WrestleMania Rewind : WrestleMania XXII - John Cena vs Shawn Michaels

The granddaddy of them all, WrestleMania is just about a month away. The anticipation for the extravaganza is sky high among the WWE Universe. And since the pay-per-view is richer than Richie rich when it comes to history, we have decided to take a look back at some of the best WrestleMania matches with this latest series.Now it is time to go back to Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. It is WrestleMania 23 which took place on April 1, 2007 and the match we are talking about, is between ‘The Show Stopper’ Shawn Michaels and ‘The Champ’ John Cena. This match is one of the career defining matches for Cena and one of the all time great matches in the WrestleMania vault. Let’s have a look at this story.

#1 The Build-Up:

The stage for this match is set after the Royal Rumble PPV that year. The winner of the Rumble match, The Undertaker decided to compete for the WHC. Cena was the WWE champ then. To decide who would face Cena at WM 23 for the title, a match was set up on RAW. It involved Randy Orton, Edge and Shawn Michaels. The winner of this triple threat match would face Cena at WM 23, it was told. Michaels won the match convincingly and earned a title opportunity and was on the hunt for his 5th title reign.

The following week o RAW, Orton and Edge attacked Cena but Michaels came to Cena’s aid. A match was set up between Orton/Edge and Cena/Michaels for the tag titles in which the latter managed to win. Both Michaels and Cena headed into the WM match as tag champs.

“I will have your back until WrestleMania. I’ve turned against all my partners and more importantly, I’ve stabbed all my friends in the back. But with you, John, it’s different.”

—Shawn Michaels commenting on his future WWE Championship match against John Cena.

On the last RAW before WM 23, Michaels and Cena faced Batista and The Undertaker but the former lost the match. This is because Michaels turned on Cena and super kicked him in the match. This way, the rivalry was built up and the stage is set for an exciting WrestleMania main event.