Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H have been friends since the first day Hunter walked into the WWF back in 1995. The two hit it off from the start, and Shawn more or less took Hunter under his wing as the newest member of the now infamous backstage group of friends known as the "Clique". While Hunter's ensuing friendships with Shawn, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Sean Waltman would hurt his career early on, he ended up learning quite a lot from this group of veterans, about what to do and what not to do, both in and out of the ring.
With the departure of Hall and Nash and the Madison Square Garden "Curtain Call" incident (where Shawn, Hunter, Kevin, and Scott broke character, embraced, and celebrated in the middle of the ring together for Kevin and Scott's last night in the WWF, which lead to Hunter being jobbed out for an entire year and having his first major push derailed), Shawn Michaels took the helm as the WWF's top star, while Hunter was shoved to the bottom, becoming a fall-guy for has-beens such as Jake Roberts and Barry Windham, and getting squashed by Sid in the first round of the Intercontinental Title tournament in August of 1996. Behind the scenes, Shawn and Hunter continued to travel together, and maintained their close teacher-student friendship. Around the autumn of 1997, Shawn and Hunter began teaming together on TV, and formed the rebellious heel group called Degeneration X along with Chyna and the late Rick Rude. Triple H slowly began to shed his past character of a snob from Greenwich, Connecticut, and developed into HBK's wisecracking, innuendo-slinging sidekick. His promos improved dramatically, and his matches turned up a notch.
With Shawn's back injury and forced retirement in early 1998, Triple H took over the role as leader of Degeneration X, claiming Shawn had "dropped the ball" and that it was his turn to pick it up. Over the course of the next year, Hunter became a strong upper-mid-card player, and seemed on the verge of a main event push, when he was sidelined for a few months due to a knee injury. After his return, he continued to lead DX against the Corporation (where Shawn played the heel commissioner and Hunter's adversary), until Wrestlemania XV, where he turned heel and left DX on his start to becoming a main event player.
The roles became reversed; this time Shawn played a babyface commissioner, and continued to antagonize Hunter on-air, trying to cost him his shot against Steve Austin for the World Title before Summerslam. The Tuesday after Hunter captured his first World Title the day after Summerslam 1999, Shawn and Hunter reunited on Smackdown, and then Shawn wasn't seen on TV again for quite awhile. When Shawn would reappear occasionally as the WWF commish, he and Hunter played on-air friends again. Shawn's commissioner role was dropped in June 2000 to make way for the new Commissioner Foley, and Shawn stayed off TV again for awhile.
Shawn was set to return to action at Wrestlemania XVII, where he was supposed to interfere in Hunter's match with Undertaker, setting up a feud between he and Hunter. However, Shawn was sent home due to not being in a suitable condition for being on TV, and the incident strained the real-life friendship between Hunter and Shawn, with Shawn blaming Hunter for not having stuck up for him backstage. For over a year, the two didn't speak to each other (although it seemed to be Shawn holding the grudge judging off of interviews, as Hunter spoke of Shawn like nothing was wrong between them). In mid-2002, Shawn became a born-again Christian, and began trying to make up for some of his past behavior. He went on Confidential and confessed to having been in on the Montreal screwjob incident involving Bret Hart. He buried the hatchet with Hunter, and the seven-year friendship between the two picked up again.
Shawn returned to WWE TV finally in June 2002, to become a member of the nWo with Kevin Nash, X-Pac, and Big Show. The group was getting ready to kick off a long-awaited feud with Triple H, when Kevin Nash went down with a torn quadriceps (eerily similar in many ways to Hunter's the year before), and a change in plans was made. The nWo was disassembled. Shawn was left on his own. At Vengeance in July, Shawn convinced Hunter to join him on Raw, so that the two could raise hell together just like they had done in the days of the original DX. The next night on Raw, Hunter and Shawn reformed DX for one night, before Hunter turned on Shawn, kicking him in the stomach and Pedigreeing him in the middle of the ring. The next week on Raw, Shawn searched high and low for Hunter, wanting a match with him, but was laid out in the parking lot by an "unknown assailant." This "unknown assailant" was revealed one week later to be none other than Triple H, and a match between the two at Summerslam was made. It would be their first real one-on-one match since October of 1996.

The match, over five years in the making, was given a buildup of less than five weeks. The WWE never brought up all the history between the two (which most newer fans would have no idea of). The main focus of the match was the back injury which had forced Shawn into early retirement, as well as Triple H's threats of crippling his former best friend before the night was over. Shawn played the match up as "a fight," not a wrestling match, setting expectations low for most fans (or at least those who are unfamiliar with the Shawn Michaels of 1996).
Shawn made his entrance first. Bedecked in a traditional HBK metal strip-off outfit over a pair of jeans and a sleeveless white shirt, with cowboy-type wrestling boots, Shawn posed for the crowd in the aisles and then again in the ring. He seemed genuinely overwhelmed by the reception he was receiving from the crowd, and pointed at the fans, saying that he loved them all. As Triple H's music hit, HBK, in a flashback to the old cocky '96 attitude, laid down across the top turnbuckles and awaited his adversary. Hunter entered the ring and stared down Michaels, who continued to recline on the turnbuckles, gesturing for Hunter to "come and get it." In a moment that added to the seriousness of the match, Triple H skipped his signature water-spitting and went straight for Michaels. The match began.
HBK took over offense first, laying into Hunter with punches. Hunter quickly gained the upper hand, and began centering all of his attention on Shawn's lower back, following his theme of trying to "cripple" HBK by the end of the match. Triple H jarred HBK with two crunching backbreakers, and Shawn's face contorted with pain. Hunter then began battering HBK with chairshots to the back, and to the head. HBK began bleeding from the forehead (a cut that actually had stopped bleeding by the time the match ended... he didn't have a drop on him by the time the final bell rang). Hunter dominated HBK for the majority of the middle of the match, with more backbreakers, shots to the lower back, and an abdominal stretch (playing the evil heel as always and using the ropes for leverage). He battered Shawn into oblivion for a solid fifteen minutes, before Shawn started making a comeback.
HBK seemed on the verge of defeat, with Hunter about to deliver another chairshot to the head, when Shawn unexpectedly superkicked the chair into Hunter's face. When Hunter finally regained his feet, his face was covered with blood, with a lot on his chest as well. Shawn then took over the offense, nailing Hunter with a fire extinguisher, among other things. He pulled a ladder from under the ring, stood over The Game's prone body, and rammed it into Hunter's midsection several times. Shawn set up a table, placed Hunter on it, and climbed to the top turnbuckle. He twirled his index finger around the side of his head, as if to say, "I must be CRAZY," and plunged off, landing on Hunter and driving him through the table. After rising from the wreckage, HBK rolled Hunter back into the ring, and set up the ladder. Shawn executed a nice elbow-drop off the top of the ladder and onto Hunter (nobody does the elbow-drop like HBK).
Then Shawn signaled for some Sweet Chin Music. Triple H slowly rose to his feet, and HBK lunged forward- but Hunter ducked, booted Shawn in the stomach, and set him up for the Pedigree. Shawn countered the Pedigree by rolling up Hunter, and surprised everybody by scoring the three count with the roll-up. Sexy Boy blared over the loud speakers, Earl Hebner raised Shawn's arm in victory, and Shawn planted a kiss on Earl's forehead. Just as the celebration was about to begin, Shawn cried out and fell to his knees in pain; the camera panned out to show Triple H standing over him, sledgehammer in hand. As Shawn agonized before him, Hunter got in his face and taunted his former friend, before blasting HBK in the back with the sledgehammer for the second time, sending the Showstoppa falling to the mat, unconscious. Hunter, covered with blood and grinning fiendishly, strode up the aisle and vanished back behind the curtain. The crowd booed from the time he first hit Shawn with the sledgehammer up until his exit. HBK had won the match, but was then carted out of the ring on a stretcher.

Any hardcore fan of Shawn Michaels knew going into this match that Shawn would not disappoint, knew that he would not even think of stepping foot in the ring again if he would be a shell of his former self. The doubting Thomases, the net and dirtsheet writers, the supposed "credible" wrestling journalists out there who don't deserve to be named, for the most part agreed that the match wouldn't be anything special, and that fan interest in it would be low. After the match was over, every single one of these geniuses was raving about how great it was, as were all the fans who saw it except for a small minority of those who are literally impossible to please. The match surpassed everybody's expectations by a long shot, even those of us who were expecting it to be great from the start.
The match was an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. I know that term has been thrown out a lot lately, but it is really the only way to describe what Shawn and Hunter gave us. Every single HBK fan out there had to cringe when Hunter delivered the first backbreaker, and Shawn's face twisted in agony. By the end of the match, you genuinely wanted to see Hunter get what he deserved, as he beat Shawn senseless for over half of the match. Seeing HBK fly off the turnbuckles, and later, off of the ladder to deliver his classic elbow-drop was a moment that sent chills down the back of everybody who was watching the WWF during Shawn's glory days as WWF Champion.
The match looked like it could've gone either way from the get-go. Shawn's win certainly came out of nowhere, as even those who expected him to win were thinking that he wouldn't do it any other way than with some Sweet Chin Music. The arena erupted in cheers when the bell rang and Shawn stood, arms raised in victory. And then the arena erupted in boos after Hunter's brutal post-match sledgehammer assault on Shawn. The match was simply a psychological masterpiece, from before the bell was sounded to after. Simply put, the whole definition of "psychology" in wrestling should just say, "Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H, Summerslam 2002."
Hunter's sledgehammer assault on HBK left the door open for a possible rematch between the two in the future (can anybody say, "Wrestlemania"?). It would be a privilege to be able to see these two lock horns again, but it would be hard for it to be much better than this. Then again, after this match nobody should ever doubt what Shawn and Hunter are capable of putting on together, so only time will tell. This match was hands-down the best match on the entire Summerslam 2002 card, and no doubt a match-of-the-year candidate.

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