WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels was the latest guest on The Bump to discuss various moments in his career, which included the Heartbreak Kid reflecting on his first big singles SummerSlam match against Rick “The Model” Martel in 1992. Check out Michaels’ full thoughts on the subject can be found below.
Says his SummerSlam 1992 match was a big deal for him since it was his first big singles match:
“Well, I think the biggest thing for me, again, was sort of coming off of the tag team with The Rockers and just really having my first sort of story. The first time being involved in something and, again, with with someone that I’d never been in the ring with. It’s not as if Rick Martel and I had been on the ring a lot with each other. It’s SummerSlam, you’re on a pay-per-view, you’re in kind of a featured match. That was a big moment for me as a singles wrestler.”
How he felt every match after that point was amke-or-break:
“Very nerve-wracking because, again, at that time, you feel that every time you’re out there is make-or-break. Is this the one where they look at you like, ‘I don’t see it. I knew he was too small. I knew he wasn’t this.’
On the stipulation that the two men could not strike each other in the face:
“I go back and I think of some of those very unique and different things that I was in. I don’t know, I guess I’m always flattered by the fact that I was kind of the guinea pig for WWE. Every time we had a new type of match, like, ‘Let Shawn try it, he doesn’t know any better,’ and of course, I will say this having Sherri out there was fantastic, right? She was in the middle of it all. Exactly. And of course she was she was she was the gem that tied it all together.”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)