Shawn Michaels helping shape the next generation of WWE superstars

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They still call him Mr. WrestleMania.

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He’s also known as the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels.

He’s also known as a two-time World Wrestling Entertainment hall of famer, one of the founding members of the wildly successful D-Generation X, a multiple-time world champion and one of the greatest to have ever laced up wrestling boots.

Back in 2015, following that illustrious career, Michaels was out of the industry, back home in Texas hunting and enjoying the fruits of his labour. Much like fellow hall of famer Stone Cold Steve Austin, Michaels appeared to be at peace while out of the business.

But a family trip to Disney World had other plans. While Michaels, his wife and kids were in Florida with friends from Texas, the four-time world champion decided to check out the WWE Performance Centre, which the company built to support its NXT brand, where it develops its talent.

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While there, Michaels said in an interview with Postmedia ahead of NXT Heatwave in Toronto on July 7, he found himself once again bitten by the pro wrestling bug.

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“The environment,” Michaels recalled of that visit. “Everybody talks about that itch when they get back into the ring and I never had that after I retired. It was not something that I struggled with in any way, shape or form, but when I came into the Performance Center, the feeling and the vibe, the culture, was just fantastic and it lit a fire in a different kind of way with me. It was something that I could palpably feel.”

After leaving, he spoke with his wife about the feeling he was left with following the visit.

“She looked at me and she said ‘I was shocked that it took you this long,’” Michaels said with a chuckle. “She said ‘I was amazed that you walked away as easily as you did.’ For her, after being married to me for as long as she has, sort of knew what that meant. It was probably a couple of months later and we were in Florida and I was coming in here to the Performance Center and NXT and I’ve been here ever since.”

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Initially, at least, Michaels only intended to dip his toes into the business again, committing to six hours a week of coaching at the Performance Center. However, his love for the business, which is clearly rooted in his soul, slowly pulled him back, to the point where he’s now senior vice-president of talent development creative and oversees the creative aspects of the NXT brand.

WWE wrestler Shawn Michaels hits his signature pose.
WWE wrestler Shawn Michaels hits his signature pose. Supplied photo

“I would come in in flip flops, shorts and a tank top and I said I was never going to wear a headset,” he said. “Eight years later, I sit here in front of you with a sports coat on and a collared shirt and producing the television show, writing the television show and wearing a headset every week. The only thing I’ve learned is don’t ever be talking a bunch of smack when you have no idea what the future holds.”

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Michaels, who came up in the business at the tail end of the territory days, said he can’t even fathom what having a place like the Performance Centre would have meant to his career early on.

“I had the good fortune to be in there with so many guys who had been doing this so much longer than me, people who were better than me, numerous different styles, numerous different outlooks and philosophies on the business, but to me the advantage of this place, I would have just been overjoyed to have a facility like we have here in Orlando, at my fingertips every day of the week,” he said.

“(NXT head trainer) Matt Bloom and I were just talking about it yesterday, when you were young and all you think about is doing this job, to be able to have this place as a resource and everything that comes along with it, I don’t know, I think they’d have had to have run me out of here,” Michaels said. “For the longest time, there was nothing more important in my life than being good at this job and the WWE and wrestling in general.

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“I had the very good fortune of meeting a woman who understood that she had to share me with this line of work because it would easily become second to her and the kids, but I would’ve been thrilled to have this resource and there are times when I also think it would have kept me out of a lot of trouble.”

When NXT creator Paul (Triple H) Levesque began to take on more responsibility within WWE, Michaels’ role in NXT expanded. With Levesque now running the day-to-day operations with WWE, the responsibility of NXT has shifted fully to Michaels, who said his job has been to steady the ship his friend created and set sailing.

“When Hunter started this a decade ago, it was the culture here, more than anything else, that I think was his biggest influence,” he said of Levesque. “The support system that NXT is and the nurturing and, I don’t know, I guess the focus on the business, the ring work, character over talent … a lot of things that I think would have been great building blocks for me when I first started.

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“Honestly, when I stepped into control, so to speak, it was more about making sure that that was not blemished in any way, shape or form and to build on that.”

And then there was bringing to it the kind of showmanship and pizzaz that only the so-called “Showstopper” himself can bring.

“I guess secondly, to the culture from a television standpoint, I just remember, to me this business and the shows being fun and entertaining and having a little bit of something for everybody,” he said. “When it’s all said and done, it’s no different than when I went into the ring. I just tried to have the best matches that I could have at that moment in time.

“Every match for me was the most important match at that time. I never got too far ahead of myself, I didn’t think about where I was going or what I was going to do. I took each match one match at a time and put my everything and my all into each one.

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“That’s sort of what we do with the television show and what we do with trying to engrain that into the minds of the athletes who come through here, that each one is the most important one, we want to make each show fantastic and entertaining from start to finish and I think if you string that psychology along, that’s when you have the opportunity to look back on something really successful. That’s what we’re trying to build here in whatever this era is.”

Next month, Michaels and NXT will return to Toronto, where WWE is hosting three events to mark Money In the Bank weekend, including NXT. In Toronto, fans can expect to see Stoney Creek, Ont., native Ethan Page, who recently was signed to NXT.

“(We) obviously knew who he was, (but I) wasn’t overly familiar with him other than, again, doing this job, you have a pretty decent idea of all of the talent that’s out there, at least a working knowledge of it,” Michaels said, adding that Page’s vast experience was of great interest to WWE.

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“He has experience. We are developmental here in Orlando, we’ve got a lot of young athletes, but at the same time we also need seasoned veterans and people who are really comfortable and know what they’re doing. He’s just somebody I felt like to me, there’s a lot of potential there, and to me, untapped potential.

“I think there’s a lot more to him than what he’s maybe had the opportunity to show in the past and I just felt like this was a good time and a good opportunity for him to really showcase his ability and his talent.”

Personally, Michaels is looking forward to returning to Toronto, a place he said he remembers for two things: The amazing entrance ramp at Rogers Centre back in the day and its cold winters.

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“(Toronto had) the straight platform going to the ring, where you just walk into the ring,” he said. “For me, that was just one of those environments to where it was an extra added thing that was at that venue that we didn’t have really have anywhere else and when you could add one different dynamic to your match, it always came in handy.

“I know that sounds kind of silly, but it was just something that I always felt was kind of unique to that venue. Even when you were doing live events there, they had that and it always made it feel like such a bigger show.

Needless to say, he’s thankful to be coming north in July and not January.

“I’m telling you, being a kid from Texas, I don’t care how much you try to heat that place back in the day, it was pardon my language, colder than a well-digger’s ass.”

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