Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative Shawn Michaels recently appeared on Corey Graves’ “After The Bell” podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, Michaels opened up about what led him to NXT:
“Well, honestly, it was stepping inside the place that I’m at now, the Performance Center. We came here on vacation to visit friends, to Disney World, and the whole kit and caboodle. Everything that is Orlando, Florida at the vacation spot. That was an opportunity to come down, visit Hunter, visit the Performance Center, go to a few shows. That feeling that makes you want to do this stuff in the first place was there again. It was there immediately. I don’t know, the thing is, I felt it. But you know, I begin to wonder like, okay, it’s there, but you’re kind of always that way, even when you go back to when they ask you to be a part of WrestleMania or go into a Hall of Fame. It’s always going to be a part of you. But I guess the thing is, my family and my wife noticed it. She asked me the question. She said, ‘Look, I know you love being out here on the ranch and stuff, but are you really gonna want to be doing this and all this physical labor when you’re 60?’ I said, ‘Maybe I’ll have somebody else do it then, but right now, I like doing it’. Then she just talked about the feeling and how much I was talking about what I experienced at NXT. The more I thought about it, the more you know, they were just really supportive. They knew. Even when I retired, no one was more shocked than my wife when I said, ‘Done, done.’ She thought done would mean just out of the ring, still going back working with the company, all of those things, and still wrestling a couple times a year. I don’t think anybody realized that I was from a performance standpoint, I was complete. I felt complete and I felt at peace with it. But then when I came back here, and then you start to see the opportunity to again have an impact on the business. It starts to feed that part of you that is still very much alive. It’s kind of like awakening a sleeping giant. Hunter said, ‘Just come back. Try it out. Stick your toe in and we’ll just go from there.’ Obviously not until many years later when I was really engulfed in NXT did he tell me that he knew the whole time that once I experienced it, knowing me the way he does, it would be something that I would very much want to be a part of that, and all of that was true.”
What he looks for in NXT:
“There’s a number of things, but you know, believe it or not, character is a big thing. But to me, it’s charisma, because I feel like from an athletic standpoint now, we’re getting some machines in here. We are getting studs. There’s not much athletically they might not be able to handle. So I think to me it’s seeing that X factor that everybody talks about. You can’t really describe it, but you just see it. I think if you were to be able to give it a word, its charisma and a comfortability with what it is we’re doing. I think that, to me, is the first thing that I look for from them, because again, you’ve got a lot of people that can chase numbers, that can push a lot of weight around, can set certain goals and achieve every one of them from a physical aspect here in the Performance Center, but being able to understand the performance and the entertainment aspect of this, that’s what I think separates the men from the boys so to speak.”
How he evolves with the times:
“I was one of those people that very early on, certainly, for me, the first time I heard sports entertainment, and Vince is the first in my mind that coined that, to me anyway, I was actually looking at and going like, you know what? That’s a perfect way to describe our business, our line of work and I just kind of embraced that. I always felt like, again, the evolution, everything got faster. So to me, it was kind of common sense. Just like football and baseball, they all get faster, they all get better, they all get more skilled. Sure, there’s foundational principles, but it’s got to evolve. It’s got to change. The athletes get better. I’ve always been one certainly creatively to want to push that envelope and to try to think outside of the box. I’m very guilty of that. But again, I just think it’s something that has to evolve and has to keep changing. I always feel like it’s a natural process too. We all kind of start out fast and it’s unfair to teach from a 30 year aspect, to a guy that’s been in the business for two weeks, or two months, or even two years. I always try to put myself in the place of where I was when I was 19 or 25.talking to that person. People were telling me to slow down. I feel like a hypocrite if I’m saying the same thing.”
When asked what has caught Michaels’ attention the most since the new administration took power, he replied:
“I’ll be honest, a lot of it is bringing back some people that I felt I was gonna miss, that I had a joy working with here that I believe are talented and can contribute to the WWE. That’s been one of the biggest things. The other thing is the excitement, and the excitement about moving forward. Morale, you can’t beat that. I’ll say this. Hunter and I are actually doing all the things that Vince did with us back in the 90s. He was there. He was fun. He was all the things that I think people enjoy about us. That’s where we learned it from, to be perfectly honest. He was a fantastic boss. He was a great deal of fun to be around. He wanted to teach. He wanted to share. He was ever so passionate about this. Really, that’s what Hunter and I really bring to the table, I think is the joy, again, of this job. You can see that permeating up at RAW. I mean, I was there the other night. You can see it. I know what’s going on at SmackDown. We feel it down here, the joy and the fun of what this job is, is fantastic. Again, you’d be surprised what that does from a talent standpoint. You want to go out there and run through a brick wall on fire for guys that are leading that way. I think that’s how the talent feels now and I think that’s the biggest positive right now in the WWE.”
On Johnny Gargano:
“Well, obviously, you know, I’m biased when it comes to Johnny. I love him dearly. I think it’s that WrestleMania moment. Johnny and I are very similar in why we perform the way we perform. It’s a similar passion. It’s a similar feeling. It doesn’t have a lot to do with drawing the house or you know or being the single one reason that everybody’s there, being the top guy. It’s about having that feeling of this creative process that you’ve been a part of culminating into something that people will remember for the rest of their lives, and I guess, the idea that 25 years from now, someone will tell you what they were doing when you did this. That’s one of the things Johnny wants to be a part of, and he knows it can only happen here in the WWE. Johnny wants to affect someone else’s life like I very fortunately got to affect his. He now knows me and he knows how much that means to me.”
You can listen to the complete interview below:
(h/t to Wrestling News for the transcription)
