Shawn Michaels recently spoke to Inside the Ropes and discussed how he would currently deal with himself from back in the 1990s, his retirement, and his troubled times in the 90s.
Michaels was asked if he bothered with his last match being at Super Showdown:
“No, no! Like I said, I guess that’s the thing – I can compartmentalise that. I don’t know if it’s fair, but I can. I think that’s one of the reasons I was able to walk away and be at peace, unlike a lot of people who have struggled with that. And I do understand it. “Even that second one, it felt like its own entity unto itself. It had nothing to do with, really, to me, “one more match.” It was about going out there and having an experience with my guys. I mean, it was sort of like just a… I don’t know. It’s like somebody saying, “You graduated high school?” “Yes. But I’m going to go back to my ten-year reunion,” and I’m still going to do that, but it doesn’t mean I’m going back to high school and I want to go through it again. So, I guess that’s how I looked at it was, it was an experience that I just wanted to have – special – with these guys. As I say, I still look at my retirement and all of it, again, with nothing but complete joy and satisfaction. I have since, all those years, really begun to understand and appreciate how special that was for me, because so many guys have struggled with it in the past.”
Shawn Michaels also discussed how he would’ve dealt with himself during his troubled times:
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’d deal with them and I’d probably suggest that we let him go, he’s going to be nothing but trouble, no matter how talented he is. Either that or get him help. Honestly, that would be the biggest thing. Especially, as I look at it, I think to myself, ‘Well, I… I was good at my job.’ So when you see that kind of ability and they’re young, and they are just angry at everything, and obviously have a problem – as opposed to getting rid of them, the first thing you probably should be doing is helping them. So, the more that I think about it, I think to myself that, again, ‘ We should try to at least help him because the young man is going to end up hurting himself someday,’ or he’s going to be one of those wrestling tragedies that we hear about. So I think if he had all the drug issues and things like that, that I had, that’d be the first step. If it was just an attitude thing and there were no other circumstances, that’s when sometimes it may not matter how good he is, he’s probably more trouble than he’s worth.”
Michaels lastly spoke on breaking kayfabe in moments like a Curtain Call:
“I mean, clearly at different points in my career, but again, the one was just saying goodbye to your buddies and certainly, for me, at that time, we had also spent so much time together and it was them leaving. Back then, we were on the road with each other 250-275 days a year. They’re family at that point. That was emotion. The one with Undertaker [and Triple H at WrestleMania 28], same thing. Now we’re talking about all of us – older, mellowed out, grown, changed with each other but still intertwined in a very unique business and very unique situation. There are some times in this line of work where it gets to be real. I guess as you put it, the “breaking of the kayfabe,” that realness also works for the job. It also works for the fanbase, the entertainment, whatever you want to call it, the enjoyment of the viewer as well. I think those are times when those aren’t things that hurt the business. Certainly not with The Undertaker. I know that the curtain call and all that, years earlier, was seen differently by a lot of people and I do, I understand that, but I think now we’ve come all these years later, I don’t think that would be looked upon the same way now, because it’s not as if a lot of people don’t understand how the business works.”
Credit to Inside the Ropes and H/T to 411Mania for the transcription.
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