Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative Shawn Michaels recently spoke with The Ringer Wrestling Show for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. Here are the highlights:
About his job in NXT:
“For me, certainly, I usually am more comfortable behind the scenes and doing my job. But look, it’s an exciting new time. I love the men and women in NXT. I love helping them out. I love producing a television show. We’re excited about Halloween Havoc. I’m thrilled to have this kind of responsibility. I think this is probably the hardest aspect of the job for me, to be perfectly honest, is getting out there and promoting NXT and making sure that we keep this brand alive and well. It’s intimidating to have to follow in the footsteps of everything Hunter created here, but, you know, I’m certainly up for the challenge. I’m very thankful that he put together a great team to help me out in the process.”
On whether he follows a booking philosophy or a general development philosophy when running NXT:
“I think from my standpoint, we have to combine putting on obviously a two hour entertaining wrestling show every week, but at the forefront of all of that to me, I usually try to focus on the development aspect. That is my job and our job collectively at NXT is to bring these young men and women growth and experience and help them to encounter things that they may encounter on the main roster. So honestly, that’s what I put at the forefront is repetition in those types of things from a television standpoint, whether it be storylines, promos, television time, certain spots, and I don’t mean spots in a match. I mean spots on the card, so to speak, opening the show, the middle of the show, a personal storyline, a championship storyline, being on top and understanding the pressures and the dedication and the lack of time off that one may have to go through. So there are a number of different aspects that we try to bring to this. But for me, I always try to put development at the forefront. Look, sometimes that makes it challenging to put on the absolute best wrestling show that you can.”
What’s the chemistry like when DX gets back together:
“It’s great. We still rip on each other. One of the reasons I’ve always hung around these guys is because they’re all some of the funniest guys I know and that’s what is enjoyable. I’ll say this, that’s one of the things that we are all very excited about. That’s what we’re really trying to do whether it’s on the main roster, RAW, SmackDown and NXT. We just want to bring back the joy and the fun and the entertainment that is the WWE and that’s the wrestling business as a whole, and again, I guess not worry about being so structured or so this or that. Just wanting to come out here, even in NXT while we’re developing while we continue to grow and put on a two hour entertaining show every two weeks. We want to have fun. We want to make this business fun and enjoyable again. I think that’s what we’re going to bring out tonight hopefully on the 25 year anniversary, but also for many, many years to come here in the WWE.”
You can listen to the complete podcast below:
(h/t to Wrestling News for the transcription)
