Heartbreak and Triumph: The Shawn Michaels Story (WWE) [Hardcover]

I bought this book on the notion that it would be an entertaining read and a great look at a mans career, of which Shawn has had a great one. In all honesty I thought he realised it a little early, especially since he has fought Hogan and Vince since, and I would have loved to have heard his thoughts on this, especially on the backstage issues involving the Hogan work. Since Have a Nice Day is my favourite autobiography, Ive pretty much set it as the template of which a wrestling bio should be set so I'll probably be refering to it a few times in the review.

Firstly, I want to point out. Am I a Shawn Michaels fan? No! Do I respect his work? Yes, very much. Its impossible not too. The man goes out and puts on a show every times hes in the ring, heck, the guy wrestled with a broken back just to get Steve Austin over. That demands respect. The book itself, begins telling tales of Shawns youth, and provide some very funny and humours tales, about his mother, his brother, school friends and his temper. While he doesnt go into huge detail like Mick Foley did, he paints a very interesting picture and its enjoyable to read about how he got into wrestling and his training. Again though, he doesnt go into as deep as Mick did in his book which hurts a little because you dont learn about the emotional and physical pain he goes through. More like 'he was great and gifted and he would do well'.

Once he gets through his early years and into his times with Marty and being the Rockers, the book goes down hill a little for me. Instead of offering funny stories, of which there could be many, he spends to much time in the book making himself look like the innocent victum, how he was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, how everyone hated him and no one understood him. Shawn was a piece of work, he admits it, but to many people have said to much of the same thing over the years to allow him a get out of jail free card. He lied his face off for nearly 7 years about the screwing of Bret Hart, even lying to his face and 'swearing to God' that he knew nothing about it, so to read about how he was innocent in so many of the dealings of what went on stretches the imagination a bit.

Especially that when you consider, Shawn was the top dog, the champion and always seemed to be in the main event shuffle, despite all these things happening to poor HBK. He always takes pot shot after pot shot against Bret and buries him on more than one occasion, claming he was the carrier and Bret was just the load. If you've watched Brets DVD, and heard Bret put Shawn over, despite how he feels about him, it just makes Shawn like incredibly petty. A great instance of his disliking for Bret is when he calls Bret 'not a great wrestler'. Now, Bret is a man who made any man he worked with look like a killer. Bret and Shawn hate eachother, theres no doubting this, but its Shawns argument that makes the statement laughable. He claims Bret only wrestled his way and that caused problems for Kevin (Diesel) in their matches. For the record, Kevin Nash has had 5 good matches in his whole career and 3 of those matches were with Bret. Now, this should easily point out that Bret made these matches work, but Shawn refuses to acknowledge this and buries Bret further.

If you can look past the sob stories, of which there are many and the knocks at Bret, at which there are many more, you'll enjoy the book. He does get mixed up and contradicts himself on a few occasions, claming how he didnt mind loseing to Bret, only then saying he DID mind loseing to him. Another funny point is when he says two good wrestlers (himself and Mr Perfect "Curt Hening") just couldnt have a classic match, conveniently forgetting that two good wrestlers (Bret Hart and Mr Perfect "Curt Hening") had two classic wrestling matches. He also conveniently forgets how he 'well knowingly' tried to hold down The Rock (which has lead to heat that exsists to this day between them.)

Its like I said, I am not a Shawn Michaels fan and knowing how he has had drug problems and having watched his shoot interview where he looks out of his mind and completely contradicts everything he says, it makes his sob stories in this book a LOT harder to believe, and will to anyone who has actually seen the shoot interview. However, despites Shawns constant Bret bashing and sob stories, the book is a great read and any HBK fan should not go without it. It is really interesting to see how he met Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Triple H and how he howned his character and adjusted it with the times. It also helps to provide an interesting look on his character and how he has changed since finding God.

A must read for wrestling fans, whether or not they like HBK. I felt he was frank and honest. If you want to know about the Montreal screw-job, it is all here. This guy has a super ego and is a devotee of McMahon, but then we all know that already. He is devoted to his sport and to his family, but I was not completely convinced about the religious conviction. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Heartbreak and Triumph: The Shawn Michaels Story (WWE)
I am not a great HBK fan and that is still the case after reading his book, the start about his family and school years give the book a solid base but once he starts to talk about his wrestling the book becomes very linear and self indulgent. The main problem I had is that he did`nt go into much depth about the wrestling, inside and outside the ring, and you could just feel that he could have told us alot more with a greater detail had it not been published by WWE. His hatred for Bret Hart is also too obvious and reflects in some of his comments and gives the book no real sense of truth. He sums up survivor series 1997 until present day in about 50 pages which just seems lazy . I still enjoyed it but if you are wanting a great book on wrestling see Bret Harts book or Pure Dynamite by Tom Billington they are both less censored the latter especially.