Original subtitles

Are we rolling?

We are rolling.

Did Sean need a bodyguard in real life? Yeah, he did. Why?

Because he had heat.

Sean Michaels had heat because Sean Michaels knew how to naturally have

Hello, sir. How are you doing?

Very good.

There were rumors back then that you were kind of a handful within.

At this point, the idea that we would still call them rumors is kind of

laughable. I can't be popular with everybody all the time.

I want to be popular with me.

They're not rumors. I was the handful for Vince and everybody else.

Only Sean gets away with this kind of shit.

You know, crumpling up promos and throwing them at him. I'm not saying

Nobody looks at their boss, you know, half out of it and yells at the top of

their lungs for them to F off.

I know you don't like me. Why? Because you're jealous.

He just turns and looks at Vince because God.

I'm going to be on the road for 330 days a year. I'm going to drive whoever the

fuck I want to.

And it was just like, yeah, what he just said.

The dude didn't know me. I was bad, and Kevin was the guy that stuck by me.

I was a cowboy.

I was a city boy.

It worked out good.

Man, I got nothing to hide.

That's what's so great about my life. I ain't lying about it.

Believe me, unbelievably liberating.

I'm not a giant or anything, but the thing about being a big guy is that the

minute you become a big guy, see, you're always one.

Back then, I said, well, I'll just play basketball.

I mean, I started as a freshman at Division I, University of Tennessee.

It's not a basketball superpower, but, I mean, they've had success in the sport.

I got in a bunch of trouble.

I went over to the military.

I ended up playing military basketball.

I got a season overseas.

I blew my knee out.

I came back.

So I went down to Atlanta.

There's a guy named Peter Boff. I don't know if you're still alive, Pete, but

thanks.

And he took me to a place called the Cheetah.

He said, they're looking for a floor manager.

And I walked in and I got the job on the spot.

If any guy that's ever worked adult entertainment, put it this way, you're

Wait for work.

So you might be at the crossroads of your life, but I tell you what, man.

Some nice scenery in those crossroads.

Some good times.

So the boys, of course, are coming in the cheetah.

And one of the guys is Barry Windham.

Barry was like, dude, you need to get in the business.

And I said, what do I have to do in it? He said, you need to learn how to do it.

So I went down to this Quonset hunt.

Back then it was... One person got in the middle of the ring, and the other

people got in the corner.

One person would come out, and you would feed counterclockwise, and you would

take tosses.

You just hit wood.

And I remember the first time I took a bump in a WCW ring, I was like, oh, my

God. Like, are you kidding me?

For me, it's sitting up Saturday night in San Antonio, watching Southwest

Championship Wrestling.

Tully Blanchard, Wahoo McDaniel, Scott Casey, you know, Black Gordman.

After seeing it and told my mom I know what I want to be when I grow up, I want

to be a professional wrestler, and she, of course, said, that's nice, honey.

At that time, my idea of success was to be a wrestler at Southwest Championship

Wrestling where I know they wrestle in the Hemisphere Arena 30 minutes from the

house.

You travel around the southwest region of Texas and you wrestle.

Like, oh my goodness, but that's like the coolest job ever.

And it would be so awesome. I could have like my own apartment. I could have a

car.

I couldn't imagine a greater life at that time.

John Michaels, a newcomer, a protege of Jose Leferio. He is really getting

initiated.

I've... Been in the wrestling business for five, six years.

I've made it to the WWE.

I was

in a relatively successful tag team. We never won the tag team championships,

but Marty and I, the Rockers, were a very good team.

At that point, certainly, I'd surpassed that apartment and the car. And I was

doing more than just traveling around the state of Texas.

The Rockers, which wasn't like a dead -end job, he had to work really hard to

overcome the image that he was a little guy from a tank.

Are you kidding?

What? What a despicable act that was.

He don't need to, Nettie. I told you that.

People were still uncomfortable losing to me.

And I was never going to be a Hogan -esque or Warrior -esque type main

That was the genesis of a lot of my trouble with everybody.

Shawn Michaels is the wrestler of the 90s. Look at him. He's a lean, mean

wrestling machine.

Shawn Michaels is going uptown.

And he's going to run with everybody in the World Wrestling Federation.

Look, I had somebody leave me like, nobody could take a backdrop that high.

kill them.

Yeah, well, I did. So either I'm cool and better than you, or you just can't

it and you're jealous.

But you're not allowed to say that stuff.

Wrestling is built on giants. And the promoters and everybody else are always

looking for big men. You know, they're hunting in gyms and hiring bar bouncers.

And yet...

When Kevin Nash came through, it wasn't exactly the most glorious of times to be

a big guy. Just being big wasn't enough anymore. They always had to add

something else to it.

WPW, they offer me, you know, a contract.

The Master Blasters.

Let's take a look at what we can expect from this team.

You take a guy and you give him a mohawk because it's sweet.

Basically what you're trying to do is make up for Vince taking the Road

and making them the Legion of Doom.

I'll never forget the first night, man, we're walking down the ramp.

We're moments away from the Master Blaster's debut here on TBF.

My first match, of course, was live.

There was like 9 ,000. Good crowd.

Size. And strength were requisites to being great champions. Hey, you can give

these guys belts now.

I'm about three minutes into my first pro match. My partner goes for a

And misses by about five feet. And that crowd just went...

I mean, they said this.

Look at that!

Oh, this is a nice start.

I wonder what Candice and Joy are doing back on tabletop right now.

Like, wow.

But, you know, they went from there to Oz.

They got great and powerful Oz.

Brother, this just knocked my socks right off right here. I ain't never seen

nothing like that. Taking a look at Oz.

You forget what a treasure Dusty was.

He got me in the office, man, and he started painting that picture.

You know, right there, you become Oz, baby. And I'm like, I'm sitting there

going, Dust didn't, like, Oz the geographical region?

Look at this move right here.

Whoa, baby!

With Kevin Nash, all you really needed to add was Kevin Nash. If you kind of

him be himself, that was exactly what you needed to make a superstar.

Yeah, it was special.

And then I was Vinny Vegas.

I was watching television. I watched Steve Martin and My Blue Heaven.

Vinny Vegas dream, a big man, six feet ten, over 300 pounds.

The then man caught the eyes of a young superstar.

It was Shawn Michaels. He was the Heartbreak Kid.

I'm watching WCW.

Saturday night. You know, Andrew Dice Clay at that time was pretty hot. Kevin

was sort of a wrestling version of Andrew Dice Clay.

I just loved the character. He was, you know, coming up.

Want to take this toilet lid -sized hand and smack the taste out of your mouth.

You don't see a lot of seven -foot guys that are that entertaining and can laugh

at themselves that much. And it just stuck in my mind.

This thought came into my head that I was the Intercontinental Champion at

time.

I would make guys look really good, but we were having to have a lot of

disqualification finishes.

You can only do that for so long. And I started thinking, well, gosh, if I could

have somebody help me to win, that might help. It would get me heat.

And Vince was asking me, well, of the existing roster, who would you see doing

that? And I'm like, I can't see anybody.

that we have right now. And I just happened to mention, I said, hey,

this dude in WCW who goes, oh, but can't talk to those guys.

And I said, all right, well, there's this dude I saw, he goes out of his

Vegas, and it wouldn't be the same old stereotypical bodyguard that's just

and stands there. I said, the dude's dynamic as hell.

Some time later, I just happened to talk to Robbie Steiner about having the

bodyguard. Oh, and I saw this guy, Vinny Vegas. He goes, oh, it's Kevin Nash. I

know him. He's a great dude.

I can call him right now. Called Kevin. He goes, oh, dude, I'm in. Kevin goes in

the next day and tells them, I don't think this stuff's working out for me.

going to go back to bouncing. They gave him his release.

He went in their office, in CNN Tower, faxed it to Vince and them in Stanford.

And the next day, we flew him up.

Meeting Vince McMahon was like meeting Steinbrenner and you played baseball.

Hair was werewolf of London.

His hair was perfect.

He said, hey, big man, guys are out back.

First time I met Kevin Nash out by the pool at Vince's house, I remember

up at him going, wow, this is a big bastard.

He is very charming, deceptively so.

I'm sitting around the pool and Vince, just like, oh, by the way, my driver's

going to take you to Albany and you're going to screw Marty Giannetti.

You're going to be with Shawn Michaels.

I was just like,

I've been at the boss's house.

I've got to be involved tonight.

They brought me around to meet Shawn.

And Shawn took a step and got up.

But he looks at me and goes, hey, I'm Shawn.

Like, did that come out of that guy's mouth?

That's his voice?

Like, that's OK.

I think he had the big tracksuit on.

But I do recall letting him know that I had seen him. I thought he was

incredibly cool.

But he should know that not a lot of people here like me. And, you know, that

may rub off on you a little bit. That time, probably the first time I ever

looked at him, he goes, I got your back, man.

And, you know, again, that's one of those things that make me tear up. And

did.

This week's special report.

Last Sunday, in New York's capital city of Albany, the ever -resourceful Shawn

Michaels hired a new bodyguard whose assigned duties allowed Michaels to

his title from Giannetti.

May I now introduce to you the new Intercontinental Champion.

I was incredibly dangerous back then because I was

a single dude that had nothing else in his life to do but to focus on being

a professional wrestler and being the best one I could be. And I had an

that I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof.

They have no idea how big of a prick he really is.

But the thing about Sean was like...

He was the prick because you were mean to him because you were jealous.

And the thing is, nobody liked Sean except

for his boys until you saw his name across from yours on the TV list.

Anytime you get out there and do what you get paid to do, all of a sudden,

the best mother on earth.

That man doesn't know how to have a bad match.

We saw this man appear out of nowhere, out of left field, in Albany, New York,

when you recaptured the intercontinental title, this so -called bodyguard, this

insurance policy. What's his name? What's his name? His name's my insurance

policy. That's what it is. Oh, he's got to have a name. Does he talk?

Okay, no, I do the talking. You want to know what his name is? Yeah. I'll give

you the info. His name is Diesel, as in diesel fuel, that which...

Makes a Mack truck go. This is a Mack truck, and this man protects Shawn

Michaels every inch of the way. When we were thinking of a name for Shawn's

bodyguard, obviously we didn't want to use Kevin Nash or Benny Vegas or any of

those names that had been used.

And Diesel was a descriptive term. It was one name, and it was somebody that

was, you know, jacked and like a gym rat or something, but a tough guy.

I really didn't have a look or anything, and I'm not exactly an off -the -rack

guy. You know, now I've got to come up with a look, and this is back when

everybody's, everybody's, like, supporting that mullet hard.

I mean, this is just hockey haircut city.

Yeah, the mullet. Are you kidding?

Well, and that's another one. Who knew?

In my mind, I was growing my hair long, and...

At first, it's like growing it out now.

But you get to this curly part. You get to that uncomfortable phase on the

sides.

And so you go, I'll just cut that off.

Before you know it, you've got a full -blown mullet going.

I never figured that out until many, many years later until I got married.

You know what I mean? And then the woman goes, why don't you just let all your

hair grow out? Like nobody does that anymore.

Like, does what? A mullet.

What's a mullet? What you were wearing on your head. Like, oh.

He understood it.

It's a real champ's belt right here, people.

I always look at things in my life that are iconically cool.

I always thought the Elvis comeback on television was really cool.

That black outfit he had on.

So my job is to...

Be there?

So if I'm going to be there, I'm going to look good.

I'm going to look cool. I'm going to have my shades on.

I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to do anything until he rolls out.

I tighten the glove. I go. The referee cuts it off.

Meantime, I'm backing up.

Unbelievable. I had to break his jaw.

Oh, no.

You're too sweet.

Look at the look on Diesel's face. He's mad.

Don't get him mad.

We started getting heat and started getting heat.

Shawn Michaels, there is no way you can be happy walking out of the ring. A true

champion is laying on his back the way that you won.

All your questions have been answered.

Who is the greatest intercontinental champion?

The man that told them about Shawn Michaels.

When Kevin Nash came here, Kevin was not a polished performer by any stretch

of the imagination.

Welcome to the heart. Heartbreak Hotel.

What is this? The home of the Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels. Look at that lamp.

Oh, boy.

If you go back and you look at the early Heartbreak Hotels with Kevin Nash in

the background to Shawn's doing the promo and conducting the interviews,

had one thing to do, and that was this.

And he always used to say to me, he goes, hey, Bruce, I got my lines down.

So Kevin wasn't a great talker and Kevin wasn't a very good performer in the

ring. By putting Kevin with Shawn Michaels, who arguably is the greatest

performer. ever lace up a pair of boots, it gave Kevin the opportunity to learn

from the very best.

You know, we've got that tag match that we talked about coming up. Marty

Jannetty and Razor Ramon taking on Shawn Michaels and his henchman, his

bodyguard, whatever you want to call him, Diesel.

Well, a lot of folks think that Shawn Michaels just says, Diesel, here's what

want you to do. I want you to watch my back, keep the ladies off of me, make

sure that nobody attacks me.

That's not exactly true.

Earl Hebner here, set to start things off. For all intents and purposes,

their manager.

And sooner or later, that manager, that escort, or in my case, the bodyguard,

is going to be put in a situation where it becomes a tag match.

Oh, look at this.

Shawn Michaels tags in the awesome Diesel, who steps not through the rope.

That was my grad work.

Undergrad was WCW.

The audience saw this big, tough

guy that took no crap from anybody and could beat pretty much anyone on the

roster.

This is

secondhand. This is from

Lex. He says, you're going to be the champ, man. He says, I was standing

next to Vince.

He said he just kept saying, look at the size of him.

Uh -oh. Look at this.

Diesel doesn't care.

It's every man for himself in there. Remember that.

Hey, look at this. How about that?

Look at the size of him.

Look at his shoulders.

Look how big that man is.

Here comes Billy.

Uh -oh. You were saying?

Wow.

There goes Billy.

Unbelievable. He's 317.

He's 320.

And he's not exactly an ugly human being.

He wants all covers.

He wants them all.

Kev's a bright guy.

He's unbelievably entertaining, but he's intelligent as hell.

And he did pay attention, and he understood the combination of the art

psychology and timing.

When Shawn was 12 years old, Shawn Michaels wanted to be a pro wrestler. I

Scott wasn't far behind that. This is what these guys wanted to be.

I think both of those guys were able to impart into Kevin psychology and the

whys and why nots and the do's and don'ts of the business.

I

watched

why they did what they did, why they called different spots.

I learned it from that far from the ring.

And it was like that every night with those guys.

And then in a car, drive

300 miles, break it down, break it down, break it down, break it down, break it

down, break it down.

I think that was the whole thing. I think that was the nucleus of what later

became The Click was the three of us.

We were drinking some beer back then.

We were pounding food, training hard, drinking a lot

of beer.

There's an old WWE magazine.

It's like a Christmas version, and it's got kind of a roll.

And Sean's the kind of guy, too, like, he's having, like, as good a time as

anybody. But as soon as you see someone like that, he's like, come on, you guys.

Why didn't somebody smarten me like that?

Scott would be like, man, I told you, don't try to eat as much as a big man.

We're just kids. We're having a good time.

Marty and I were close.

But it was a different kind of close. Couldn't ask Marty again, like, you

so.

How do you, like, talk to girls like that?

You know what I mean? Like, if they don't know who I am from television, I

know, what's the opening line?

You see they're staring at you at the other side. You're staring at them.

You know, it's all really there. They're waiting for you to make the first move.

What is that move? You know what I mean?

Can I buy you a drink?

That just doesn't sound real.

I don't know. Hell, I don't know. So, again, it was stuff like that, and Kevin

was, you know, I think Kevin understood that.

that I could be very accomplished in this line of work.

But,

you know, in certain social areas, I was not that, you know, I got to be honest.

Loved my parents, wonderful upbringing, you know, but they didn't smart me up to

anything. I was able to bond with Kevin in a different way, in a very real -life

brotherly way that, you know, he helped me grow up some, and he did.

When Sean and I won the tag championships together, I'd never been a

champion in my life, and his whole career he was a tag wrestler, and he

out and became, you know, singles.

He just jumped up in my arms. I just remember we were holding the belts, and

looked at me and goes, I've never won these with anyone before.

Like, this is big, you know?

Well, I don't want to come out here and brag, but as a matter of fact, last

night in Indianapolis, Big Daddy, Cool Diesel, and myself, fortunately, are now

the new World Wrestling Federation tag team champions. Oh, come on!

You're going to die right now. You don't know how to look gorgeous.

Makeup took care of me. Thank you.

Makeup took care of me. He looks gorgeous?

He does. You look very handsome.

Thank you.

You know, Kevin and I are getting over it. This act is working.

And Ben's coming in and he goes, oh, my God. He goes, that's really working.

Diesel, man, he's getting over it.

And I said, yeah, no, he's freaking doing great.

But he starts talking about, we need to put the title on it. First thoughts are

in your head, like, I got a little something to do with this, don't I? I

for the love of Pete.

When you're with the same person all of the time, and people can relate to that

in relationships just in general. You have your ups and you have your downs,

a great tag team is no different.

And when you have two strong individual personalities like Shawn Michaels and

Kevin Nash, Diesel, then, you know, eventually they're going to have to go

separate ways.

Here comes the big boot! Oh, no!

Michael Shawn nails the seven -foot Diesel! This is the third time we've

this happen on television!

Nothing can stop him!

Michaels running for cover!

In the early 90s, WWE was at a crossroads, I guess is a nice way of

They were trying to sort of find a new identity. They were also sort of

out in real time that all the tricks that had worked in the 80s weren't going

work anymore.

Kevin was able, through his personality, to really excel.

Do I think he was ready at that point?

Not particularly.

However, was...

He the guy to kind of make a change and blow things up a little bit?

Definitely.

Right about here?

Vince will always have the desire to have the bigger -than -life comic book

hero.

Go ahead, let's shoot one.

So, I got my shot.

Vince? He put me up downtown.

I walked that day. I walked around a little bit.

I got in the arena. I was with my crew.

It's going to go down.

The current World Wrestling Federation champion, Mr.

Bob Ickler.

At that point, big title changes, I mean, might occasionally happen.

on another pay -per -view, but it was mostly like WrestleMania and SummerSlam.

These were the times where you were trained to think that the world title

change hands.

It was the most shocking thing ever.

I was so green.

You know, I mean, people don't understand that. Maybe they do.

You know, but like, Diesel, when he won, when he beat Bob Backlund, Diesel

hadn't had 200 matches.

You know, Sean lobbied to be the champion.

I mean, no hard feelings for me or him. I mean, it was just like, it was, I knew

that that was Sean's dream.

You know, and it wasn't mine.

I'm the champ.

I'll talk to you soon.

This is your game plan.

He's going to celebrate right now.

We all gave him this to have that moment.

Those of us, again, that wanted to do this from the little boy standpoint,

that's what you do. It's the belt.

Take a look at that, baby.

Somebody stop me, please.

It's an acknowledgement. It's affirmation.

It's one of those things where you, that is when you really begin to realize

just at the moment where you feel like that jealousy is going to set in, you're

overcome with, that's got to be very cool for him. And I, you know, and that

where it gets here.

You know, and I got to help with that.

I can remember in the garden just telling him, look, you know, I want you

know this is, I'm so, you know, I'm so proud of you. I hope you enjoy this

moment. This is, you know, this is cool. You know, again, yes, would I like to

have this someday for me? Yeah, but I got to tell you, don't ever let anybody

stir between us. Thank you very much.

No matter what you hear from anybody, I'm happy for you.

Let's go from there.

That's when you know friendship was real.

Can I refer to him as Kevin one time?

Yeah. We've called him Kevin before. You mind that, Kev? I don't know. That'd be

all right. I mean, I just figured.

Why, I would, wouldn't I?

I mean, it always happened. It would slip out in something.

It's straightforward, you know.

And I've got nothing to think about but you, Big Daddy Cool, Kevin, Diesel,

whoever you are. Shawn Michaels is going to hunt you down.

I don't think there's a better athlete on the planet than Shawn Michaels.

Athleticism, quickness, tenaciousness.

But the thing is, I'm the champion.

Hey, he's got to take this belt from me.

I don't think he's going to do it. I got news for you, pal.

People like you are a dime a dozen.

Somebody like me comes across once in a lifetime. And at

WrestleMania 11, the fans of the World Wrestling Federation are going to see a

once in a lifetime performance out of the Heartbreak Kid.

Those are the things that you sit in the car when you're riding up and down the

road, sort of daydreaming about, wouldn't it be cool?

You know, you and I were doing each other.

And it all gets to happen.

You could see both WWE was, like, trying to get their footing in the 90s to sort

of, like, figure out what pop culture was then and what was going to be

meaningful. Here is Home Improvement's Jonathan Taylor Thomas

and YPD Blue's Nicholas Totoro.

You know, and you could probably also see...

WWE trying to figure out whether or not Shawn Michaels and Diesel were enough to

carry a main event match.

They weren't even the main event. They put Lawrence Taylor and Bam Bam Bigelow

as the last match.

Normally in this situation, somebody like Shawn Michaels would probably be

that he wasn't in the main event, and I'm sure that he was. Normally you would

say, Shawn Michaels and whoever he was in the match with would probably be

all right, let's go burn the house down. Let's put on a match so good that they

can't even follow us.

That aspect of it was phenomenal.

I knew we'd have a good match.

Now we went off and tore it down.

You're watching the match. They're like the opening band.

And the lead guitarist is just like, forget the band. I'm going to play a

that nobody's ever going to forget.

And he like climbs up on an amp and turns it up and just wails for 30

Look at Michael. Look at that.

You're like, that might have been the most impressive feat I have ever seen

inside a wrestling ring because he took a match with like a bunch of celebrities

on the outside that wasn't even the main event and turned it into, I mean, a

really fantastic match.

You know, I remember WrestleMania 11 with Shawn versus Diesel.

I remember thinking, holy cow, Sean can do anything.

One thing that was great

with Sean was he was, you know, creating the motion around me.

I think we were some of the first guys that kind of got that.

All you had to do was throw him, cut him off, pick him up, throw him in the

corner.

Do a spin and land, and you could pretty much, by the time you got down to the

other side of the ropes, around the ring and walk to him, one of you two had

somewhere to go.

Stepping over the top rope, going right after Shawn Michaels.

There's a lot of shift and a lot of change going on in the wrestling

and certainly at that time, I felt like I was one of the guys leading that

charge.

It is a work of art, right? It's such a thing of beauty when you see him going

out there. But it wasn't just the high spots.

There were all these moments where, like, I mean, it's super weird to think

about it. Kevin Nash has about a foot on Shawn Michaels, but is playing the,

like, babyface in peril at times in this match.

In storytelling terms, you could see...

What Kevin Nash and what Shawn Michaels, by extension, were doing was like 80s

main event WWE shtick, right?

And then as the match went on, it became,

well, it started becoming the 90s.

It's an art. And the genesis of a lot of my trouble with everybody was we were,

you know, I felt we were transitioning from, you know, the traditional way the

wrestling business has always been to what it needed to be.

We were trying to tell them about the Attitude Era three years before it ever

happened.

Sid, it's the day after WrestleMania.

Waist is looking pretty good, but no WWF championship bout. How do you feel?

Big Daddy Cool, since we're such good friends, I

graciously accept your invitation to a rematch.

All right?

Look, look, as far as Sid is concerned,

I can live my life just fine without a bodyguard, thank you.

I'm going to do you a favor, big man.

In this rematch, I'm giving you the night off.

As far as...

sort of go full circle.

It was such a great story.

In case you haven't noticed, Doc, the Heartbreak Kid is in the process of

righting all the wrong in his life.

And it is time for Big Daddy Cool and the Heartbreak Kid to move on to bigger

and better things.

Shaw was a rhymer.

We were the pricks with all the chicks.

Like, he would say stuff like that, and it was just like, you know, two dudes

with attitudes.

Two dudes with attitudes, composing Yokozuna.

And Danny Boy Smith, who is officially, for this night only, a WWF Tag Team

Champion. I'm the Intercontinental Champion.

Kevin's the WWE Champion.

You can't help but think about it. Well, look, they've got us together. We're

two dudes with attitudes.

Has anybody ever had all the titles before?

Oh, my goodness. How much heat would we have?

We know the history of Michaels and WWF Champion Big Danny Cool Diesel.

We know they were the best of friends, and then from there, we know that

friendship was busted wide open, but now they're back together.

We beat the illegal guy, but at the same time, it was the perfect photo op of me

and Sean having all the gold that was available at the time.

Bing, bang, boom, Bob's your uncle. Kevin and I have all the championships

the WWE, and the locker room hates us.

No, we're not only two dudes with attitudes, but we're two chaps with all

strengths.

You know, a lot of people tell stories about how they were standoffish at the

time. Nobody liked them. People will talk about how they were bad for

or, you know, they had a bad influence on Vince or whatever.

I mean, I'm sure all of that is true.

I'm sure it probably also has to do with the fact that they were all just

hanging out and cutting up backstage and, like, getting over in the process.

mean... I'm not saying everybody was jealous, but it had to be a contributing

factor, right?

Any other line of work or any other two perfectly normal human beings would go

like, oh, no, we don't need that.

We relished it. We thought, oh, my goodness, how cool would that be?

I mean, that was the thing that I guess years later, you know, you look at it.

They're cool stories to tell now.

But in real time, you shouldn't enjoy having people hate you as much as we

You know, if you haven't noticed by now, we're the champs. We do whatever we

want.

Really bad decision to give those guys all that gold at that time because there

was nowhere to go, unfortunately.

You had two strong individuals, and now you had the tag team, and keeping them

as a team just wasn't going to work, and that wasn't a long -term goal.

So it was kind of a...

in the moment decision as a jaded old fan it's hard to look

back at sean michaels and diesel holding the world title the ic title the tag

team titles and not just think like wow they must have had a lot of pull

backstage right but at the time you know you're watching it growing up or

whatever and you're just and it's like these two guys are they're just cool

right

Hero or villain, baby face or heel, these guys are cool. And for a whole

generation of wrestling fans, this is probably the first time that you found

yourself cheering for a villain, right? And it was because they had cool hair

and sunglasses and they didn't care about your rules. They were like, you

they defied expectations in so many ways.

So it was like, I was a grown man. I was 34, 35 years old.

Like, it's time that, you know.

This is great. I love doing this, you know, but I want to get paid.

Yes, it's about the WWF championship. Two great competitors are clashing.

So Nash

had done a lot of.

failed gimmicks before he was Diesel, right? I mean, when he came to WWE, he

wasn't, like, going to the highest bidder. He was going to the only bidder.

There weren't a lot of people who were, like, trying to recruit Kevin Nash, as

wild as that may seem.

I mean, Hulk Hogan was already there in WCW. Macho Man Randy Savage. They had

started signing some of the old guard of pro wrestling away from WWE.

But Kevin Nash was, like, the first, like, contemporary like present tense

a star like this generation who decided to go explore his options right i mean

he like he went out and saw what how much money he could make from the

competition and it was a lot of money and he took it i want to have several

million dollars i want to have security i want to i want to live the american

dream

The boyhood dream has come true for Shawn Michaels.

It just was at that point, you know, Shawn was always going to be, Shawn

to be a wrestler.

I wanted to be wealthy.

It was purely personal.

You know, it's all about your buddies. And again, we spent so much time

together, and they're leaving.

Then all of a sudden, whatever turns into this huge kumbaya moment or

You know, and of course, the people there are eating it up. And the

you says, well, they're buying it. Let's keep going.

I was standing in the aisle watching the end of the match when the curtain call

took place.

I watched it all the way through to Sean getting down and kissing Diesel and

Diesel miraculously coming to and left shortly thereafter.

I hated it. I thought it was disrespectful.

You have to look at it in the moment and in the time in which it took place.

So me being an old school guy, I absolutely hated it.

Was it a moment in time that you saw the winds of change?

Yep, sure was.

But being in the moment during that time, not a fan.

From Sean's standpoint, Sean is looking at me and Scott going, you

motherfuckers.

You guys let me put you over around the world.

Have five -star matches.

You guys are both cashing in on it.

And you're taking two of my five best guys for me not to work with. I could

a nine -month run with each of you two.

He was pissed.

He had every reason to be.

I mean, I heard a lot of talk.

But where's the walk?

Where is...

last week that he was going to bring somebody out here.

I'm here.

Bring what you got.

The measuring stick just changed around here, buddy. You're looking at it.

I would say Kevin learned a lot from me from, again, inside the ring, pro

wrestling, the art.

They are tag team champions.

That's the glue that binds this tag team together.

And no doubt they are awesome together.

But I learned a lot from Kevin Nash about business.

He saw my love and my passion, my dedication and my loyalty to

this job and my commitment and also saw that, dude, if you're not careful,

they'll take every bit of that and you'll have nothing for you. He helped

balance that with...

The other side of it's okay to give all that, Sean, but for the love of God,

man, make sure you get yours as well.

Wow. Two dudes with attitude definitely sums up. Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash.

Diesel. I think that without Shawn, that I'm not sure that Kevin

would have rose nearly as quickly as he did. I think Kevin had the type of

personality that he was going to make it.

Would he have made it as quickly as he did without Sean? I don't think he would

have. And would Sean have been as big? Probably so. But I think that

Sean was even bigger and helped make a lot of guys along the way. And one of

those, and probably the biggest one, that Sean made was Kevin Nash.

There's never been anybody that's done sports entertainment, pro wrestling,

grappling, catch, whatever you want to call it.

There's nobody that was close to Shawn Michaels. With

the shortest match of all

time on my record books, this may be the... Thank you very much. On behalf of

myself, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you.

I did it my way. Yeah.

I've spent more time with those guys than I have anybody else, you know, in

world.

Look, we're all uncomfortably close.

If Shawn Michaels doesn't pick me of all the other guys, if Shawn Michaels

doesn't come into my life, then all these fruits that I have are probably

going to be there.

Ladies and gentlemen, WWE Hall of Famer, Kevin Nash.

I've never met a person in my life I would rather be than me.

I've been blessed, man.

And I don't know how many guys can say that.

I did what I did, man. I don't have any regrets.

They don't get you anyplace.

He's also the guy that, again, when I was still struggling two years into my

marriage, the end of 2001 or beginning of 2002, I called him in

a... in a stupor, I believe.

And then the next day I called him back like, hey, man, I'm sorry I called you

last night. And he said, yeah, you were a little bit out of it.

He's like, dude, you've got a wife and kid now.

You've got to stop, you know, you've got to stop taking that stuff.

Get your shit together.

I love you, but get your shit together.

48 hours, you know, talk to him, talk to Hunter.

Talked to old Jesus upstairs, my wife and everybody else. And between all of

we decided I'd get my together and, you know, change the rest of my life. And so

never looked back since.