WWE News Roundup: Superstar quit after Vince McMahon broke his promise of a title win, Triple H refused a match with former champion, Top name mocks Austin Theory

#2 Shawn Michaels on the importance of the WWE Royal Rumble match

Shawn Michaels has won two WWE Royal Rumble matches in his career, in 1995 and 1996. However, his inspiration for the rumble matches came from the late Mr. Perfect, a man who never won a rumble match in his career. Despite that Curt Hennig always shined during his performance in the 30-man matches.

Speaking to Fightful, Shawn Michaels praised Curt Hennig and said that he is the superstar who made him realize the importance of the Royal Rumble match. Michaels said that even without winning, the match gave you a chance to put yourself in the spotlight much like Mr. Perfect did every time.

"I can say this, the first time that I really — it was watching Mr. Perfect, Curt Hennig out there in the Rumble and just everything he did and how he made everything look so spectacular. He didn’t win, he never won a Royal Rumble, but he was the first guy that I watched to where I realized, ‘Oh my goodness, even in this event with 30 other people, you can become the focal point,'' said Michaels.

The Royal Rumble match is one of WWE's most unique matches, which sees 30-man compete in an over-the-top battle royal. The winner gets a chance to face the world champion at WrestleMania.

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#1 Shawn Michaels lavishes praise on Mr. Perfect

Curt Hennig lost his life in 2003 and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007. Shawn Michaels spoke about how he had the ability to turn the Royal Rumble match into a contest with himself as the focal point.

Michaels said that once he realized that such a thing could be done, his perspective of the Royal Rumble match changed.

''When I saw him do that, that’s when I looked at it from a standpoint of ‘The Rumble can now be a performance-engineered type event where you can really get yourself over in a way that I thought was pretty challenging with 30 other people and so much else going on on the show. But after watching Curt that night it just stuck in my brain forever. It wasn’t so much about winning, it was about everything else you did in the duration of the time you were out there,'' said Michaels

The 2022 Royal Rumble will take place later this month and will see Roman Reigns face Seth Rollins for the Universal title and Bobby Lashley vs Brock Lesnar for the WWE title.