SummerSlam 1996 - Shawn Michaels vs. Vader
After Shawn Michaels won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XII, he took on any and all comers to the gold. That year at SummerSlam, he took on quite possibly the biggest challenge to his championship, the monstrous Vader.
Vader used his size and power advantage early on, but HBK was able to escape. Surprisingly, Shawn’s strategy to keep Vader on the mat worked well early on, and he was able to send Vader to the floor. Eventually, Shawn took one risk too many, and Vader powerbombed him on the floor to block an attempted hurricanrana.
Vader then used his size advantage to bully Shawn around the ring, clobbering him mercilessly for several minutes. Shawn kept trying to fight back, but the 400-pound monster had an answer for everything HBK threw at him. Eventually, Vader beat Shawn so bad that he threw him outside the ring and Shawn was unable to beat the count back in, giving the challenger an apparent countout victory. However, Vader’s manager, Jim Cornette, told the official that he didn’t want Vader to win that way, and the match was restarted.
Vader continued to beat Shawn down, but HBK escaped and hit a flying elbow. Seemingly having no other course of escape, HBK stole Cornette’s tennis racket and nailed Vader with it, drawing a disqualification. Again, Cornette pleaded to the officials, and the match was restarted once again.
After the final restart, HBK quickly hit Sweet Chin Music, but Vader kicked out of the pinfall attempt. The referee was knocked out, and Vader was able to nail HBK with a powerbomb, but only got a two count out of that. Vader then tried a moonsault, but HBK moved out of the way. The champion then hit the stunned challenger with a flying bodypress to get the pinfall and retain the gold.