Y2J Added to the Mix

The fallout of Rick “Wooooooo” Flair’s retirement story comes to a head at WWE’s Backlash. Scheduled for the show is RAW’s Shawn Michaels versus Smackdown’s Batista. HBK is doing penance for winning his WrestleMania XXIV match with Flair, thus retiring the Nature Boy. WWE began an angle between HBK and Dave “The Animal” Batista the next day. Batista’s beef with Shawn is that the Heart Break Kid should have “thrown the match” so that Rick could continue to be in the ring, performing. Batista is blaming HBK for taking Flair away from him.
This is a very organic way to develop a feud from the retirement angle. I was hoping that this would continue through out the summer and then culminate with the SummerSlam PPV. On the April 14 edition of RAW, the feud took a different turn. Thanks to some pointed jabs at HBK during Chris Jerico’s Highlight Reel (and sweet chin music to Jerico’s jaw), Y2J is now the special guest referee for the match between HBK and Batista. During the match, Shawn will have the upper hand against The Animal. At some point, Jericho will administer the Code Breaker finishing move on HBK, giving the win to Batista.
Here now is the real SummerSlam marquee event… HBK vs. Y2J. Now, will this be a battle for the Intercontinental Title or just a straight grudge match? I will have to go with “grudge” on this one as Shawn is a little above holding the IC Title. But it will be one hell of a match.

If He Wins, We Lose

There is a reason they call him “The Showstopper”. Shawn Michaels repeatedly gives the best performance in every WrestleMania in which he has a match. He has had his triumphs, but many times, he has come up with the short end of the stick. Despite his great performances, he has lost his matches in WrestleMania X, XIV, XX and 23. Shawn is due for a win at WrestleMania. That’s where the conflict comes in.

The Heart Break Kid has a match with the legendary Rick Flair at WrestleMania XXIV. The stipulation for this match is that the next match Rick Flair loses, he will be forced to retire.

Let’s think about the ramifications of a Shawn Michaels’ win at WM24. The first and most obvious is he will be forever be known as “The Man Who Forced Rick Flair Out of the Business”. This would put Shawn’s “face” status at risk because everybody reveres The Nature Boy. This could also organically grow into a feud with Triple H because of the bond H and Natch’ share.

If Shawn Michaels loses, Rick Flair lives to wrestle another day and no conflict would come from the match.

Since HBK has had more than his share of conflict during his fantastic career and since Flair is being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, there is only one outcome for this match… Shawn Michaels will end Rick Flair’s in-ring career. But as we have seen before, anything can happen.