Shawn Michaels recently sat down for an interview with Newsday to promote his new autobiography, Wrestling for My Life, and while a lot of what he had to say was heavy on the churchy stuff, he did slip in a few interesting details, as well. For instance, Micheals talked about the recently revealed fact that Randy Savage wanted to have a major, multi-year feud with him in the early ’90s…
“I knew absolutely nothing about that. Obviously, that would have been a blast. I think that would have helped me immensely at that time. I think there’s so much I could have learned and would have learned. But I have to say that’s one of those things that’s been news to me. Randy was a very keep-to-yourself kind of guy. And I guess I’m making assumptions, but for him to think I was even ready to do something like that with him, I think is a wonderful compliment, and I’m thankful to have it. I always tell people how he’d give me these short little pieces of advice every now and again. It’s nice to know that he thought of me in that respect.”
Now, what about the infamous Vince McMahon feud with God storyline? A lot of folks see Michaels being involved in that storyline as evidence that he’s not as serious about the Christian thing as he says, but he sees it differently. Hell, could the whole thing have actually his idea?
“No, it was not my idea. It was obviously Vince and creative. And, no, it never really bothered me. I guess, from my standpoint, it was so far over the top that it was absurd. I laugh at a lot of stuff. I’d never argue with people who thought it was stupid. Of course it was stupid. I’d also argue that there’s a lot of stuff in wrestling that we’d consider stupid. It can be a pretty silly job.”
There you have it – sacrilege is cool as long as you do it tongue-in-cheek. God has more of an ironic, hipstery sense of humor than I thought.
Veering away from the big guy upstairs, Shawn had some things to say about why his 2008 feud with Chris Jericho turned out so well…
“It was fun. Chris and I are a lot alike. We view the business, the ring work and things of that nature, a lot of it the same. And we enjoyed that process. Chris and I always had a really good relationship. We can disagree. We can jump on each others’ cases. We can apologize. And neither one of us is immediately offended if the other one doesn’t like an idea. We’re quick to get past it and move on. We came in every Monday and would get thrown a lot of curveballs. And it was fun seeing if you could hit them. And I think that’s what made it work out so good, because it was pretty darn challenging every step of the way. There was really no direction or no real ideas going into it. It was like having a big old plate of Play-Doh for two guys to mold into what they want.”
Sometimes, your Play-Doh just ends up turning into a model of another man punching your wife in the face, I guess (man, I need to catch up with that feud on the Network). And finally, what about that retirement? Will there be any more matches?
“(Laughs) I’ve certainly made sure I’ve kept my word on that. And, heck, it’s not even really about keeping my word. I just felt I had a good career. There’s no reason to try to mess with it.”
And then, presumably, the interview ended because Micheals caught sight of an elk in the underbrush.
via Newsday
