“I Always Thought His Feelings Were Hurt” – Jim Ross Makes a Shocking Revelation about Shawn Michaels’ Controversial WWE Retirement

Shawn Michaels has had a legendary career with a fair share of controversies. The ‘Sexy Boy’ was prone to trouble during his top days in the WWE. As we all know, he also had real life heat with Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart.

WWE had planned for Bret Hart to win the WWF World Heavyweight Championship from Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 13. But HBK relinquished his title by controversially retiring, citing a career threatening knee injury he suffered. In reality, Shawn Michaels didn’t want to drop the title to Bret Hart.

JR talks controversial retirement of Shawn Michaels in 1997

Shawn Michaels’ career in the year 1997 was the latest topic under the hammer on the Grilling JR Podcast. Co-host Conrad talked about the segment in 1997 where Vince McMahon made Shawn Michaels surrender the WWF World Heavyweight Championship to Gorilla Monsoon due to a knee injury. He asked JR when he found out about Michaels giving up his title.

JR said it was on that very day that he found out about this decision. Ross didn’t understand why and what was happening, but he knew something was wrong.

“He was volatile. He was polarizing and volatile so anything you heard about Shawn, it was not going to be a total shock. You kind of got used to it,” said JR.

“But, surrendering the title, I don’t know if he lost his smile because he was injured or lost his smile because he couldn’t handle the pressure. He was influenced by outside sources that liked to poke gas on his fire. I don’t know.

“I always thought his feelings were hurt more than his knee or his back or whatever, and I don’t know exactly why. He had a hard time handling and accepting the responsibility of being the top guy in the territory.”

‘Mr. WrestleMania’ was notorious for his rebellious attitude backstage. But every man grows and learns from his mistakes and so did HBK. He returned better than ever in 2002 from a legitimate injury he suffered in 1998. We also saw him settle his differences with his arch rival Bret Hart on screen on the Jan 4th, 2010 episode of Monday Night Raw.

So, a happy ending for the Shawn Michaels-Bret Hart story? We can say so.