It’s been more than eight years since Shawn Michaels laced up his boots at WrestleMania in an epic showdown with the Undertaker. No matter how much time has passed, though, the Heartbreak Older Gentleman (when you cut the ponytail, you lose kid status) hasn’t stopped getting asked about a potential return to the ring.
To date, he hasn’t pulled a Ric Flair, or really any wrestling legend who “retired” and gotten inside the squared circle for a match of his own. He apparently had an opportunity to at WrestleMania 33 against AJ Styles, and Seth Rollins has been vocal about wanting a tilt with the legend should he make the trek back out to the ring one more time.
While Michaels gave very specific conditions on what it would take to drag him out of retirement, he spoke with Inside the Ropes recently on the topic yet again. Fans can’t expect Michaels to step into the ring with a guy like the 32-year-old Rollins, but an older vet perhaps? He didn’t exactly shut the door on the idea of wrestling someone closer to his age.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD7x9kCqgb8&feature=youtu.be
“I always try to explain it to people, if you could take me in a younger version and put me in the ring with those guys it would be a blast. But of course I’d like to be a younger version of me and being in a ring with Harley Race and Buddy Rogers but none of those things can happen in real life,” Michaels said.
“The getting ready for [WrestleMania] is 100% work and I don’t know whether I want to put myself or my family through to do it again and steal the show at 53 for God’s sake. Now it’s a whole different ball of wax if someone says, ‘do you wanna go down and work with some other 40 plus-year-old guys or 50 or whatever and mess around and be silly. You know what I mean? That doesn’t seem like work to me.
“Something like that I would consider, but nobody ever talks about that. It’s always me and somebody half my age.”
Michaels added some general thoughts on helping younger wrestlers along, weighing the benefits of getting back in the ring and ultimately decided on it seeming like “more trouble than it’s worth.” In the meantime, enjoy Michaels working behind the scenes in NXT and doing random things, like playing Colonel Sanders.
(H/T Wrestling Inc)
