on the fly, perhaps because they didn't have a suitable immediate replacement. So Shawn Michaels being at peace in retirement and thus finally being able to say no to Vince McMahon when the call to return inevitably came is the likely cause of Vince's ire, because he isn't used to people telling him no. Indeed, Meltzer did confirm that Shawn currently wants nothing to do with the wrestling business, not even a part-time non-wrestling role on TV:
While nobody can predict the future, right now, those close to Michaels tell us that he is mentally done with wrestling and in his mind right now, he will never come back. Right now he’s saying in any form. It’s kind of amazing because so few people can walk away, let alone someone who is not just walking away from wrestling, which engulfed his life since he was a teenager, but is walking away from a high level of fame and good money for even a part-time relationship with the company in some form.
It should be noted that the point scoring Dave Scherer, who is unlikely to have the kind of high up WWE sources that Meltzer has or his track record of honesty, pooh poohed Meltzer's reporting on his site PWInsider.com in a post entitled "Don't believe reports that say Vince McMahon has heat with Shawn Michaels". He hilariously pointed to the annual NBC WrestleMania TV special as proof that Meltzer was wrong:
NBC will be airing a special on 8/7 at 9 PM ET titled " WrestleMania XXVI: The World Television Premiere".
Featured prominently on the show will be the Shawn Michaels-Undertaker match that led to Michaels' retirement. Not that we needed this show to prove anything, because rumors of Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels having heat were unfounded to begin with, but it kind of does just that for the doubters out there.
For those still doubting, stop already. WWE knows where Michaels is at this point in his life and gave him a great deal to keep him as long as he stayed. Now, he is a 45 year-old family man that has priorities outside of wrestling that matter more to him. That is the real story, at least for now.
Ha, I'd like to see WWE do a WrestleMania TV special without featuring prominently the main event! Given Scherer's logic, I suppose we won't be seeing the John Cena vs. Batista match featured prominently on that TV special then. :rolls eyes: