Shawn Michaels, that hunk of a professional wrestler known affectionately as "The Heartbreak Kid," was the subject of much e-mail sent my way this past weekend. People wrote to me saying they heard a rumor that Michaels is retiring from the ring.
Well, me not being much of a wrestling fan, I had to go back and read the details in last week's story by Ihosvani Rodriguez that appeared in the paper and on expressnews.com. The story was no longer on our site, so I had to search our internal archives.
What I found is that the rumors aren't rumors ... that rassler is hanging up his tights. Evidentally he has a severe back problem after having had one too many run-ins with the floor and some guy called The Undertaker. The story says Michaels is scheduled for back surgery on Tuesday. Rodriguez says he will be checking on how Michaels is doing after his surgery. For details, read the story.
Now, all this attention prompted me to pause and take a good look at pro wrestling. It was around when I was a kid I remember watching Grandma cackle as good guy Johnny Powers beat up someone named Wild Bull (or was it Bill?) Curry on a fuzzy UHF station in Cleveland and the "sport" seems to have gotten even bigger than it was way back then. Now, I put "sport" in quotes because I guess it really isn't one. It's more like entertainment. Or that's what has been decided by newspaper editors. I've sat through a number of news budget meetings at this newspaper and others when the question came up: "So, where do we put this story on rasslin'?" Sports didn't want it, so it ended up in the news, lifestyle or entertainment sections.
Online, rasslin' stories will be located in a Pro Wrestling section within our Entertainment section.San Antonio Express-News Online: Pro Wrestling We've pulled the Michaels story and a feature on Jose Lothario, and we'll add more features as time goes by. We've also added a new forum.Express-News: Chats Now fans have a local place to chat about their favorite good guy or bad guy. The only thing we ask is that you keep the chat room floor clean!