Shawn Michaels made the ladder match his own. Can Goosh do the same with the chain?

Shawn Michaels lost WrestleMania X but left with a match that changed his career. Now Goosh enters his second dog collar match with an opportunity to create his own defining image in Phoenix.

The final image from WrestleMania X belonged to Razor Ramon.

Razor stood atop the ladder inside Madison Square Garden, both Intercontinental championship belts in his hands. He had survived Shawn Michaels and won one of the most influential matches in professional wrestling history.

But Michaels left with something, too.

He left with a reputation.

On March 20, 1994, Michaels used the ladder as more than a tool for reaching championship gold. He launched himself from it, crashed into it and found increasingly dangerous ways to turn steel into spectacle. Razor won the match, but Michaels showed the world exactly what kind of performer he intended to become.

The match helped establish the ladder match as a major attraction and pushed Michaels toward another level of stardom. It proved that a wrestler did not necessarily have to win a match to have his identity permanently changed by it.

Watch Shawn Michaels battle Razor Ramon in the WrestleMania X ladder match.

More than three decades later, Goosh may be approaching his own version of that opportunity—only there will be no ladder waiting for him in Phoenix.

There will be a chain.

The second time carries more weight

Goosh is preparing to challenge King Khan for the AWF Unleashed Championship in a dog collar match at AWF Overdrive XIII on Aug. 29.

The stipulation came after Goosh attacked Khan, turning a championship rivalry into something much more personal. Khan responded by asking AWF General Manager Izzy Gold for the dog collar match. Gold granted the champion’s request.

It will not be Goosh’s first time attached to another man by the neck.

At AWF Triumph in March 2025, Goosh defeated Ray Black in a dog collar match at Bull Shooters in Phoenix. He has already felt the chain tighten. He already knows how quickly the match can stop resembling wrestling and become a fight for survival.

But a first match can be an experience.

A second can become an identity.

Against Ray Black, Goosh proved he could survive the stipulation. Against Khan, he will enter it with a championship, a personal vendetta and his standing in Phoenix wrestling hanging from the same chain.

That changes everything.

This is not Shawn Michaels cosplay

The comparison is not that Goosh is the next Shawn Michaels. Bull Shooters is not Madison Square Garden, and a dog collar match carries a different history than a ladder match.

The connection is the opportunity.

Michaels entered WrestleMania X as a talented, ambitious performer and left with a match that people would forever associate with his rise. He did not invent the ladder match, but his performance helped change how American wrestling audiences saw it—and how they saw him.

Goosh did not invent the dog collar match. He does not need to.

What he can do is make the chain feel like it belongs to him.

That requires more than blood. More than violence. More than simply winning the championship.

It requires creating an image Phoenix cannot forget.

Khan is the champion. He is also the man who demanded this fight. By asking for the dog collar match, Khan chose the environment in which he believes he can finally punish Goosh.

But he may have invited Goosh into familiar territory.

The chain will keep them close. It will eliminate distance and remove escape. Every attempt to retreat will pull the other man forward. Every burst of momentum can end with steel wrapped around a throat, wrist or forehead.

There will be nowhere for either man to hide.

What will Phoenix remember?

Razor Ramon won at WrestleMania X. Shawn Michaels still emerged from the wreckage with a career-defining performance.

That is the standard Goosh faces—not the scale of WrestleMania, but the deeper challenge of making the result only part of the story.

If he defeats Khan and takes the AWF Unleashed Championship, Goosh could leave Bull Shooters with more than gold. He could leave with the beginning of a reputation as the man who becomes most dangerous when the collar is fastened and the chain hits the canvas.

If he loses, the opportunity does not completely disappear. Michaels showed that a wrestler can suffer defeat and still make the match belong to him.

But either way, Goosh must leave a mark.

Shawn Michaels climbed a ladder and changed how wrestling saw him.

Goosh is walking back into the chain.

On Aug. 29, Phoenix finds out whether this is simply his second dog collar match—or the night the dog collar match becomes his.

When the sun goes down, it’s blackout time.