Shawn Michaels did an interview with Sports Illustrated to reflect on his friendship with the late, great Scott Hall, who passed away on Monday after suffering three heart attacks. Here are the highlights:
Their friendship:
“For all five of us, all that mattered was that we had each other,” Michaels says. “I was young and brash back then, and not everyone appreciated that. I remember Scott saying, ‘If someone’s going to whip your a–, he’s going to have to whip both our a—-.’ We looked out for one another. I mean, we grew up together.
“I wasn’t even 21 when we met. I was still getting carded and couldn’t get into bars. Scott would sneak stuff out to me. We were with each other all the time. The business was everything to us, and that friendship was equally important. And we thought, if we could all do this together, how cool would that be? We became family.”
Facing timing Hall while he was on life support with Nash, Waltman, and Triple H:
“We wanted to let him know that we were there for him,” Michaels says, choking up. “We had the opportunity, one more time, to tell him how much we loved him.
“A long time ago, we decided that we were going to be there for each other. If we were wrong, then we’d be wrong together. You hear the term ‘I have your back,’ but when the rubber hits the road, that doesn’t always happen. We weren’t perfect, but we made that commitment to do it till the end. It was like a marriage, and it stuck. And that’s what makes this so hard.”
Hall’s passing:
“This moment, for Scott, it means a lot that he’s getting the love he always deserved,” Michaels says. “The four of us, we’ve all talked a lot since this happened. A part of us understands that this happens in life, and we know we’re lucky to have so much time together. But it still wasn’t long enough.”