Young Shawn Micheals from the late 90s was paid handsomely by Vince McMahon during his brief retirement between 1998-2002.
During the late 90s in wrestling, Shawn Micheals gained popularity for his polarizing persona in WWF. His skills in the ring substantiated that he is a gifted athlete but when Shawn was left to his own devices, all hell would break loose.
Micheals met with a series of problems during his heyday in WWF. The Heart Break Kid was one of Vince McMahon’s favorites and Vince would give an arm and a leg to keep the asset of the business. On an edition of the Grilling JR podcast with Conrad Thompson, Jim Ross revealed that Vince McMahon paid Shawn Micheals $750,000 a year for four years just to sit home.
“I don’t know if it was pressure from Vince or not. Vince loved him. It’s proven. We paid Shawn $750,000 a year for about four years to do nothing because he was Vince’s guy. Every time we go over budgets and things, where are we at with the Shawn contract? Nothing, leave it alone. Ok”
HBK was well taken care of during his four-year hiatus between 1998-2002. Vince believed that Micheals was the coal that would squeeze into a diamond. The company paid Micheals almost 3 million at his behest for four years.
Why did Vince McMahon keep Shawn Micheals well paid during his hiatus?
Before his hiatus, Shawn Micheals was despondent that Kevin Nash and Scott Hall were not in the company anymore as they had joined the rival company WCW. Vince did not want to lose one of his biggest stars and thus decided to shell out the money for free. According to Jim Ross, Shawn would hanker desire to move to WCW and be around his buddies, Nash and Hall.
“That’s what I’m saying, Conrad. That’s just Vince. Vince didn’t have to do that. Here’s the deal. All Shawn wanted to do was go work and go play with Kevin (Nash) and Scott Hall. So that would have been for WCW nice to get a gift of Shawn Michaels, wouldn’t you think? So he took good care of him.”
Shawn then returned in 2002 and his tumultuous first run in the company was nothing like his second run. Micheals’s return was met with mirth right from the gate. He went ahead to have a prolific career in WWE feuding with the best the business had to offer. Micheals’s career came to an end at WrestleMania XIV where he was defeated by The Undertaker. Since then, Shawn has appeared occasionally on WWE programming but never competed again.
