Number 4: World Heavyweight Championship Triple H (c) defeated Shawn Michaels December 29, 2003
Shawn Michaels is absent from a long stretch of Raw history, which is unfortunate, because who knows what the most talented Superstar in WWE history could have accomplished had he remained healthy throughout his career. Still, HBK’s impossible resurgence in 2002 is made all the more unbelievable by the fact that he should have never wrestled again.
One year into his WWE return, Michaels received a World Heavyweight Title opportunity in his boyhood home of San Antonio, but longtime friend and rival Triple H was standing in his way. Determined to play spoiler, The Game and his ringside associate, Ric Flair, attempted to cut HBK off at every turn, but Michaels was performing with the spirit of a man who had miraculously recovered his gift. Keeping his focus through 30 grueling minutes of action, HBK appeared to have won the title after connecting with Sweet Chin Music, but eely executive Eric Bischoff awarded the bout to The Game after declaring that both Superstars shoulders were on the mat during the cover. The wonky outcome sullied an otherwise classic, but the emotion of the bout is impossible to deny.