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THE HEARTBREAK LIAR?

At long last......the return of Sean Michaels has happened.

It's been speculated about a million times over the last year or so. Will Sean Michaels ever come back? If so, when? If he does come back, will he wrestle?

Well, we got two of those questions answered last night, and it seems like wrestling fans everywhere are pretty ecstatic about it. Everybody is talking about it, and so they should be - but perhaps not for the reason you think.

Michaels returning is excellent. It should boost ratings. He looked like he was in terrific shape. It gave me flashbacks from hell to see him and Nash posing together in the ring. I loved it.....until I realized the truth. And the truth is - we've been lied to, boys n' girls.

If you watched "Confidential", Shawn promised - PROMISED - that the Heartbreak Kid was dead, and that what we'd get if he comes back is Shawn Hickenbottom. And he wondered what people would think if they gave them himself. TWO DAYS after the broadcast of the interview, we get Sean Michaels, "The Heartbreak Kid", on our screens as if no time had ever passed.

This means one of two things: Either Sean lied like a rug, or "Confidential" isn't the show that the WWE claims it is. Neither is acceptable to me.

In talkin' with my friends after the show last night, they suggested that I was simply upset becuase we (or in this case especially, I) got worked. And, they reminded of that which CRZ has said on many occasions before: "If it's on TV, it's a work". Hey, I got no problem with being worked, as long as it's on a WWE storyline-promoting show - in order words, any show except Confidential. (Or, does "being worked" mean that we're lied to in a way that we will completely believe, no matter how much the truth is bent and no matter what the "work" will do to the reputations of the people involved? That's an argument for another day.)

To the best of my understanding, WWE Confidential is not supposed to support storylines. It was supposed to be about happenings outside the ring and outside the storylines - it was supposed to be about the performers themselves, talking out of character so we can learn more about them - that kind of thing. That's how it was billed by the WWE, and that's what I THOUGHT we got for the first two shows.

Now, I'm forced to believe one of the following.

1) Michaels is a nothing but a two-faced liar, and I should take nothing he ever says in any interview anywhere seriously again; I don't care HOW popular or talented he is. He said he wasn't coming back as the Heartbreak Kid, and he did. Not only did he, but he did it a mere two days after the interview in which he said HBK was dead was aired.

OR...

2) The credibility of "Condifential" as an informative, factual show has been totally destroyed, and I should view this show as a show which "works the smarts", which means that the WWE:
a) has no intention of giving us any REAL information about their performers,
b) are actually 'protecting the business' like it's 1970 again, and
c) Believes that all wrestling fans are complete idiots, and that we'll all believe anything the WWE or any WWE performer says.

It seems like everybody is too busy marking out for Michaels' return to care. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with marking out - I do it all the time and encourage others to do it as often as possible. But I don't think this kind of thing can be overlooked simply becuase it involvs one of the most popular and charasmatic performers in wrestling history. And I can only imagine I'm angering some people by breaking what is apparantly Wrestling Fan Commandmant #1: "Thou Shalt Not Mess With Sean Michaels" - but I suppose you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. Sorry, eggs.

If JR had sat down with Michaels on RAW and had that interview, I wouldn't have anything to complain about. But that's not what happened. In my book, we've been blatently lied to - NOT worked - LIED TO by either Sean Hickenbottom, the WWE, or a combination of both. And that sucks. I thought those days were over.

One of my friends said in the chat suggested that maybe they used the interview to draw heat on Michaels, since he's IS supposed to be a heel, after all. However, this kind of thing makes me dislike Sean Michaels the PERSON - not SEan Michaels, the CHARACTER. Drawing heat like that, in my opinion, is wrong in so, so many ways.

Now.......is it possible I'm over-reacting? It certainly is. We've seen about 3 minutes of Michaels on TV, and he happened to be dancing around just like HBK. We will have to see if his character remains the same. If his character significantly changes from the HBK character, then my argument is totally blown out of the water and I can go back to believing what Sean says, and what I see on Confidential. Hell, even if he stays in the HBK character and has an interview on WWE.com which basically says "I know I said he wasn't coming back, but Vince really wanted to see the old HBK, and we think it'd be good for ratings" - hey, that's good enough for me! At least it's SOMETHING! Right now, we've got absolutely nothing, and that just ain't good enough.

I, for one, certainly hope I'm goin' overboard here. But I don't think I am. And I hope that WWE realizes what's happened and takes steps to explain it. Until they do - I won't know what to believe anymore.

BrewGuy
[slash] wrestling

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