This past Sunday at WrestleMania 26, one of the few remaining Attitude Era superstars, and one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all-time, Shawn Michaels, retired after losing a classic to the Undertaker.

There has already been much speculation regarding his retirement—is it real? Will he stay retired?

"I appreciate the ‘one more match’ chants, but I’m going to everything in my power to make sure that that doesn’t happen," Michaels said on Monday.

And who can blame him? For wrestling fans that are old enough, many of us saw Michaels as a young man entering the WWF, and watched him all the way to the final stages of his career. A career, both in and out of the ring, that is unlike any other. The days between his 1988 WWF debut, and the March 29, 2010 farewell speech are two very different HBK’s.

Michael Shawn Hickenbottom’s early years are well-documented. He grew up with a passion for pro wrestling, and eventually was given the go-ahead by his parents to give it a shot. Beginning as an indie wrestler, he eventually signed on with the American Wrestling Assocication (AWA) and teamed up with Marty Jannetty to form The Midnight Rockers.

In 1988, while still with the AWA, Michaels and Jannetty signed on with Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation (WWF), but failed to win a tag team championship.

Michaels eventually turned on Jannetty in the infamous Brutus Beefcake’s Barber Shop scene, superkicking Jannetty and throwing him through the window. This scene resounds in many wrestling fans’ minds as on of the most memorable heel turns of all time.

Even those who didn’t know it was Jannetty and Michaels, often remember the scene with crystal clarity. In 1992, while Jannetty slowly disappeared, Shawn turned became a cocky, arrogant heel as “The Boy Toy.”

While Michaels undoubtedly had talent, he wasn't without a helping hand early on. During this time, Vince McMahon was being investigated for possibly dealing steroids to wrestlers (for which he was acquitted), so the company began to slowly phase out of the bigger-build wrestlers and into the smaller guys like Bret Hart, Ric Flair and Randy Savage, as all three would hold the WWF World Title.

They added a fantastic heel manager in Sensational Sherri to Shawn’s act in order to help his singles career take off with even greater momentum. As suggested by Mr. Perfect, Michaels was now labelled as "The Heartbreak Kid."

During that period, Michaels normally wrestled during the first half of live events, and his departure was announced with the words, “Shawn Michaels has left the building.” Michaels was in a great situation—a young man on the rise, still in his 20s, who was capable of good in-ring work and had strong mic skills. It seemed as though Vince McMahon now had his future star.

Shawn eventually moved on to the Intercontinental Championship in 1992, when the title had some prestige. The most memorable match involving the IC title was WrestleMania X in 1994 against Razor Ramon, marking the first ever live, televised Ladder match in WWF history. The match was groundbreaking in every sense of the term, and to this day, arguably remains the greatest ladder match of all-time (along with their rematch at SummerSlam 1995).

By the mid-1990s, Shawn had accumulated a lot of backstage and creative control. He was part of a group called “The Kliq” that also featured Kevin “Diesel” Nash, Scott “Razor Ramon” Hall, “The 1-2-3 Kid” Sean Waltman and Paul “Hunter Hearst Helmsley” Levesque. The group formed a very close relationship outside the ring, something very rare for wrestlers to do.

But in September 1993, Michaels decided quit the company, after it was announced that he had failed to defend his title enough times during a set period; in reality, he had been suspended for testing positive for steroids, a charge that Michaels denies to this day.

Shawn turned down offers from World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and eventually returned to WWF TV in November.

By 1994-95, Michaels turned babyface after a three-year run as a heel that saw him lose a WWF Title Match at WrestleMania 11 to Diesel. While his heel character was very well-rounded, his in-ring offense was more evident as a babyface, which allowed him to better showcase his talents.

With his face turn, he started to have the best matches (along with Bret Hart) on the show. In the summer of 1995 he had two classic matches on PPV—one against Jeff Jarrett at the July In Your House, and the other at SummerSlam against Razor Ramon in the ladder match rematch. Shawn’s career had seemingly returned to prominence—until there was a bump in the road.

Despite his in ring success, Michaels’ out of the ring image during the mid 90's was not a good one. He was known as a partier, a heavy drinker and tampered with drugs. After a show in Syracuse, he went out to a bar with Davey Boy Smith and Sean Waltman where they got into an altercation with a group of allegedly between six and ten men. Michaels was beaten badly, while Smith and Waltman were incapacitated from their excessive drug use. Michaels was hurt so badly that he was forced to lose the IC title.

One highlight of this time however was that Michaels’ creative side shown through.

During a match on Raw after Michaels returned, he collapsed in the ring in what looked to be a very serious injury stemming from the concussion he suffered in Syracuse. Many fans believed it, as it appeared to be very serious. During this period, WWF aired a video entitled “Tell Me a Lie” that they played for weeks before he came back. Michaels sold the injury until the 1996 Royal Rumble, which he won for the second consecutive year, but this time, as a babyface. Michaels’ status was again elevated, as the WWF was able to turn the real life incident to a genius on-camera angle.

Shawn’s career, however, began going down the wrong path. While he was still having great World Title matches, WWF began struggling against WCW. In 1996, Hulk Hogan turned heel to form nWo alongside Shawn’s friends, and WWF defectors Nash and Hall.

It appeared as through the riggors of this, combined with his role in the WWF, were burdening him. In 1996 Michaels broke character and he Nash, Hall and HHH chose to hug in the ring on Nash and Hall's last night. Vince McMahon was furious when he found out. 

In 1997, Michaels started the year winning the World Title back from Sycho Sid at the Royal Rumble, but gave it up again a month later. Like in Syracuse, he cited a knee injury and gave it up in a tearful goodbye at a special Thursday edition of Raw in February. It was the infamous “lost my smile” speech, where he talked about losing the love he had for the business. In his autobiography, he wrote about how at the time the doctors told him he couldn’t come back from the knee injury, but many were skeptical of that.

When he came back three months later in May to win the tag titles with Steve Austin against Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith in one of the best Raw matches of all-time, there was nothing of any substance to lead anyone to believe that he overcame a career-threatening injury. 

However upon his return, tensions were mounting internally. Things got personal with Bret in some of their promos and it eventually led to a real fight between the two that summer. Michaels was so upset that he threatened to quit the company, but McMahon refused to let Michaels leave. Not one to miss an opportunity, Vince had Shawn return at SummerSlam as the referee of the Hart/Undertaker title match where he accidently helped Hart win the title.

By the fall of 1997, we’re brought upon Survivor Series in Montreal, better known as the Montreal Screwjob, where Michaels betrayed Bret Hart. Michael's denied involvement until they decided to reveal it on TV in a WWE Confidential segment over five years later.

Hart knew that Michaels was in on it and a lot of people suspected he was, which turned even more people against Shawn backstage. Bret was loved by the majority of them; Shawn was not. When Shawn said during his farewell speech on 3/29/10 that his only friend was HHH, he wasn’t kidding.

But HHH's friendship would lead to the next phase of Michael's career. Soon, the D-Generation X was taking off because it was edgier than anything the wrestling business had ever seen. Their behavior was ridiculous,but they were beloved by wrestling fans.

While Austin and The Rock were the posterboys of the Attitude Era, HBK and DX were right there.

Michaels suffered yet another injury, this time at the Royal Rumble 1998 in a Casket match against The Undertaker. Michaels took a bump over the top rope onto the floor, with his lower back hit the edge of the casket at ringside. He was able to finish the match, which he won, but he had suffered a serious back injury. Unlike his questionable knee injury in 1997, this one was widely known as the genuine article. Michaels remained inactive until WrestleMania 14, which, at the time, was going to be his last match ever.

When WrestleMania XIV took place at the Boston Garden, Michaels wrestled Steve Austin in the main event with Mike Tyson as the referee, but Michaels' back was in shambles because of two herniated discs. During the match, you could see Michaels gritting and wincing through every bump and fall. Austin pinned him for the title, then Tyson levelled him with a right jab in the mouth as the crowd went crazy. They smashed beers, toasted the crowd and left the ring. The event ended, and the lights dimmed to signify the end of the show. Everyone went home.

Well, most people. Michaels had been lying in the ring during the entire Tyson/Austin celebration, not budging an inch. Once the event ended, HHH and Chyna scurried over to help him backstage. With the cameras off and nobody watching, Michaels peeled himself off the mat, then stood pat for a couple of minutes. Finally, the three of them started moving toward the exit, slowly, painstakingly, with HBK’s arms draped around his two friends as crutches.

At that time in March of 1998, everyone, including Shawn, had thought his wrestling days were done at 33. Between 1998 and 2002, a lot of things changed in Shawn’s life. He had come back to the WWF as the commissioner, he had major surgery on his back, he opened a wrestling school (he trained Daniel Bryan, Bryan Kendrick, Lance Cade and Paul London, among others), he ran his own promotion (TWA), he married a Nitro Girl (Whisper), he became a father, he overcame his addictions after a long battle, and became a born-again Christian.

The latter was the most critical change in his life, as he became a new man spiritually. Gone were the days of HBK coming to the show, ready to pass out. He was reborn, and it turned out, so was his wrestling career.

Once he got through that SummerSlam match, he slowly got back on track. He won his final World Title at Survivor Series, dropped it a month later to Triple H, returned at WrestleMania for the first time in five years in a classic against Chris Jericho, and eventually became a regular performer on the Raw brand up until March 29th. From this point on, HBK was almost always in some form of pain, whether it was his knees or his back, but nothing that would hold him out of the ring.

HBK began a nice run as a veteran face, putting over a lot of them: Randy Orton,  Batista, John Cena, Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle and Edge. It was also something that 1997 Shawn Michaels never would have done.

There’s a rumor from 1997 about how Shawn told the entire locker room that he’s not losing to anybody ever. In a business where losing matches is the best way to help the company build new stars, this top guy was refusing that. It didn’t happen in the 2000s, though. He became the model employee that all the younger wrestlers could look up to as a mentor.

From 2002 to 2010, Michaels was putting on amazing shows, feud after feud. He had plenty of WWE feud of the year contenders (2003 with Jericho, 2004 with HHH/Benoit, 2005 with Angle and 2008 with Jericho) as well as Match of the Year contenders (2002 with HHH at Summerslam, 2003 with Jericho at WrestleMania, 2004 with HHH/Benoit at WrestleMania, 2005 with Angle at WrestleMania, 2007 with Cena in England, 2008 with Jericho at No Mercy, 2009 with Undertaker at WrestleMania 24 and even 2010 with Undertaker at WrestleMania 26).

He only held a World Title for one month during this second part of his career, which angers some fans, but is understandable to an extent. Vince supposedly wanted to put a belt on him a few different times during the last decade, but Michaels apparently refused it because he was only a part-timer. He felt like it should be on a full-time wrestler that defended the title on the road at non-televised events.

It was another example of how the selfish Shawn Michaels turned into the model employee.

The story of Michaels going from Rocker to Future Star to Jerk to Nearly Crippled to Returning Hero is very unlikely, yet in a business full of fakes, his story over the course of 25 years ended up being the most real of them all. It’s like a conquering hero movie come to life.

Shawn was the wrestling fan in a wrestlers’ body. He was living out everything we wanted to see. He put his body on the line, week after week, month after month and year after year to put smiles on our faces.

“I have got to travel all over the world. I have got to meet millions of people. I have got to listen to each and every one of you for the majority of my life. I have spent more of my adult life with each and every one of you than I have with my own family. And I tell ya I don’t say that with regrets. I thank you all so much for giving me the honor and the privilege to come out here and let me show off in front of you every night of my life.” – Shawn Michaels, Raw, 3/29/10

Thank you, Shawn, for all the memories. We know that you’ll miss wrestling, but more importantly, wrestling will miss you.