Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking – ‘this wasn’t 2001-2019! Call yourself a wrestling expert, idiot!’ And you’re right, I’m cheating my own specifications. But the reason I’m doing this, for the final part of this short series, is that HBK’s lost smile offers a really nice point of comparison with the other examples: Eddie Guerrero, Lita, Jeff Hardy and AJ Lee. In what follows, you might notice the style differs a little from previous entries in this series. That’s because this is directly taken from my academic thesis, with the tone softened a little for this blog.
So, it’s 13 February 1997 and Raw is well underway. Vince McMahon is inviting the WWE Champion Shawn Michaels to the ring for a promo. This is not just any champion, this is, in the words of McMahon, ‘the most flamboyant, most charismatic champion of all time’. Michaels’ famous theme music hits, but in sharp contrast to the lyrics – ‘I think I’m cute. I know I’m sexy. I got the looks. That drives the girls wild.’ – Michaels is dressed formally in a brown jacket over a white shirt with a grandad collar, his long hair tied up. Gone are the sparkly, heart-covered tights with ‘Heartbreak Kid’ printed on the rear. Gone are the leather cap, the zebra-print fingerless gloves, the jacket featuring tiny mirrors stitched together. Today, neither Baywatch star Pamela Anderson nor Playboy model and MTV host Jenny McCarthy are escorting him to the ring as they did in the recent past. And there is none of his usual dancing and strutting. Instead, he is moving slowly, a grim expression on his face as he gently high-fives some of the crowd on his way down the entrance ramp. In the ring, he makes a small, knowing gesture for the production truck to cut his music. Rather than looking out on the audience or making eye contact with McMahon, Michaels stares down at a nearby patch of the ring. As he finally starts to talk, his shoulders swing back and forth, suggesting unease. His tone is flat. The ringside TV commentators – Jim Ross (JR) and Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler – emphasise that Michaels deserves respect, whether you love him or hate him. After all, because of his knee injury, he is here to nobly relinquish the WWE Championship.
Michaels begins his promo by briefly referencing the two other times he had to relinquish WWE championship belts, but he warns the audience this time is ‘much more serious’. He is referring to his doctor’s prognosis that he may never perform again. This, Michaels admits, is ‘something that I have to deal with’, which hints at a retreat to the inner self to stimulate personal growth. At the same time, both McMahon and the commentators emphasise Michaels as brave, good and virtuous; he is committed to his profession, and therefore the audience. And Michaels now addresses the audience directly, playing up to those specific values: ‘what was always important to me was the performance, so that these people, each time they reached in their pocket, they paid to get a WWF ticket, they didn’t regret it’. Here, he shows a certain narcissism. Yet the crowd responds favourably to Michaels. They recognise they are seeing something beyond the WWE’s usual pomp and showmanship, and so stop chanting for Michaels’ adversary Psycho Sid. Michaels has always entertained the people, he says, whether ‘on the good or the bad side’. He then goes on to address recent talk of performers – including himself – ‘having bad attitudes’. These comments appear to break kayfabe, rare in early 1997. Nevertheless, Michaels goes on. He cannot stop tears forming in his eyes, offering a convincing show of authenticity as he declares:
‘I know that over the last several months I’ve lost a lot of things and one of them has been my smile. And I know it doesn’t mean a whole lot to everybody else, but it means a lot to me. So I have to go back and fix myself, and take care of myself, and I have to go back and I have to find my smile because somewhere along the line I lost it.’
With the proclamation, ‘I have to go back’, Michaels suggests his transformation will involve a temporal return to an earlier sense of self, a reclamation of an earlier identity. All this is at odds with his usual unruffled, brash on-screen persona. Then comes another show of vulnerability:
‘I know right now we’re in the middle of a time where toughness is real big here in the World Wrestling Federation, and unfortunately all I’ve got right now for you is a lot of sorrow, a lot of tears, and a lot of emotion.’
In both of these statements, Michaels demonstrates self-knowledge. This, along with references to his own ‘sorrow’ and ‘emotion’, suggests a projection of his inner life before the world. He is subverting masculine expectations and so risking his own place in pro wrestling’s highly masculine culture. This is a show of trust towards both the live and mediated audience. Michaels then tells us: ‘I’m gonna go home now. Okay?’. This suggests a retreat to the private sphere, to the inner self, in defeat. And he is asking for the audience’s permission before doing so. To paraphrase Stephen Spender in his analysis of St Augustine’s texts, the audience must now measure Michaels’ morality. Only this will allow Michaels to progress to self-transformation and healing. Therefore the audience’s role in this promo is vital; he is not just asking for their permission, he needs it.
Finally, Michaels’ emotion cannot be contained. Tears fall down his cheeks. He exchanges limp hugs with McMahon and ‘storyline’ President, Gorilla Monsoon, then grimaces against his own outpouring of emotion as he limps from the ring. TV commentator JR declares: ‘it takes a man’s man to do what he just did’. In other words, Michaels has demonstrated moral courage. So, he has not threatened his own masculinity; instead he has displayed his admirable masculinity. The crowd now acknowledges this. On exiting the ring, Michaels receives handshakes, hugs and gifts. The camera zooms in on a couple of women crying. Michaels is presented as a hero – one ready for redemption.
Shawn Michaels losing his smile in 1997 draws attention to what a range of critics might identify as confessional motifs – self-knowledge, growth, healing, the brave and good, guilt, loss, trust, the discursive relationship between confessant (Michaels) and confessor (audience). Yet, for all this, the ‘lost smile’ promo does not quite fit the confessional mode. For, despite his display of emotion, the cause of Michaels’ distress is ambiguous – all veils have not been abolished, there’s no direct transparency.
At the time Michaels had a serious knee injury but the word ‘knee’ is never mentioned by Michaels himself in the promo. And Dave Meltzer, founder of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, speculated that ‘there are serious problems that were a lot more important to address [in the promo] than any knee problems’. In fact, through respected insider newsletters such as the Wrestling Observer and Pro Wrestling Torch, called ‘dirtsheets’, a proportion of the wrestling audience were likely already aware of Michaels’ issues with subscription painkillers and his reputation backstage as a troublemaker. This ‘paratextuality’, added to Michaels’ subtle rupturing of the fourth wall and the lack of his usual performative traits, suggests something was going on beneath the surface. But it is unclear what Michaels the confessant has ‘lost’. It could be the status of ‘number one guy in the business’, embodied by his surrender of the championship belt. It could also be his physical health, determined by the strain of injury, addiction and rehabilitation. Alternatively, it could be the addictive adrenalin surge afforded to him by the adoring audience, which he may never experience again. The point is that in 1997 the ‘truth’ is beyond reach and the confessional never rounded out by the performer.
Eight years later, in his first memoir Heartbreak & Triumph (2005), Michaels does make a direct confession. In the following passage, he describes his own route into a worker culture of self-medication:
‘I didn’t make a life for myself outside of wrestling. I’d seen some of the guys throwing pills down, and I avoided doing that in the beginning. But eventually I succumbed to the temptation, and before long I was downing pills just to get through the day.’
Here, the language of the religious confessional is clearly identifiable – ‘succumbed to the temptation’. Now it is clear what Michaels is confessing to – a painkiller addiction and the emptiness of his life outside of work and its addictive necessities. This is supported by the 2020 podcast episode Grilling JR: Shawn Michaels 1997-1998, in which JR spoke of Michaels’ issues:
‘He [Michaels] was polarising and volatile. Anything you heard about Shawn wasn’t going to come as a total shock […] I believe that somewhere along his journey he was probably indulging in pain medication a little too heavily.’
So, in 1997 these issues were not hidden from colleagues and ‘smart’ fans. Still, there was a reluctance, on the part of either company or performer, or both, to bring them fully into the public arena and so commodify Michaels’ trauma. The WWE allowed Michaels the space to speak about his emotions and inner life but he was not required or permitted to make a direct, complete confession.
However, post-2001, and with the WWE now holding a near monopoly in the wrestling industry, the confessional mode formed a cornerstone of the company’s storylines. Performer substance abuse, romantic relationships between performers, and mental health issues were all incorporated. To further illustrate WWE’s post-2001 embracing of the confessional, it is also worth referring to Michaels’ 21st century run with the company. Using Michaels’ newfound Faith in storylines culminated in a PPV tag team bout between McMahon and his son, Shane, against Michaels. Although Michaels ‘lost’ said PPV bout, the public telling of his faith signifies that his self-acclaimed ‘redemption’ is complete. Above all, this was portrayed on-screen by the choice of Michaels’ tag team partner, represented by a moving spotlight – yes, ladies and gentlemen, ‘God’.
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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this article. If you wish to check out more in this series, you’ll find them here:
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