The present study consists of two parts. Here in Part 1, a model set of conservation laws exactly preserving the MHD hyperbolic singularities is investigated to develop the general theory of the nonlinear evolution of MHD shock waves. Great emphasis is placed on shock admissibility conditions. By developing the viscosity admissibility condition, it is shown that the intermediate shocks are necessary to ensure that the planar Riemann problem is well-posed. In contrast, it turns out that the evolutionary condition is inappropriate for determining physically relevant MHD shocks. In the general non-planar case, by studying canonical cases, we show that the solution of the Riemann problem is not necessarily unique – in particular, that it depends not only on reference states but also on the associated internal structure. Finally, the stability of intermediate shocks is discussed, and a theory of their nonlinear evolution is proposed. In Part 2, the theory of nonlinear waves developed for the model is applied to the MHD problem. It is shown that the topology of the MHD Hugoniot and wave curves is identical to that of the model problem.