NXT‘s black and gold era compared to the current 2.0 version of the brand is a night and day difference…and the transition wasn’t an easy one, especially without the leader of the bunch around.
WWE Hall of Famer turned producer Shawn Michaels was recently interviewed by Instinct Culture’s Denise Salcedo and would delve into trying to spearhead NXT’s transition from the black and gold era to what we see today with 2.0 without the usual leader in the clubhouse, Triple H, as he continues to recover from a heart procedure.
“I think the biggest thing was that I didn’t know I was gonna be the one having to do everything [laughs]. I was going to hopefully assist Hunter and put into place what he wanted us to put into place. It came a bit quick obviously. For the last 35 years that I’ve been with the WWE when they make a decision it’s done, it’s quick. They are so efficient, so quick and they just don’t sit and wait around. I think that was probably the biggest adjustment. I think we had probably three weeks, and we didn’t have a whole lot of information. By the time we got the information it was coming down by the last week and we went ahead and applied everything that we could. It’s fun, it’s a nervous excitement. You don’t really know what to expect but you’re looking at something where there’s no roadmap to doing it so you have to try and figure it out. I still enjoy that kind of stuff, Hunter and I, much like the DX days, we went out there not having any idea what we were gonna do, we were just gonna go out there and have fun and enjoy doing it. That’s how this kind of started from the get-go. It would have been a lot easier had he been there the entire time to assist that’s for sure.”
Michaels then admitted he’s not hesitant to bother ‘The Game’ during the day whenever he needs a helping hand in the day-to-day operations.
“Most of it is me bothering him to be perfectly honest. He has worked so much over the last several years and I don’t think he understood that it becomes your normal. For him to step away for a little bit, look, that takes getting used to. I went through it obviously, I am one of the rare people that was ready to do it and embrace it. But when it just happens out of the blue and you’re not expecting it; for him to go a hundred miles per hour to nothing was an adjustment. But I think he is, especially around this time of year, he’s now starting to realize like ‘hey this isn’t too bad.’ I think he’s bordering enjoying himself now [laughs] to be perfectly honest. It’s a well-deserved break for him, for sure.”
Related: Shawn Michaels Details New Role In Talent Development, Focusing On WWE TV And Creative
