WWE NXT executive and WWE Hall of Fame legend Shawn Michaels appeared as a guest on the latest episode of INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, HBK reflected on getting involved in taking over WWE NXT, if he thought there has been anyone better than him in the ring, Bret Hart, the Ric Flair retirement match, the “I’m sorry, I love you” spot and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On getting involved in WWE NXT: On getting involved with NXT: “Well, I guess it depends on how far you want to go back. And again, to be perfectly honest, way back in 1998, obviously, when I left wrestling and thought I was kind of done, my wife and I talked, and I had the Shawn Michaels Wrestling Academy, which I started. And of course, I can remember not long after that, obviously, my life changing a great deal for the positive and I began thinking about the giving back process of all of that, and being able to maybe one day have this facility. So you fast forward all these years later, and it’s not the way that I thought it would go. But sure enough, it ends up here I am, again, in this wrestling environment. And it is, in a way, obviously, giving back, and I don’t know, giving back in the thing that at least comes natural to me. So that’s part of it, I guess, more of the spiritual side. But honestly, I can remember when Hunter talked about NXT, and just asking me to come by one time. I had been to a couple of events while I was retired, but I was in Texas at the time, thought it was fantastic. We went on a vacation to Florida, taking the family out there. And they just happened to be doing a television show, Hunter was in town, and wanted me to come down and see the Performance Center and just come and see what I think. When I walked through those doors, that feeling just sort of came back. And again, when I retired, I just exited and wasn’t around that environment anymore. So when I came back in, it was just something that clearly was noticeable, because when I went back to the home we were renting, we rented a house for the week to go on vacation and stuff, and I came back and my wife said, ‘Obviously, it went well.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, it did, what do you mean?’ And she said, ‘I can just see that look.’ And so we just got into this big conversation that I told you about, by that time was 1999 when she and I had first met and talking about that stuff. And that’s kind of the first time she revealed to me, in all of my retirement, she said, ‘Well, I was surprised that you walked away when you did, and how you just completely left it. I just always figured you’d go back and you’d do something with them, but when you said you were done, you were actually really done.’ And nobody was more surprised than I was. And so we just again, had a very awesome conversation. My wife and I, we’ve lived our whole lives like that, that’s our relationship. Started doing things that we feel and both have this unbelievable impulse, it’s a calling in our lives. And in a matter of probably three hours in this conversation, we had made the decision to go back to Texas, pack up in three weeks and move our entire lives to Florida, and that’s what we did.”
On whether he thought there was anyone who was better than him: “Well, look, I don’t know. I guess I would say that I know that I thoroughly love being in there with so many of them. I think because ours is kind of a joint aspect, and so I don’t know. I had great chemistry with so many people, but I think I had great matches with Angle. I had great matches with Hunter, had great matches with Taker, had great matches with Jericho. Heck, had great matches with Jeff Jarrett, numerous other people, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some people.”
What about Bret?: “Yeah, I had great matches with Bret. But again, I don’t know. I can’t express it enough in that none of those things are really relevant. I think I was great at what I did, and I think other people were great at what they did as well. They’re just different in so many ways. And again, greatness is more a mindset, I think, than anything else. I don’t if you if you have that for your goal, I think it’s incredibly productive, and I think it’s incredibly positive. But if it’s something that, I don’t know, you base every aspect of your being around it, certainly for me at one time, it wasn’t a healthy thing for me to do, until I was able to do it in a way that I began to apply it to every aspect of my life, whether I achieved it or not.”
On the Ric Flair retirement match: “I’ve told the story with Ric where, again, it was many days out, that might have been a week out, waking up in the middle of the night and just having this, whatever you want to call it, a flow of consciousness about the end of the match and what it ended up being. I was writing it down, and I came to the end, it’s stuff that sounds like it’s a movie scene, and the little tear drops on the paper. I’m like, Oh my goodness. And I see that, and I think to myself, I don’t know if this is great, or if it’s I’m the biggest wuss in the world who thinks about pro wrestling like that. But the easy answer was, I do, and I did when I was a kid. Then as a grown man, I was at a place in my life to where I was able to sit back and see this picture, and I was able to talk to my buddy in high school who was another person, and he’s just sharing with me like, gosh, can would you have ever imagined when you and I were sitting there at my parents’ house watching Ric Flair on Championship Wrestling that you’d now be having his last match at WrestleMania. Those types of things, and being able to put that in perspective. And so all those thoughts in my head and trying to go to sleep and then all of a sudden, this comes of it. And again, it turns out to be a love story.”
On ‘I’m sorry, I love you’: “It was real that day, because he was weeping the entire time, and almost the entire match, but especially at that part. He knew it was the end, he knew it was the end of the match. I know people, they’ll even say, Oh, you’re gonna wrestle again, not at that moment. Everybody was so invested in that, because for that moment in time, to us, it was real. You go back to all the way to, maybe to your first question, and that is about the teaching and the coaching. Those are some of the things I don’t know. Only the talent of today or the talent of tomorrow, that when they come up, I don’t know how many of those things will be real for them. I don’t know how many of them will have this love affair with what we do, like we did, I say my generation or that I do, but that’s not for me to decide. I still teach or convey or coach, run, whatever word it is that describes what it is I do, I still do it with that aspect in mind, and I still have moments. I was fortunate to have one just the other day with Trick Williams to where we meet on a very human level, and I’m able to step outside of the boss and all that. And it’s just Michael Hickenbottom talking with Matrick Belton about things that are bigger than this business and hoping that that will move him in a way that helps him in his career. So I don’t know. As with everything I do, I do it with every ounce of my being in the best way that I know how, and that match that night with Naich, just like with Taker, were the ones that you know all of you, all of your heart, the fullness of your heart was into it, and it’s just hard for it not to go well.”
