What’s the story?
Speaking on the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast, Shawn Michaels revealed why he cannot return to the squared-circle as a performer.
The ‘Heart Break Kid’ also weighed in on a myriad of issues including his legendary rivalry with Chris Jericho, his SummerSlam match against Hulk Hogan in 2005, today’s pro-wrestling audience and much more.
HBK praised his former opponent, Chris Jericho, pointing out the fact that their chemistry in the creative process was a big reason why the two of them get along so well.
In case you didn’t know...
Shawn Michaels is widely regarded as one of the best performers in professional wrestling history, earning him the moniker of Mr WrestleMania.
Michaels made his pro-wrestling debut in 1984 and performed for the WWE from 1988-98, whilst appearing as an on-screen non-performer on WWE programming till his eventual return to the ring in 2002.
In his 2nd stint, he competed against some of the biggest names in the sport including the Undertaker, John Cena, Batista, Triple H, Hulk Hogan and several others, until his retirement in 2010.
The heart of the matter:
Speaking to ‘Primetime’ Sam Roberts, HBK revealed why he won’t return to the ring as a performer-
“I could never get past the creative character stuff that I enjoyed doing. I just can’t (justify) making money over the perfect sort of arc and ending and everything. It just doesn’t seem right to me.”
In relation to the current generation of WWE Superstars and today’s pro-wrestling audience, he added:
“It’s a little more difficult to do (drawn out rivalries) nowadays because the consumer, more often than not, wants something new, something fresh... There are guys that, let’s face it, greatness now happens in six months or a year or even two years.
Somebody has some consistently good matches for two years and he’s one of the legends! He’s one of the greatest of all time! And I don’t mean that as a critical thing, it’s just that’s how the consumer is now.
Everything happens so quickly now, they think ‘he’s 24, he had seven good Pay-Per-View matches and he’s one of the greatest of all time.’ In our day, rightly or wrongly, it took seventeen years to create greatness when nowadays it takes seven months.
So, I think that’s just a sign of the times.”
On being probed about his 2005 Summerslam match against Hulk Hogan- a match that was highly criticised owing to Michaels over-selling Hogan’s moves - HBK pointed out the fact that several other performers such as Dolph Ziggler and Billy Gunn tend to over-sell their moves in most of their matches
Also read: Best WrestleMania matches of all-time: WrestleMania 21 Shawn Michaels vs Kurt Angle
Considering that, Michaels opined that his aforementioned performance against Hogan should be regarded as the exception and not the rule. Furthermore, he added that the only reason behind him trying too hard in the Hogan match was because he wasn’t confident that the matchup would be good.
What’s next?
Shawn Michaels presently makes sporadic appearances in the WWE as a non-performer whilst simultaneously serving as a trainer at the WWE Performance Center.
Author’s take:
HBK has given us a truckload of memorable matches over the course of his long and storied career and considering that his 2005 SummerSlam debacle shouldn’t really matter. We all have bad days at work and when your job is taking mind-numbing bumps in the ring day-in-and-day-out, one bad performance is most definitely excusable.
As far as his opinion on the current generation of professional wrestlers and the modern-day audience is concerned, HBK is spot-on once again. Today’s fans want new, fresh content with a flick of the fingers and the WWE, on its part, is trying its very best to deliver.
Besides, his reasoning behind not making a comeback as a performer once again shows that Mr WrestleMania is all passion and not just about the dollars.
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