On August 18, 1996, Shawn Michaels faced Vader for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam for This Day in Wrestling History.
In the Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, Shawn Michaels not only had to deal with Big Van Vader and an overbooked finish, but the pressure he felt as WWE champion.
Before the WWE was the brand people paid to see, a company’s champion was typically the best drawing performer, then face of the franchise and leader.
Under that kind of pressure it’s easy to understand why some people would crack, and as luck would have it this SummerSlam was also reportedly the lowest bought one at the time.
Special occurrences
One of the things that made this match stand out was Vader defeated Michaels twice but he didn’t get the title.
Sounds strange? It gets better.
Vader won by count out and disqualification, and is manager Jim Cornette managed to get the match restarted both times to give Vader a chance to win.
In the middle of this, Michaels lost his cool and it added to his unpopular reputation at the time.
He talked about it in his book, Heartbreak & Triumph, and we own special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the excerpt.
“In the middle of our SummerSlam match, I snapped at Vader. I wanted to do something special, something I had never done before. I was going to go for my elbow off the top, but have him move out of the way. I would catch myself at the last minute, land on my feet, and then drop the elbow on him. I jumped off the ropes and shifted my body to land on my feet, but he never moved. He was just lying there and I was standing up like an idiot. I yelled, ‘Move!’ and kicked him. I shouldn’t have yelled at Leon. I liked him and he was good. Leon was like a big, old bear. He was mean to everyone else, but he was nice to me. What I did was unprofessional. I was snapping under the pressure.
“There was some gossip going around that I was asked to lose to Vader and refused. That’s simply not true.
“I was never even asked to put him over. He came in with this reputation of being a bully.
“Apparently, Vince had a stern talk with him and whipped him into shape in no time. When Leon was here, he just couldn’t do enough for me and everyone else. He was letting me slam him at house shows. The idea behind me fighting him was simply to give me a big guy to beat. Vince never said, ‘I want you to put Vader over at SummerSlam.’ If he had, I would have done it. Leon pinned me twice on television. If we were going to give him the title, wouldn’t you make me look stronger going into the match and then let him beat me?” – Shawn Michaels.
With everything going on with the match, this was reportedly Vader’s favorite WWE match, and we’re happy to include it in This Day in Wrestling History.
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