[8] Michaels has been a participant in several first installments of a number of WWE's signature gimmick matches—namely the first Hell in a Cell at the Badd Blood: In Your House, the first Ladder match during a taping of WWF Wrestling Challenge (and subsequent first pay-per-view installment at WrestleMania X), both the inaugural (as part of The Rockers tag team) and first televised (at WrestleMania XII) Iron Man matches, and Elimination Chamber at the 2002 Survivor Series.

He was raised in a military family and briefly spent some of his early years in the English town of Reading, Berkshire,[9] but grew up primarily in San Antonio, Texas.

[11] He knew he wanted to become a professional wrestler at the age of 12 and performed a wrestling routine at his high school's talent show, complete with fake blood.

[22] Due to WWF chairman Vince McMahon's desire to have his performers carry WWF-exclusive ring names, Michaels and Jannetty were renamed, as simply The Rockers.

[1] The Rockers continued their partnership, eventually splitting on December 2, 1991, aired January 11, 1992, on Wrestling Challenge, during an incident on Brutus Beefcake's televised Barber Shop talk show promotional segment.

[4][26] Jannetty returned to the WWF the following year and enjoyed moderate success before leaving the company in 1994, while Michaels became a prominent villain of the early to mid-1990s as "The Boy Toy".

[28] At WrestleMania VIII on April 5, 1992, Michaels defeated Tito Santana in his first pay-per-view singles match after both men had simultaneously eliminated each other from that year's Royal Rumble.

[31] Michaels was also unable to win the Intercontinental Championship from Bret Hart in the WWF's first ladder match at a Wrestling Challenge taping on July 21, which was subsequently made available on multiple Coliseum/WWE Home Video releases.

[4] Michaels lost the Intercontinental Championship to Jannetty on the May 17, 1993, episode of Raw,[34] but regained it on June 6 with the help of his debuting "bodyguard" (and off-air friend) Diesel.

[54] At WrestleMania XII on March 31, Michaels defeated WWF Champion Bret Hart in the overtime of their sixty-minute Iron Man match, which had ended in a scoreless tie.

At Survivor Series on November 17, Michaels lost the WWF Championship to Sycho Sid[56] but recaptured the title on January 19, 1997, at Royal Rumble.

[61] The next night on Raw Is War, signs of a heel turn started to show as Michaels told the WWF fans what happened at SummerSlam was an accident and that he dealt with The Undertaker when the time came.

[61][62] The fans at the event were so upset at the result of the match they booed Michaels out of the building to the extent that they littered the ring with garbage, cementing his second heel turn.

[4][70] Michaels went on to win the match[4] but the injury rendered him unable to compete on the following month's No Way Out of Texas: In Your House as advertised, and forced him into retirement a night after losing the WWF Championship to Stone Cold Steve Austin on March 29 at WrestleMania XIV.

[citation needed] On November 23, 1999, Michaels made a special appearance for Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling at the 10th Anniversary Show at the Yokohama Arena, serving as the guest referee for the H vs fake Hayabusa (Mr. Gannosuke) main event.

[77] Michaels made occasional appearances as the WWF Commissioner during the spring and summer of 1999, but remained absent from television after August until May 15, 2000, when he returned on Raw Is War to declare himself the special guest referee for The Rock and Triple H's Iron Man match at Judgment Day.

[83] On the June 3, 2002 episode of Raw, Michaels returned to WWE television after 18 months of absence when Kevin Nash announced him as a new member of the recently reformed New World Order (nWo).

A triple threat WrestleMania rematch for the title took place on April 18 at Backlash, where Benoit successfully retained it after forcing Michaels to submit to a Sharpshooter.

[101] The following week on Raw, Marty Jannetty and Michaels had a one time reunion as The Rockers and defeated La Résistance (Robért Conway and Sylvain Grenier).

[119] At Backlash on April 30, The McMahons (Vince and Shane) defeated Michaels and "God" with help from the Spirit Squad in a no disqualification tag team match.

[128] At Unforgiven on September 17, DX defeated the McMahons and ECW World Champion The Big Show in a Hell in a Cell match, ending the feud.

[137] On the January 29 episode of Raw, Michaels captured the World Tag Team Championship with WWE Champion John Cena after defeating Rated-RKO.

[154] On the June 9 episode of Raw, Michaels was attacked by Chris Jericho during his talk show segment, The Highlight Reel, being thrown directly through a television screen.

[162] In December 2008, having lost his family's savings due to the global recession, Michaels grudgingly accepted a one-year general employment contract from John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL).

On the December 14, 2010, episode of Raw, Michaels won the Slammy Award for Moment of the Year for his match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania XXVI and accepted it via satellite.

[189] On the February 13, 2012, episode of Raw SuperShow, Michaels confronted Triple H about accepting The Undertaker's challenge for a Hell in a Cell match on April 1 at WrestleMania XXVIII, and announced he would be the special guest referee for it.

[195] The next night on Raw, Michaels explained he was upset with Bryan for attacking Triple H during the match and degraded him for not showing him respect, turning heel for the first time since 2005.

[206] In November 2018, Michaels announced he was officially working as a writer and producer on WWE's NXT brand and show, under former D-Generation X cohort Paul Levesque.

[6] On January 23, 2023, at Raw is XXX, Michaels again reunited with D-Generation X (without Billy Gunn, as he was no longer under contract with WWE) until they and Kurt Angle were confronted by Imperium (Gunther, Ludwig Kaiser, and Giovanni Vinci).

[238] Pens' game-day staff would regularly play Michaels's theme "Sexy Boy" over the Consol Energy Center PA system after goals or excellent shifts by line members.