The Heartbreak Kid gets the digital autopsy treatment
Peacock and A&E just announced another documentary on Shawn Michaels. At this point, I am convinced they have a secret underground bunker in Stamford filled with nothing but raw footage of HBK selling a back injury and crying in the ring. We have seen the stories before. We have dissected the 1997 Montreal Screwjob until the tape literally turned to dust. Now we get to do it all over again, because apparently, the WWE archives are just a loop of the same five guys from the nineties.
Is there anything left to say about the guy that hasn't been covered in twelve previous specials? Maybe they finally address why his 2005 feud with Hulk Hogan resulted in him flailing around like he was fighting off a swarm of bees during those promos. That performance was art, sure, but professional wrestling is a weird business when you look at it through the lens of a streaming service's content quota.
According to recent reports, the network is banking on the nostalgia factor to carry their subscription numbers through the pre-WrestleMania crunch. We are just 18 days out from WrestleMania 41 Night 1, and the company is obsessed with reminding us who the legends are instead of letting the current roster build their own mythology. It is a safe play, but safe does not sell tickets in a crowded market.
The Shawn Michaels revisionist history project
Shawn Michaels is objectively one of the five greatest in-ring workers to ever lace up a pair of boots. The match quality in his 2002 to 2010 run was consistently high-tier, featuring clinical work against Kurt Angle and Ric Flair. However, the production of these documentaries often skips the unpleasant reality of his early backstage antics. The man wasn't exactly winning the Miss Congeniality award in 1996.
Instead, we get the glossed-over, legacy-defining version of events. It feels patronizing to the audience at times. We know the history. We own the WWE Network. We have access to every Raw episode since 1993. If this documentary is just another montage of him kissing the mat after a Sweet Chin Music finish, I am going to lose my mind. Give me the grit, the ego, and the mess.
My biggest gripe here isn't the subject, it's the repetition. Wrestling fans are drowning in biopics and retrospective look-backs while the product on the screen needs to innovate to keep eyes off the UCL Quarter-Finals starting next week. The industry is currently putting all its eggs in the basket of past stars to sell modern premium live events. It works for the casuals who haven't seen a WWE show since the Attitude Era, but for the rest of us, it feels like watching a rerun of a show you already finished.
Expect the usual talking heads to tell us how much he changed, how he found religion, and how he became the mentor for current talent. It is a great story if you haven't heard it 400 times already. If you are looking for fresh, hard-hitting analysis of the current product, these history lessons are just noise in the machine. Let’s see if he finally talks about the exact moment he realized he was the main event act regardless of who held the belt.
