WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels was the recent guest on the “Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast”, which you can listen to in full at this link. Below are some interview highlights:
On the Kliq Reunion this Weekend:
When all of us get together, that is when you do it, but as you know, that doesn’t happen all too often. Everyone is busy and doing their own stuff so we’ve all grown up for heaven’s sake believe it or not, and all have our own things we are doing. Wrestlers, especially the Kliq, we are like a bunch of old ladies, once we all get together we start talking about the past and good times, just talking about how great everything was. This is something that the fans get to be part of it and ask questions and let me tell you something—one thing they have to know, Kid [Sean Waltman] Scott [Hall] and Kevin [Nash] don’t sugar coat anything, so it’s always a ton of fun. Some of the stuff they talk about I had forgotten about or they had forgotten about that they wanted me to bring to the table. We did so much stuff together between the four of us I’m sure we have forgotten half of it, or we recall something and it is a lot of fun. There’s some of it where you go, ‘oh geez, I didn’t even want to remember that one.’ It’s an awesome time. It really is.
On Not Getting to Enjoy WrestleMania Moments As A Performer:
I don’t know if I have been hit in the head too much, but that is one of the reasons honestly that I don’t do it because I was always about going along and doing the next thing. That to me is the part of the wrestling business—it was that first time probably hearing Vince McMahon saying that WrestleMania was a great event and goes through the litany of all the great things that happened, but then he says, ‘That was yesterday. Time to focus on next year.’ So, you don’t have a lot of time to enjoy that or bask in the glory—you move on. I guess that is the thing, I don’t give it much thought and drifts to my unconsciousness until someone brings it back again.
On the Jericho/Owens Slow Buildup to their WrestleMania Match:
Chris and I were actually talking about that a couple of days ago. One of the things that happens where you are going so fast is that you are bouncing from opponent to opponent, but they had time to invest in the Kevin Owens/Chris Jericho relationship, and put time and equity into that. Clearly, the more you do that, the more opportunity you have to create history. The better relationship, the better opportunity you have to be able to do something with that person is the better stories you can have with that person. Scott Hall and I worked with each other for two years for Heaven’s sake. Again, that was many years ago, and it’s more difficult to do that now. That was something me and Chris were able to do, and that is something he and Kevin are now able to do. Most of the time, you don’t get to really do that with so many pay per views, you have to come up with something new and fresh. So, it makes it more difficult, I know that fans enjoy that, but it’s a little more difficult to do that nowadays because the consumer more often than not wants something new and fresh, and as a company they feel the need to change that up, but old school guys like me, I feel that you can slow down and take your time with it could take longer to build but the payoff in the end is always better. It’s hard to do now. There are guys that—let’s face it. Greatness now happens in 6 months, or even 2 years. Somebody has a consistently good match for two years is suddenly a legend. I don’t mean that as a critical thing, that is just how the consumer is now, everything happens so quickly, like, okay, he’s 24, he’s had several good pay per view matches, he’s one of the greatest of all time. In our day, right or wrong isn’t up to me, it took 17 years to create greatness whereas nowadays it takes 7 months, so I think that is just the sign of the times, and I am good either way with however someone wants to do it. I’m with you, I enjoy the storyline of Kevin [Owens] and Chris [Jericho] but it’s because they took their time creating something and having it mean something too.
On His 2002 Return to WWE:
Honestly, as people know, I was just coming back for one match. I didn’t know what my body could handle, what it couldn’t handle, so we didn’t say anything beyond that SummerSlam match. Then, of course, it went well and I felt good and before I could even really sort of make a decision I got a phone call from Vince asking how I felt and saying that he has an idea, and so I guess the next thing was the Elimination Chamber we were just taking things one match at a time. I sort of knew by December, it was going to be time to sit and really figure out what is going on here. I think it was in December that Jericho and I did this promo that I lost the Championship back to Hunter and had done a promo with Jericho and I. I was supposed to leave for a while, and then Chris walked back and both Chris and Vince were like, ‘did you feel that?’ I nonchalantly replied, yeah, it went very well. Chris was like, holy cow man. Something is there. I said that I totally feel ya, but let me just go home, give me a second and take some time to let me think about it. I don’t even know what I am doing yet. Things just happened so quickly, which I did go home and sit, chat about it with your wife and pray and meditate on it, then you realize that it is the only thing I know that I can do. It’s a gift I have been given and am good enough to do it so I mine as well get back and do the one thing I was built to do. I gave them a call and slowly started working towards the WrestleMania match with Jericho at WrestleMania 19.
On Taking Time to Create a Storyline:
To your point, a lot of that is time and experience, repetitions. Again, to make something last long you have to do the nuances, the details, the smaller things, again, those are the huge differences and are the ones that begin to make it something more interesting even though you are not doing much, it’s clearly the things that Chris knows how to do and I believe Kevin does too. That is where you have the ability to stretch those things out, the small things, a change of expression or a look, just your voice doing something different. You are able to intrigue the fans in a way where they look for the next small thing because they know that it means something, which it does. Not everybody can do that, and a lot of people don’t enjoy doing that. This is the reason why Chris and I got along so well—he and I love to peel the onion away and pull and pull to see what we can do and what we can get away with and look for things to stay away from as good guys or bad guys, or things that make you look weak or vulnerable, and we always figured that we should try that anyways. That was why it became so much fun about our angle because I was the good guy, and I was the guy that was lying. It was intriguing to us that I was the one that was lying, he was the one that was telling the truth, and be the bad guy, that just sounded like a blast to and see if we can continue to peel away from that and have it mean something and we did. That is the enjoyment that some of us get out of the creative process.
