Source: WWE.com

#2 DX – “Break it Down”
“Are you ready?” With a simple question, the authority-defying D-Generation X was ushered into the arena amidst a green and black wave of in-your-face anarchism. DX literally broke all the rules and shattered all expectations of societal niceties, so it was only fitting that their theme — “Break it Down”— reflected their outlaw nature. http://www.wwe.com/classics/best-entrance-themes/page-20

#5 Shawn Michaels – “Sexy Boy”
Never has a Superstar been so intimately connected with his entrance theme as The Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels. For over two decades, HBK has entered arenas the world over to “Sexy Boy,” a song that says so much about the charm and charisma of arguably the greatest clutch performer in WWE history. As his moniker suggests, even The Showstopper’s theme song brings audiences to a halt. http://www.wwe.com/classics/best-entrance-themes/page-17

Source: WWE.com

The second edition of the awesomely informative WWE Encyclopedia is set to hit shelves on Sept. 3, but you can pre-order your copy at online retailers today! After all, it’s the only book where you can read about Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz.

Source: MiamiHerald.com

BY JIM VARSALLONE
So what’s life like for a WWE Hall of Famer.

For Shawn Michaels, it’s fishing, hunting, plowing and EyeBlack.

EyeBlack — the company that started a sports revolution by combining logos, phrases and bible verses with EyeBlack — announced a partnership with Shawn Michaels, former WWE superstar and current star of the Outdoor Channel’s show Shawn Michaels’ “MacMillan River Adventures.”

Michaels will serve as an ambassador for the company and will collaborate with EyeBlack to produce a customized product line.

“My management team at Encore Sports & Entertainment — they work with Drew Brees and C.C. Sabathia and Matt Kemp and a number of other athletes from different sports — brought [EyeBlack] to me,” Michaels said. “They know that I hunt, and they sort of asked me, ‘Hey, you think this is something that will be functional in a hunting realm?’

“For me, personally, I’m a guy who spends a lot of time in the outdoors, period, whether it’s working or hunting. So I told them that is something I can definitely use. They’ve got a certain type called the Warrior [HBK chuckles a little]. I guess for me it takes the place of the facepaint and things of that nature.”

The licensing agreement signed between Michaels and EyeBlack gives EyeBlack the rights to create and sell product featuring Michael’s trademark phrases and nicknames like: Showstopper, Mr. HOF and Mr. Hall of Fame.

“You’re spending so much time outside, and you’re having to deal with the sun and its glare and its reflection,” Michaels said. “So the functionality was sort of double for me — less messy, less of a pain, a lot easier to apply than the facepaint.”

He continued: “It’s something I wanted to incorporate in the hunting realm as it’s already been proven in baseball, football and other outdoor sports. When they gave me the chance, I wanted to give it a try.”

EyeBlack will also produce custom designs printed on camouflage EyeBlack for Michael’s hit show “MacMillan River Adventures” on the Outdoor Channel.

“I’m very excited about this new relationship,” Michaels said. “Beyond being a cool product in itself, it’s functional, and I’m looking forward to using EyeBlack product in my hunting adventures and in some WWE related activities.”

Michaels, 46, wrestled for WWE for more than 20 years. He was a three-time WWE champion and a World champion.

After his retirement from sports entertainment/wrestling in 2010, Michaels continued his relationship with WWE by signing on as an official ambassador for the company.

“Shawn is a fantastic athlete, and we are proud to have him on the EyeBlack team,” said Peter Beveridge, president and founder of EyeBlack. “Shawn had a prolific pro wrestling career and is the perfect representative for the EyeBlack brand as we branch out into the professional wrestling and hunting arenas.”

• Retired from wrestling, Michaels stays busy by hosting Shawn Michaels’ “MacMillian River Adventures,” with his good friend Keith Mark on the Outdoor Channel. The 30-minute program gives viewers an exclusive look into the unique lifestyle of hunting and the duo’s large game hunts across the world. Visit http://www.mrahunting.com/.

Michaels joins an impressive roster of professional athlete ambassadors whom EyeBlack signed in the last year. The company boasts endorsements and customized lines from NFL stars Stevie Johnson, Marshawn Lynch and LaMarr Woodley, as well as tennis pro Bethanie Mattek-Sands and softball legend Jennie Finch and Monica Abbott.

Recently, the company inked a deal with Chicago Bears’ Pro Bowl linebacker Brian Urlacher to be the face of the Original product line.

Michaels said: “When you set up straight into the sun, and you’ve got EyeBlack on, “I’ll be darned , if it doesn’t work and it doesn’t help.”

Michaels’ affection toward fishing and hunting began later in life.

“That actually started in those years when I was supposedly never going to wrestle again, after my back injury,” said Michaels, whose back injury sidelined him from 1998-2002. “Growing up in Texas, I did a little fishing. I always wanted to hunt but never really had the opportunity.

“When I got old enough to do it, I was in the wrestling business at that time, so obviously time became an issue. After I got my injury, I got to go out and hunt for the first time and fell in love with it.

“From that point on, it became a regular part of my life. It was an opportunity for me to get away from a lot of noise and distractions that were out there. That area and my faith were sort of hand in hand. Both sort of cultivated at the same time. It’s something that has gotten deeper and more established in me and in our household as well.”

Michaels and his wife, Rebecca, former WCW Nitro Girl Whisper, have two children, Cameron Kade, 12, and Cheyenne Michelle, 7.

• Is hunting, fishing, the outdoors something everybody in the family does?

“Yea, everybody does it,” said Michaels, who lives in San Antonio. “Obviously, I get made fun of a bunch, but it’s funny. We haven’t been trying to do it, but it’s one of those things for us that slowly developed into a self sufficient lifestyle. Again, it’s not anything we set out to do, but for instance, we were expecting rain here, and my wife, our son and I were all out on tractors and other ranch implements this morning because we had to get a certain amount of sunflowers planted, plowed and covered before the rain came.

“This is our first year trying black eyed peas, and we’re going to try to grow sweet corn. Obviously, what I’m trying to get at, I don’t know the last time we’ve bought store bought meat. It’s fun, and we enjoy it, working on doing our own vegetables. The kids want to do a chicken coop for eggs.”

In WWE, superstars and divas work 260-300 days a year. To be on the WWE roster takes dedication and is very time consuming.

“One of the reasons I retired was to spend time with my kids and just be a part of their lives,” said Michaels, who retired in 2010. “It turns out these are things they’re interested in, and they get enjoyment out of it.

“So it’s something we share together and do. There’s a number of valuable lessons there for them, and whether they take those into adulthood or not is not really the point. For me, it’s about creating memories with my children, and if it’s something that benefits them later on in life that’s even better.”

• Could you have physically still competed in WWE, if you wanted to?

Michaels answered: “Oh yea. Easy. Without a doubt.

“I walked away from an extremely well paying job, which is probably not the smartest thing to do. [Michaels chuckled], but I did it solely to come home and to help my wife raise our children, to be a part of their lives.

“WWE would have allowed me to work any kind of way that I wanted. I could have very easily have said, ‘Hey, I’d like to slow down over the next couple of years, do a few things here and there,’ and I think everybody would have been fine with that, but for me, I think that would have probably been harder on me. Personally, I think the job would be harder for me to do, personally, on a semi, here and there, in and out type basis.

“It’s easier, and I think I’m better at it when I’m doing it or I’m not. So for me I felt it was better to walk away completely.

“You have to be careful because if you leave it as an open option, you’re going to be getting calls on a regular basis. Every time somebody gets injured or every time somebody comes up with an idea, the phone is going to be ringing, and you’re going to have to deal with ‘should I or shouldn’t I?’ I didn’t want to run into that. I didn’t want to put myself through that, and I didn’t want to put the company through that.

“I’m certainly not going to wrestle, but if you need me for something, if you’re in a bind, you can give me a buzz, and I’ll be more than happy to be there and help out any way I can.”

• Michaels got the call to be part of the End of an Era match at WrestleMania 28 in Miami as Triple H battled The Undertaker (The Streak) in Hell in a Cell. Michaels was the special guest referee.

“For me, it was about three of us who have been there — for the most part — the longest of anybody and probably the last of the Mohicans, so to speak,” Michaels said. “It was three guys who had been sharing that locker-room for a long time, doing this in some form or another, whether it was me and Hunter, me and Taker, Taker and Hunter.

“The three of us have run the gamut of being in and out of the ring with each other and going through ups and downs, personally and professionally, and this is the last time the three of us will be in the ring together. That’s what the End of an Era was to me.”

So what was it like for Mr. WrestleMania to be involved in that WrestleMania 28 classic as special guest ref?

“It was incredibly cool, especially from the standpoint of being the special guest ref,” Michael said. “You’re somewhat in the spotlight, but let’s face it. The match and everything else is on their shoulders. You just need not screw it up, and you need to make sure you add to it. So to be able to be part of something so big but not have that huge pressure filled cloud hanging over you, I feel I got the best of both worlds. As long as you do your part really, really well and add to what these two are doing, this can be really special and really big.

“You also get the opportunity to get that nice little feeling, that nice pat on the back from being part of something special without having to put a great deal of the hard work and even more importantly that huge burden and pressure of living up to what people want it to be.”

When you’re doing something like that, are there aspects of it that make you wish you were wrestling again?

“No, no,” Michaels said. “I have yet to go through that. Every time I see everybody I get asked, ‘Are you getting the itch?’ I haven’t.

“I say that, and people think I don’t care. ‘He really doesn’t love it.’ That’s not the case at all. I love pizza and cookies, but after I eat it for a long time, I’m full, and full is full, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still love pizza and cookies. I do.

“It’s the best a guy can ask for. I can come in, still get to see my friends, still get to be a part of something very special and get to add to it, but do it in any area I’m comfortable with and do it in an area that doesn’t take so much time, effort and energy from me and more importantly away from the areas of my life where I feel like my effort and energy should now be.

“It’s not that I don’t care or don’t love it or don’t have the passion, which I get accused of a lot. I’d like to think it can be viewed as I’m the guy who made the decision to come home and be a part of my children’s lives. I’m doing that, and I want to do that well, and that should be OK.”

Source: WWEDVDNews.com

Source: WWEDVDNews.com

Synopsis: Sometimes, rivalries become so intense, they cannot be contained within the ring and cannot be contested by the usual rules. For matches that spill outside the ring, there are Falls Count Anywhere Matches.

Hosted by the Hardcore Legend, Mick Foley, this collection highlights more than 30 years of lawless bouts from WWE, NWA, WCW, and ECW, and features some of the most brutal in-ring performers of all time, including Sgt. Slaughter, Sting, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, the Road Warriors, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bret “Hit Man” Hart, Triple H, The Rock, Kane, Big Show, Ric Flair, Randy Orton, John Cena, Shawn Michaels, and more.

Source: WWE.com

• The Evolution of HBK Digitals: Click here!

Source: NRANews.com

Sources: WWE.com, Twitter.com/ShawnMichaels, Facebook.com/theShawnMichaels

• WrestleMania XXVIII Digitals: Click here!
• WWE.com Where Tables go to Die Digitals: Click here!
• EyeBlack.com Splash: Click here!
• New Shawn Twitter Photo: Click here!
• New Shawn Facebook Photo: Click here!

Source: WWE.com

#11 The Rockers
Marty Jannetty and WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels were pioneers in WWE, especially when it comes to tag team competition. Their style of fast-paced, high-flying in-ring abilities was revolutionary in a time when WWE was ruled by larger competitors like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. The duo never backed down from a challenge, even if their opponents were the physically imposing and much larger Twin Towers of Akeem and Big Boss Man.

Although The Rockers never officially held the tag titles, their high-energy entrance, colorful ring attire and tag team synchronization made them favorites of the WWE Universe. Their aerial acrobatics took the WWE Universe by storm and would pave the way for future high-flyers like Rey Mysterio. — K.P.

#15 D-Generation X

Spanning 13 years, D-Generation X was the brainchild of two best friends, Shawn Michaels and Triple H. In 1997, HBK and The Game brought their backstage friendship in front of the cameras, and the world of sports-entertainment changed forever. DX’s brand of sophomoric humor was a cornerstone of the Attitude Era, and their influence beyond the ring became clear when Mike Tyson was recruited for their group.

After eight years apart, the band got back together in 2006. As former multi-time WWE Champions, DX was more powerful than ever, and brandished their logo on the WWE headquarters in Connecticut and on Mr. McMahon’s corporate jet. They returned tag team wrestling to the main event spotlight, dominating pairs including the McMahons, Rated-RKO and Legacy. In 2009, Michaels and Triple H won their first WWE Tag Team Championships together. But D-Generation X wasn’t about the gold — it was about two pals having a blast, dominating competition and revolutionizing entertainment. — Z.L.