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When we last left off with Shawn Michaels, he had been stripped of the Intercontinental Title and suspended, only to return ahead of schedule and stand in for Jerry Lawler in his Survivor Series match against the Hart family. The feud with the Harts was somebody else's (for the time being), and after Survivor Series he instead chose to target Razor Ramon, who had wound up holding the Intercontinental Title in the wake of Shawn's suspension.
After Shawn was stripped of the Intercontinental Title in September of 1993, a battle royal was held with the final two participants facing each other to crown the new champion. It came down to Razor Ramon and Rick Martel, with Razor defeating Martel a week later to claim his first Intercontinental Title. When Michaels returned to the WWF at Survivor Series, he was still carrying around the original title belt he had taken with him when he was suspended, and claimed himself to be the real Intercontinental Champion since he had never lost the title. Razor was in the middle of a feud with IRS, but Shawn started pulling every trick he could to goad Razor into facing him. In one incident, he faced Razor's little buddy the 123 Kid on Raw and gave him a Razor's Edge, drawing Razor out of the back to come after Shawn until Diesel blindsided him with a right hand so Shawn could give Razor two Razor's Edges on the arena floor. When Razor defended the Intercontinental Title against IRS at Royal Rumble 1994, Shawn ran in and knocked Razor out with his title belt and set up IRS to pin Razor and win the title. Fortunately for Razor, a second referee came out and alerted the first official to what happened, and he restarted the match and Razor immediately hit the Razor's Edge and pinned IRS to retain.
To settle the dispute once and for all, the WWF signed Michaels and Razor to face each other at Wrestlemania 10 in a Ladder Match, with both belts suspended over the ring. There would be no question as to who the rightful champion was after this match, but Shawn tried to get an unfair advantage right off the bat by dumping Razor to the floor so Diesel could attack him. The referee figured out what was going on and ejected Diesel from ringside, and now Shawn was forced to go it alone. They proceeded to have what was not only almost unanimously voted Match of the Year in most major polls (and Match of the Decade in others), but probably one of the most groundbreaking in the way it took Shawn and Razor pretty far outside the realm of what you usually saw in a professional wrestling match in terms of some of the spots they tried and the bumps they took. Razor finally managed to knock Shawn off the ladder and cause him to get tangled up in the ropes, leaving him unable to prevent Razor from climbing the ladder and claiming the belts to solidify his claim to the Intercontinental Title.
This match set the tone for many crazy spotfests in the years to come, but none were able to truly reclaim the spirit of the original or tell a story in the same way this one did. Though Bret vs Owen on the same show has held up as a terrific wrestling match, the influence of the Wrestlemania 10 Ladder Match can't be denied, and in many ways became the match by which Scott Hall, and to a lesser extent Shawn, identified their careers.
Shawn took an extended break from in-ring action after Wrestlemania, and instead started his own Piper's Pit-like segment on WWF Superstars called the Heartbreak Hotel, during which Shawn would interview other WWF personalities while Diesel stood silently and menacingly in the background. Shawn used it as much as an interview segment as he did a platform to challenge Razor Ramon on behalf of Diesel, an interesting move for someone like Shawn who had an obvious need to keep the spotlight on himself. Diesel had only wrestled a few televised matches since coming to the WWF and was mostly content to hang in the back and let Michaels be the star, but had started competing more regularly since Wrestlemania and had developed a devastating new finisher, the Jackknife powerbomb.
Shawn spent weeks challenging Razor to defend the Intercontinental Title against Diesel before Razor finally accepted, and the match happened in late April on WWF Superstars. Shawn was determined to get the title off of Razor by any means necessary and removed a turnbuckle pad to expose the steel underneath, and Diesel rammed Razor into the exposed steel and hit the Jackknife to bring the Intercontinental Title back to the Heartbreak Hotel.
Having led Diesel to the Intercontinental Title, Shawn now set his sights even higher and got Diesel a shot a WWF Champion Bret Hart at King of the Ring 1994. Only Bret's title would be on the line so, much like the Shawn-Bret match from Survivor Series 1992, Diesel had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Bret brought his brother in law Jim Neidhart out with him to watch his back and make sure Shawn Michaels didn't get involved, but Diesel still managed to overpower Bret and hit the Jackknife before Neidhart ran into the ring and flagrantly attacked Diesel to cause a DQ finish. Even though Diesel didn't walk out of King of the Ring with the WWF Title, the possibility existed that he very well could have if Neidhart hadn't interfered.
Before he could think about another WWF Title shot, Diesel was signed to defend the Intercontinental Title against Razor Ramon in a rematch at Summerslam and Razor, taking a page from Bret Hart's playbook, brought local football great Walter Payton with him to Summerslam to keep an eye on Shawn and make sure he didn't interfere. Diesel ended up coming into Summerslam holding two titles, as he and Shawn had defeated the Headshrinkers to win the WWF Tag Team Title the night before, and was brimming with confidence as he faced Razor for the second time. Fortunately for Diesel, Payton was almost entirely ineffective and Shawn was able to get into the ring and interfere. Unfortunately for Diesel, Shawn's interference backfired and he accidentally knocked Diesel out with a superkick. Payton finally did something useful and dragged Shawn out of the ring while Razor crawled over and covered Diesel to regain the Intercontinental Title, and Razor celebrated his victory with Payton while an irate Diesel angrily yelled at Shawn on the way to the back.
Diesel and Shawn didn't take long to smooth things over since they still had a Tag Team Title to defend, but you could still sense a bit of tension, especially since Shawn still clearly considered himself the star of the show even as Diesel did most of the work in the ring. They held it together well enough to score somewhat one-sided victories against most of their challengers, although they did face a very tough test in the form of Razor Ramon and the 123 Kid on an early episode of the Action Zone. Shawn again accidentally knocked Diesel out cold with a superkick and sent him tumbling to the floor. Diesel was completely out of the equation for several tense minutes, but Razor and the Kid were unable to put Shawn away before Diesel recovered and booted Kid in the face, allowing Shawn to cover him and retain.
Diesel and Shawn appeared to be an unstoppable pairing as they headed into Survivor Series 1994 to take part in a 5-on-5 elimination match. Much like he had at the Royal Rumble, Diesel appeared unstoppable as he singlehandedly eliminated both Headshrinkers, the British Bulldog, and the 123 Kid to leave Razor alone against the entire team of Diesel, Shawn, Owen Hart, Jim Neidhart, and Jeff Jarrett. Even though he was tired from going through four other wrestlers, Diesel still had enough in him to go at it with Razor and hit the Jackknife. Shawn, who had spent literally the entire match out on the ring apron doing nothing, frantically started jumping up and down and yelling at Diesel to tag him in. Diesel made the tag, but Shawn called Diesel back into the ring to hold Razor for another superkick. Diesel was obviously tired, but came back in and held Razor and...that's right, Razor ducked out of the way and Shawn superkicked Diesel yet a third time.
This was finally enough for Diesel, and as Shawn stood over Diesel yelling at him for screwing up, Diesel rose to his full seven feet and chased Shawn out of the ring. Shawn hightailed it to the dressing room as the rest of their team tried to stop Diesel from killing him, but Diesel laid them all out and continued stalking Shawn as all five of them were counted out, giving Razor a highly unlikely victory. Todd Pettengill finally caught up with Shawn as he grabbed his bags and rushed out to the parking lot, and Shawn said he was done with Diesel and threw down the tag title belt before getting in his car and speeding away.
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WWF President Jack Tunney took Shawn throwing down the title belt as him voluntarily relinquishing the WWF Tag Team Title, which was vacated as a result. Shawn was now responsible for Diesel losing two championships through no fault of his own, but Diesel came back strong just three days after Survivor Series when he beat Bob Backlund (who himself had just won the title at Survivor Series) in eight seconds to win the WWF Title. With this victory, Diesel became the first man to ever win all three WWF titles within a single calendar year and had accomplished the one career goal that had eluded Michaels, and the one he coveted more than anything. Shawn refused to let his former bodyguard upstage him, and he stepped back into the ring as a full time competitor at the beginning of 1995 and made it his mission to take the WWF Title and put Diesel back in his place.
Coming up in Part 5: Bret Hart has some of his most memorable battles against Owen Hart, Bob Backlund, and...Isaac Yankem, DDS?
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