WWE Hall of Famer and NXT executive producer Shawn Michaels appeared on the 7PM show in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony, where he discussed various topics, including why he never faced Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at WrestleMania.
Michaels said, “He didn’t like me. I think in years he got, there’s a big kerfuffle in the wrestling business about me and Hunter doing stuff to him and being mean and stuff like that. All of it way blown out of proportion. None of it even accurate, but those were things that when he was younger, he was fed a lot. But later on, and to this day, we get along and we talk about stuff.”
On The Rock being well into his Hollywood career when he re-entered the business:
“That’s what I think everybody would have liked to have seen. But by the time I came back, he was well off into his Hollywood career and stuff like that… What are you gonna say? I mean, the guy came in, and I can remember seeing him on Saturday Night Live the first time and just thinking to myself, holy cow, this guy’s gonna be a huge star.”
On how The Rock’s act evolved over time:
“When he first went out there, he was getting a lot of the ‘Rocky sucks’ chants and stuff like that. So there’s always ribbing and stuff like that in the locker room… He recognized that and felt like you got to come back with something a little bit harder, a little more aggressive. And then he changed that up. And after he did that, and they put him with the Nation, he really began to take off from there.”
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