WWE HOF Shawn Michaels' favourite Marvel superhero revealed

Shawn Michaels is a huge Marvel fan

WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, but outside the squared circle, ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ has a surprising passion for Marvel comics. It has now been revealed that Michaels is a massive fan of Spider-Man.

The revelation came courtesy of Josh Terry, who formerly wrestled in WWE under the name Riley Osborne. Speaking in an exclusive interview with Cultaholic’s Tom Campbell, Terry explained how he came up with his WWE ring name and, in doing so, dropped an unexpected detail about Michaels’ love for the iconic web-slinger.

“You’ve got your 10 first names, your 10 second names, you choose all of them and send them to the office and they choose which ones they like,”

Terry said while discussing WWE’s naming process. “I knew I wanted Riley, so I put that first on my list of the first names and it was slightly bigger than all the others too. Osborne I put like three down. Riley is the dog from Call of Duty: Ghosts, I was like cool, that’ll do. And then Osborne, Green Goblin. I was like great, Riley Osborne sounds really cool, I hope they choose that one.”

Terry went on to explain how his comic book fandom played a role in selecting the surname, and hinted that Michaels’ own love of Spider-Man might have influenced the final decision.

“I’m a big comic book geek, that’s why I chose Osborne. I think Shawn really loves all the Marvel stuff, like Shawn Michaels. I know he’s a massive Spider-Man fan.

So I’m guessing me putting that in there, he had some creative light bulb like ‘Hang on, he’s Spider-Man. He could be a goblin.’ I’m guessing maybe that’s how that came about but I was just really happy to have a cool name.”

Interestingly, Terry noted that there were early plans for his character to take a comic book-inspired direction. WWE reportedly considered a storyline feud between Riley Osborne and high-flying NXT star Axiom, with Osborne serving as a kind of supervillain-like nemesis.

While that angle never came to fruition and only led to two matches on NXT Level Up, it speaks to the creativity being explored in NXT under Michaels’ leadership.

Shawn Michaels, who currently serves as WWE’s Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative, has been instrumental in shaping the NXT brand since taking over in 2022. A childhood passion for Marvel comics and Spider-Man seems to have subtly influenced his creative direction.

While fans know him best as The Showstopper, Mr. WrestleMania, and the original leader of D-Generation X, it turns out Shawn Michaels is also a lifelong fan of the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man.

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