Original subtitles

[overlapping chatter]

‐ That way he's standing,

I mean, it looks like it's higher, right?

Because you do that from the second rope.

Boom!

This job to me is the greatest life that I could ever live.

For years people told me I was too small,

that I couldn't do this and I couldn't do that

and I wasn't going to make it.

And I've shoved it in everybody's face.

No time‐outs in this, man.

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

So in the meantime, I'm going to be popular with me,

and I'm going to be the best.

‐ There are definitely two lives of Shawn Michaels.

You know, there's who he was before...

‐ You will not ever in your lives

see a man more charismatic,

more flamboyant, or more talented

than the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels.

‐ The greatest in‐ring performer of all time.

Being a prick comes natural to Shawn.

It did. He was a dick.

‐ The showstopper, the headliner, the main event.

‐ There was so much bad blood between us,

and I was always like, "If I see him, I'll kill him."

I had so much anger about it.

‐ Nobody steals my spotlight. I want it all.

‐ Shawn Michaels could do absolutely anything,

any style to perfection with anyone.

When the bell rings, no one is as good as Shawn.

‐ I will give you a show

like you have never ever seen before.

Why? Because I can.

‐ The only man to win every major title.

‐ You can't say anybody was better, but also tormented.

He was, like, on self‐destruct mode.

‐ I just knew that he didn't love himself.

There was something in him that he despised.

‐ If you're taking pain pills at 12 in the afternoon,

belligerent, falling down, staggering,

everything that you have in your life is this.

And it's all going away.

‐ On more than one occasion,

I really wanted to beat the hell out of Shawn,

but I knew there was a good man

behind all this other crap.

‐ The biggest thing that he ever did

is turning his life around

to where he is now.

‐ And so, yep, there are two lives there.

But there's one Shawn Michaels.

‐ The very best sports entertainer in the world.

[rock music plays]

[tense music]

‐ I love it. I say this. I say we‐‐again‐‐

Vince used to always tell me "You go all the way out there,

I'll reel you back in if I want to,"

you know what I mean?

‐ NXT started out as a developmental brand

that grooms WWE superstars.

‐ Any kind of count up, DQ, or whatever ends the match.

‐ There's Shawn's fingerprints in almost every talent in NXT.

Shawn is very hands on.

‐ Then he sits up behind him and then whack!

‐ He sold out arenas all around the world

when he was the Heartbreak Kid.

He's in a different place in his life now.

He's humble, he wants to be behind the scenes.

It isn't about him.

He wants to help others achieve their dreams.

You've got to say it with passion and anger.

‐ Here we go, guys, three, two, one.

‐ Seeing Shawn today,

it's sometimes hard for people to believe

that's Shawn Michaels.

Certain levels of talent

command certain levels of respect.

‐ Just attack of Johnny Gargano.

‐ Oh, jeez.

‐ I added the plexiglass.

‐ His knowledge and his wisdom of the business

and all that stuff, it's so valuable.

So excellent job. Yeah, go, you got this.

‐ Shawn Michaels' life is a story

that a lot of people could relate to.

He always wanted more.

It was a life of never enough.

And then, his life totally changes.

A lot of us have that, if we're lucky.

I think the Shawn Michaels story is one that's really cool

and one that all of us can stand to learn from.

[twangy guitar]

‐ I was born into a military family.

My father was in the Air Force.

It was Michael Shawn Hickenbottom,

but everybody in my family called me Shawn.

My father was a pilot, so early on we moved a lot.

He was going to Vietnam.

We went to England, then Maryland

and then we moved to Texas.

I was about eight‐ish.

From that point on, I was in the state of Texas.

You don't have long‐lasting friendships in the Air Force.

The hardest part for making friends

was having the last name.

The roll call, Hickenbottom, Michael Hickenbottom.

You could hear the snickers all over the room.

Hickenbottom. And, of course...

It's like, "Son of a biscuit,

I wish I had a different last name."

‐ Shawn was well‐loved.

He was always very quiet and very shy growing up.

He wasn't an extrovert.

T a good, friendly, nice little boy.

And people liked him.

He was involved in sports all of his life.

He just enjoyed doing everything.

‐ I was a big fan of playing football,

because of the contact.

You know, contact and athletics were appealing to me.

And then I'm 12 years old,

getting to stay up late on a Saturday night,

and this wrestling show starts.

Southwest Championship Wrestling.

The beginning montage,

the guy is slow motion jumping off the top rope.

I was enthralled in it. It was just‐‐[laughs]

I don't know, the neatest thing I ever saw.

‐ The best in professional wrestling and I'm‐‐

‐ After the show, I walked out

and my mom was in the kitchen.

I said, "I know what I'm going to do when I grow up."

And she said, "What's that?"

I said, "I'm going to be a professional wrestler."

She was like, "Oh, that's nice, honey."

‐ He began to talk about that's what he wanted to do,

and I was sure that ultimately he would grow out of that,

but he never did.

‐ Down at the Freeman Coliseum,

Shawn would periodically get to go,

and, oh, he saw Tully Blanchard.

‐ Wahoo McDaniel, Eddie Mansfield, Scott Casey.

‐ Of course, then later, Ric Flair was a wrestling god,

and he would buy wrestling magazines,

and he would look at Ric Flair,

and then he would stand in the mirror,

and try to talk like him and look like him.

‐ Being a wrestling fan,

it was really a black sheep source of mockery.

It's not something you say with a great deal of pride.

It was just a relationship

between me and wrestling for a while

and my dad was an amateur wrestler

at the University of Iowa, so he was a real wrestler.

And, of course, he just gave some gruff like, "That's fake."

The kindest thing I could say about it was

I considered it to be an athletic soap opera,

which has always been my description

of professional wrestling.

‐ Then a new kid gets transferred.

His name is Kenny Kent.

I met Shawn the summer of 1980.

We were sophomores in high school. Both 15.

He would want to wrestle and throw around his friends,

and they didn't like it.

And so I instantly became his little tag team partner

and we would just bash each other

and throw each other around,

and that's really what developed our friendship.

‐ They'd practice out in the pool. Frightening.

[laughs]

Shawn would lift him straight him, Kenny,

and then they'd fall into the pool.

His way of practicing.

‐ Shawn dreamed of wrestling.

He would call me and tell me these matches

that he would lay out and prepare.

He was really obsessed with it.

[crowd cheering]

‐ In that time, you struggled back and forth

with people who are telling you it's fake,

but I am there watching the guy‐‐whap!

I mean, hitting the guy and sweat's flying off.

There's something to it.

They've got me hook, line, and sinker.

‐ We were a very small school.

We did not have a wrestling team.

But our senior year, we had a talent show

and it was Shawn's idea

that me and him were gonna do a wrestling match.

Everything was going quite well

until I threw Shawn off the stage into the crowd,

and beat his head on the table a couple of times.

There was just blood gushing all over his head.

And people are going nuts.

‐ I think we came in second. We didn't win.

‐ We got beat by a group of cheerleaders

so, you know, two guys in little tightie whities

versus cheerleaders, they're gonna win every time.

‐ We graduate,

and then it's "What are you gonna do?"

Well, have you decided what you want?"

"I still want to be a wrestler."

I recognized that I said it when I was 12,

but it's just been a big, big part of my life.

Okay, that's awesome. That's not a possibility.

‐ But, you know, at 17, you look at him and you think

you don't know what you're talking about.

We said, "You're going to college."

‐ There wasn't a lot of open understanding

in what I was doing.

‐ We went off to Southwest Texas State University.

When we lived together at college,

there were many nights I would hear him

and he's standing there with his shirt off

and he'd be talking and screaming at the mirror,

practicing.

At the end of his second semester,

I think his GPA was 0.4.

School just wasn't for him,

and he was ready to make his move into the wrestling world.

‐ Essentially, he said,

"I don't want to waste anymore of my time or your money.

I am going to be a professional wrestler."

‐ My dad played golf with this guy,

and apparently he's the guy that's a local promoter

here in San Antonio.

We go down there, and Jose Lothario was there.

‐ From San Antonio, Texas, superstar Jose Lothario.

‐ I understood he was a legitimate name.

The gentleman stated "Well, he has to be trained.

"Jose could do the training if you wanted.

It's gonna cost $3,000."

‐ I thought about facing him

when he was 35 or 40 years old,

and having him say

"Dad, if you'd have just given me the chance,

I could have been a professional wrestler."

And I couldn't face that thought.

And so I said, "What the hell."

[soft music]

‐ You know, I wake up every day

never forgetting what I did for a living.

I sort of developed a habit getting up in the morning,

stretching and then the heat pad.

Over the years, you just come up with a system

that your body responds well to.

I do some form of training every day, you know,

to be comfortable for the rest of the day.

I plan on getting, you know, new knees, knee replacements

and shoulder replacements.

Those things are gonna add to my quality of life.

It's not like I got into this stuff thinking

I want to be independently wealthy and be 100% healthy.

That doesn't happen.

So I don't know, I don't mind it.

I don't think that's some big, crazy sacrifice.

♪

[upbeat music playing]

‐ I first came across Shawn Michaels in 1983.

Shawn was training with a gentleman

by the name of Jose Lothario.

Jose was a big star in Houston, Texas,

Dallas, San Antonio.

‐ He was Hispanic, so there was a Luchador style.

It was the aerial side of things.

Thankfully, in all of that process,

he saw that, "Oh, my goodness, he's actually pretty good."

It was worth the $3,000, period,

for him to get me my first job in Louisiana,

and that could not have happened

without Jose Lothario.

‐ The pride of Vero Beach, Florida, Terry Taylor.

‐ The first time I met Shawn Michaels

working for Mid‐South,

there was this young, innocent, cheerful,

vibrant sort of

lost young man.

‐ I was scared of everything.

It was a lot of confusion, a lot of unknown.

How in God's name is this supposed to go on?

[upbeat music]

I came walking through the back,

and Terry Taylor was standing there at the curtain.

‐ I said, "How long have you been in the business?"

And he goes, "That was my first match."

And I couldn't believe it, because this isn't easy.

‐ Shawn Michaels.

A very young man, and very inexperienced,

but he has a great deal of natural athletic ability.

‐ We drove 3,000 miles a week.

That means there's a lot of time

that you're in the car doing this,

and he would ask questions.

‐ A young man who is quite handsome.

‐ I was very well mannered, I was quiet,

and I wanted to do nothing but learn.

‐ Some young people come in, "I know everything."

Nothing like that with Shawn.

Humble, passionate, driven, hungry.

[crowd cheers]

‐ At about six months, the owner, Bill Watts,

came to me and he got me set up in Kansas City.

I was going to have the opportunity to begin

to grow as a wrestler, as a performer.

‐ We're hearing all this, like,

this guy Shawn Michaels, Shawn Michaels is coming in.

We're like, "Damn, nobody has gotten

"any attention like this.

What's wrong with us?"

We walked in the dressing room

and this guy had real short hair,

green tights pulled up to under his chest.

Let me ask this nerd, like,

"Hey, do you know who Shawn Michaels is?"

And he leaned back he goes, "I'm Shawn Michaels."

[laughs]

I was like, "Oh, damn, we got some work to do."

They threw us together because

they needed a match real quick.

We didn't have time to prepare for it, but it clicked.

‐ Marty Jannetty.

‐ Marty just carried himself with such confidence.

He was enjoying himself. He was outgoing.

I was so sort of shy, conservative.

‐ Shawn Michaels.

‐ Shawn came from a military family.

Shawn was protected from a lot of the evils

that lurk in the real world

and having some notoriety, being on television,

you've got women, you've got alcohol, you've got drugs.

And it's all readily available to you.

‐ Yeah, he liked it right away.

At first, he wasn't old enough,

so he had to wait in the parking lot.

We'd bring girls down to him and beer down to him.

‐ Marty Jannetty one day said,

"I see something in you that's just dying to get out."

He said, "You just need somebody

"to bring it out of you,

and I'm gonna bring it out."

‐ From the Showboat Hotel and Casino

in Las Vegas, Nevada,

this is AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN.

‐ So, I was 20 years old.

TV tapings are in Las Vegas.

At that time, Marty and I, you know,

I knew he was out there,

so we just started looking around.

[upbeat music]

All of a sudden there he is, he's down there playing.

And go down there,

and I went and just do‐do‐do, pulled it down.

‐ I'm sitting there with him,

and all of the sudden we hear this,

"Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding."

Red lights go flashing around, and Shawn hit triple 7s.

Won 750 bucks the first time.

The irony of it now, like, oh, this place was‐‐

Vegas and the nightlife of Vegas

and everything else would be my down‐‐

[laughs] Would be my downfall.

It started later that night.

It's the first line of yayo, you know.

[laughs] The first line of blow.

And it's, "Oh, my gosh, this is the greatest thing ever."

And it's just this whole world opens up.

I'd have never been able to get that guy out of me,

and Marty is the guy that helped tap into that.

I don't even know how much I knew was there.

♪

‐ Me and Shawn partied Monday night, Tuesday night,

Wednesday night, Thursday night.

Come Friday, we were burned out.

Big Van Vader, he comes to hang out with us.

He looked at Curt Hennig and he goes,

"I thought you said these guys partied."

And Curt said, "They don't start until midnight."

‐ The Midnight Rockers.

What a sensational pair they are.

‐ It was like magic. The Judas Priest song come on.

‐ They love to party.

‐ They've taken the AWA by storm.

‐ The move happening faster

than we can even talk about it.

‐ They've got to put a bigger roof on the arenas

to hold these two kids in it.

‐ These two are indeed sensational,

to say the least.

‐ ♪ Living after midnight

♪ Rocking 'til the dawn

[crowd cheering]

‐ Midnight Rockers had a hell of a run in the AWA.

They'd had TV on ESPN.

‐ The World Tag Team Championship

is Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels' goal.

‐ They were smaller guys,

but they could work with the giants

and have a great match.

[crowd cheering]

‐ The Tag Team Championship of the World

is what they are fighting for here tonight.

‐ I think he cracked his head on the cement

when he went out there.

‐ The blood match, if you will,

was the first time that a national audience got exposed

to the talent of the Midnight Rockers.

‐ This is absolute mayhem.

‐ The match itself was very bloody, very gory.

‐ One of the toughest, roughest matches

that we have ever seen.

‐ That was kind of like

a defining moment in their career,

that they were made at that level.

‐ If we was on the road 300 days a year,

we partied 290 of them.

[laughs]

We used to do a lot of drugs.

There was a lot of powder around.

‐ You look at rock stars and you look at rock bands.

There was a tendency to want to go wild and destroy things.

It's fun when you're young,

because you feel like a rebel.

We've made it, man. Look at this.

And throw a beer bottle up against the wall,

and it was, like, oh, we'll pay for it later.

‐ We always did the job,

but it was just partying all night.

Destroy your room at the Showboat

and we got the entire, uh, AWA,

the entire company got kicked out of there.

It wasn't very long that we had a reputation.

And once you get it, everybody else knows you got it.

WWE was starting to really separate itself.

If that's where you wanted to go,

that's where you set your goals.

Finally, Marty got the call to go into New York.

‐ In 1987, the Rockers started in Buffalo, New York.

Marty and Shawn looked at this as their big break.

That night in the bar,

the other talent looked at Shawn and Marty

as these two young punks with a chip on their shoulder.

They're gonna have to earn

the respect of the WWE locker room.

‐ We were scared, man. We were scared.

So that night, that's why we kind of kept to ourselves,

and Terry Garvin come up and he said,

"No, don't do that.

Don't do that. Y'all have to mingle."

‐ And then all of a sudden Jimmy Jack Funk, he came over.

He's hammering down these drinks and he's like, "Hey!

You guys are big partiers!"

He starts eating his glass. "Come on let's do it."

I at least gotta be a little tough.

So then I break a wine glass over my head.

And that was it, I turn around, I leave.

I would never say we didn't earn

our reputations, any of that,

but the wrestling business

is one giant fish story, all right?

So something happened once in the wrestling business,

that gets magnified to ten times.

‐ Some people say

that Shawn or Marty threw a beer bottle,

which started a chain of events that couldn't be stopped.

‐ "And then these two guys,

"I mean, they're in there just getting crazy,

tearing up the bar, throwing stuff all over the place."

And that's not at all what happened.

‐ The next day, Shawn and Marty were fired,

and it was over for them after one day,

from just the story and the hearsay and innuendo.

‐ I normally give reasons as to, you know,

why I'm gonna do something and I'm sure I did with them,

but that was one and done, out.

‐ He said, "The guys don't like it."

He said, "They won't let you make it here."

In my mind, I'm 23 and it's over.

That was my one big shot.

It happened now and it's gone.

‐ Take a look at Takeover.

We'll watch it, and I'll Skull you.

‐ Okay.

[laughs]

‐ Shawn Michaels put his heart and soul

into being the best pro wrestler

that he could possibly be,

and he does the exact same thing

as a coach and as producer.

‐ Stop there and look at each other.

Can that stuff take a little longer?

‐ He will find ways to pick apart

every little thing to make it better.

‐ Aim for the head.

You can't hold back on that,

because that's gonna cause you not to get all the way around.

‐ Shawn has this amazing ability

to instill a confidence in you.

This was a tremendous bout.

‐ I mean, someone like Shawn Michaels

gives that to you, that's all the motivation that you need.

[laughter]

[crowd cheering]

‐ The unfortunate by-product

of Shawn and Marty being fired after their first day in WWE

is Marty and Shawn had burned their bridge in the AWA.

Where do you go?

And welcome once again

to Continental Championship Wrestling and we have‐‐

‐ We ended up in Birmingham, Alabama.

Continental Wrestling.

I was wrestling in front of 25 people

at 300 bucks a week.

If you wanted to get $50 in cash,

you get your other $50 in blow, you could do that.

Which is probably what I did nine times out of ten.

‐ I heard him talk about how depressed he was.

At that time, we was doing a lot of cocaine.

And we would talk about wrestling

and we would watch wrestling videos and we would study.

I had to go home to my girlfriend

like at two or three or four in the morning.

Sometimes the next morning sun was out.

And evidently, the way he says it,

I let him down 'cause I didn't stay with him more

and he was by himself.

When you're doing cocaine, you don't want to be alone.

[laughs]

‐ When you're up at 4:00 in the morning

coming down from the yayo, that's like, it's very dreary.

Because the low is just so really low.

I was like, "Man, if I had a gun,

"this is one of those times

that I was reckless enough to have the balls to do it."

At that time, it would have wrecked my parents.

You know, their suffering is what pulled me back from that.

But the thing is I never told them the truth.

So I'm not telling like, "Jeez, Mama, I'm just partying,

getting hammered and doing blow."

‐ Shawn and Marty, they wanted to come back.

I remember Pat Patterson giving them the advice

to continue to work

and continue to reverse the reputation that you have,

and prove to us that you belong.

And that's what Marty and Shawn did.

‐ Pat was instrumental in saying,

"Vince, he's a great talent."

and it is difficult for me to make that decision,

because he was a jerk.

I mean, doing some stupid things.

But Pat was right.

‐ I was there in '88 when they came back.

It had been a year

since the Rockers had kinda screwed up on their first day.

‐ We're gonna bring you back, but you're on probation.

You know, keep your [bleep] together.

Yes, sir.

‐ Two newcomers, the Rockers.

These guys are excitement personified.

They'll be high flying.

‐ I met Shawn in 1990.

They were pretty much, you know, fun loving guys.

They even tested me a little bit with their,

you know, their antics.

Actually, you know, they were both pretty much peckerheads.

I mean, I've got to call a spade a spade.

‐ The Rockers have got a bag full of tricks

and you ain't seen nothing yet,

so get ready, because here we come.

Wow!

‐ They were definitely innovators

doing tandem moves together.

You know, such a cohesive unit.

The fans went nuts for them, especially the women.

You know, the long hair and all that.

‐ There was a transitional moment

happening in the business

where the athleticism was picking up.

The ability to do things that Shawn and Marty could do.

‐ Oh, what a backdrop!

‐ Tag team wrestling now

has been impacted a great deal by what Marty and I did.

[camera shutter clicking]

‐ The first time you ever make a magazine is huge,

and we would always go to the stores,

stop and look at the magazine racks.

I remember one time I heard Shawn "Oh, my God!"

And there was a picture of us.

It said "From Imitators To Innovators"

and he's holding it up and he was so proud

and I was, like, "Oh, man! Yeah, we did it!

‐ Shawn Michaels,

Marty Jannetty, the Rockers.

‐ That's a real notch in the belt,

to be on Saturday night's main event.

‐ Saturday night's main event

was finally going to be the Rockers

winning the Tag Team Championship

against Bret Hart and Jim the Anvil Neidhart.

‐ It was gonna be five stars.

It was gonna be as good a match as we ever had.

[crowd cheering]

‐ We're in the process of having that match,

and all of a sudden, the rope breaks.

Bret, the consummate pro,

he understands it's not live, it's taped.

We can fix all this.

‐ It's taped. All you've got to do

is grab a hold and then they'll fix it

and then you're still in that hold,

then the match can carry on.

And I told them, I said, "Just fix the rope."

"Fix the rope, fix the rope. We'll take care of this."

And then we get word, just to continue without it,

so that's what we do.

‐ It was a disaster, and I was so sick about it.

‐ We get our championship victory.

We are doing our best to look excited

in what is this huge steaming pile of crap in the ring.

‐ It just looked horrible.

So the match never aired.

‐ Vince calls me and said,

"We're not going to acknowledge that you've won.

You're going to give the belts back.

[scoffs]

‐ Like, okay.

Are we gonna have another opportunity?

No, probably just gonna go in other directions.

Unbelievably disappointed,

because that's not what you imagine that moment being.

Done, it's over.

[crowd cheering]

‐ We were on the road 300 days a year for years.

The same hotels, same rental car,

some of the same girls.

[crowd cheering]

‐ He kicked his own partner

right in the face.

‐ I remember we were in Denver.

Roddy Piper came in our room and we had a few girls there,

and Roddy kept bragging on Shawn.

‐ He was stirring up the pot as far as saying,

you know, I could be a singles and, you know,

have great success and things like that.

And he'd look at me and go "We've got to work on you.

You're still rough around the edges."

I was like, "Roddy, shouldn't we talk

about that some other time?"

And Shawn shoved me at that point.

[overlapping chatter]

‐ Everybody got in a fight

because everybody was not in their best frame of mind,

like all the time.

‐ And he attacked me in the hallway

and then I didn't want to hit him once, let alone,

you know, over and over. Had blood.

Like, it looked like you'd, you know, gutted a deer

or something.

‐ There was speculation that Marty Jannetty

and Shawn Michaels are not getting along.

There was speculation that Shawn Michaels

is kinda wanting to go on his own.

‐ All of my success at that point

was Tag Team, but there was never a time in my career

where someone didn't say to me,

like, "I think you've got some talent."

It was eventually gonna come down to me.

I remember the first time he told me,

"I want to be the World Champion one day.

I don't want to tag the rest of our career."

"I just need you to let me know when you're ready for that.

Don't spring it on me."

And then he sprung it on me anyway.

Welcome to the Barbershop, ladies and gentlemen.

Let's welcome them right now. They're the Rockers.

[audience cheering]

Recently there's been a lot of controversy,

a lot of rumors flying guys.

Maybe you guys are gonna break up.

You've been having some problems.

‐ I didn't become familiar with Shawn

until he showed up in WWE with Marty Jannetty as the Rockers.

That's my first introduction to Shawn Michaels.

‐ See, one without the other isn't any good.

Oh! Oh, I knew he was gonna do that.

I just knew he was gonna do that.

[overlapping chatter]

Oh, my God!

‐ I would argue the Barbershop window

was the greatest tag team breakup of all time.

It is the standard bearer for turning on a friend.

‐ The super kick? Oh, he laid it in.

[laughs] Oh, he got me back for Denver.

[laughs]

Is there a problem with the Rockers?

‐ It was so effective

that it makes Shawn one of the most hated men in wrestling.

Shawn Michaels changed forever that day.

‐ I had this strange thing with Marty,

because without him,

so much of the good doesn't happen for me.

But there's a ceiling on being a tag team, period,

when it's called a leading man as opposed to a leading duo.

It's just a natural evolution.

Now everybody is gonna find out

what Shawn Michaels has known all along,

that he is, without a doubt,

the hottest thing in the WWE

has ever, ever laid eyes on.

[rock music playing]

♪

‐ The Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels, was something

that Shawn just pretty much came up with.

I don't think that anybody really mapped out

The Heartbreak Kid.

‐ It's sort of an Elvis meets Freddie Mercury.

‐ Shawn Michaels is leavin' the building!

‐ It was allowing me a vehicle to let this other person out.

To get out there in front of a bunch of people

and you can‐‐wow, you can just be somebody you've never been.

‐ Has this guy got it all or what?

No, I don't know where all that came from,

I really don't.

He figured Shawn Michaels could do whatever he wanted to.

What, an alter ego maybe.

The Kentucky waterfall mullet alone,

probably one of the greatest mullets of all time.

The dangling earrings, the Village People outfit.

Your girlfriend wants him,

you're gonna go over and kick his ass,

but maybe he's gonna kick yours and take her anyway.

And that's where his heat was.

‐ I was a pretty kid.

I was a pretty man, I don't mind telling you, at one time.

I could play the part of Mr. Confident

and everything else,

and could do everything under the sun.

Couldn't do a lick.

Elvis and Freddie Mercury were onstage,

they were so frickin' positive,

but in their lives they struggled.

There was something there between me

and those individuals that I could relate to.

You are not comfortable with who you are,

you're not comfortable with yourself.

Not knowing who I was as a human being,

out there you're playing this role,

but you can do it with just unbridled confidence

and you absolutely cannot do it

by yourself in your own hotel room.

I am a high‐performance,

state‐of‐the‐art wrestling machine.

‐ I think any great character will be confused

between the human being and the character,

and Shawn Hickenbottom kinda morphed into the Heartbreak Kid

at all times.

Shawn was becoming a little bit more difficult.

And the Intercontinental title

is coming to the sexiest man, hey.

‐ The WWE was still the land of the giants,

and there were still a lot of big guys,

and Shawn wanted to break through

what he considered a glass ceiling of,

"I'm not six‐foot‐eight, I'm not 300 pounds.

I wanna be what I am, and I wanna be the guy."

‐ When you are that talented

and that hell‐bent on succeeding,

but you have the chip on your shoulder

of being the little guy

to get to where he needed to be,

he had to stand his ground,

he had to fight for what he wanted.

‐ I was at the very least as good

or better than, you know, anybody else

that I was sharing a locker room with.

I was getting an opportunity

that not many guys like me were gonna get.

‐ We got a new Intercontinental Champion!

‐ Shawn may have been six‐one,

but his ego and the chip on his shoulder

made him nine‐foot‐five.

‐ Shawn Michaels,

he's our Intercontinental Champion!

‐ '92‐'93,

Intercontinental Champion at the time,

looking for Shawn to really step up

and become a huge star for us.

‐ One thing I did have

is I wasn't scared of anything.

I was the most dangerous person in the world

'cause I had nothing to lose.

And when you are like that in a creative line of work,

you are frickin' unbeatable.

‐ Welcome to WrestleMania 10!

[cheers and applause]

‐ In the process of studying Shawn Michael's matches,

the one that many people go back to

is the infamous ladder match.

The match that Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramone made famous

at WrestleMania 10.

‐ We are making history here.

‐ So right before WrestleMania 10, leading up,

there was a suspension with Shawn,

where Shawn had been out of the company for a while.

Shawn left as the Intercontinental Champion.

‐ Yeah, he failed a drug test for 'roids.

At that time, brother,

pills were bein' passed around in bars.

Like, guys go, "Here, man.

Canadian Valium, here take this."

‐ Shawn did not feel

that he should have been suspended, was pissed off.

Vince didn't wanna put up with him,

thought he was an out of control egomaniac.

‐ And they'd tell Shawn to send the belt back

and he says, "No, I'm not sending it back."

‐ Shawn decides he wants to come back.

Well, Razor's the Intercontinental Champion.

‐ So take both championship belts,

hang 'em above the ring,

you fight to climb the ladder,

whoever gets the championships above the ring,

that's your true champion.

‐ The two Intercontinental Championship

belts hanging from above.

‐ For the following contest,

there are no rules!

‐ With the ladder up. Oh!

[cheers and applause]

‐ From high above!

Oh! ‐ Oh!

It's the most barbaric, insane,

car crash excitement you've ever seen.

‐ It's starting to shake! Oh, no!

‐ Oh!

‐ I was able to have a presence

that I don't think they knew that I had.

It isn't about size, it is about presence.

[cheers and applause]

‐ Oh! Oh!

‐ Shawn actually lost the match,

but it put Shawn at a different level

that people believed

this little bastard could do anything.

[cheers and applause]

If you didn't before, or you didn't want to believe,

Shawn made you believe.

[thuds]

‐ Should close it and just drop it to the side.

Boom and then you say, "Okay, mister, here we go."

You know, whatever.

I don't know, just throwing it out there.

This weekend, we have one of our bigger events.

Five‐man ladder match.

Is that gonna...

Someone will be holding that right there.

Many, many years ago, it was just two of us

and one ladder.

And now, these young men and women

have taken it to a whole nother level.

Got a lot of moving parts around here.

‐ I always dreamed of being in a ladder match

obviously because of Shawn and Razor.

[thuds]

Ladder matches are about crazy stunts, big falls,

it's a car crash come to life.

He is the face of the ladder match

and to have him kind of help us out,

have him kinda watch over us, you can't dream it up.

It's perfect.

There you go.

[cheers and applause]

‐I met him in the locker room, 1993,

and wanted to know

if I'd be interested in becoming his bodyguard.

And the first thing out of Shawn's mouth is,

"Just so you know, everybody hates us."

The bodyguard position was 24/7.

It wasn't just on television persona,

a lot of people didn't like him.

‐ Shawn Michaels was misunderstood

all throughout his career.

There was a certain perception

that he was an ass[bleep], frankly.

Shawn was selfish.

Shawn did have an out of control ego,

and Shawn did feel that he

was better than everybody else.

To be successful and to take it to the next level,

you have to start looking out for yourself.

It's not a team sport.

‐ The one thing that was the saving grace for Shawn

was he was so good in the ring.

As a performer, if you work with a guy

that makes you look that good,

I don't care what you think of him,

you want to work with him.

‐ Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall,

1‐2‐3 Kid, and then Paul LeVesque, Triple H.

these were guys that loved hanging out together

and hence the Kliq began to form.

‐ We all just hit it off, and then it was‐‐you know, we‐‐

All we did was talk non‐stop about the business and,

you know, we were all just so passionate about it.

‐ The perception was that the Kliq

was all‐knowing and all‐powerful,

and that if you crossed the Kliq,

they'll just go Vince and you'll be blackballed.

‐ They couldn't call any of the shots,

but I listened, and they had some really good ideas.

Really smart, individually.

And Shawn's very smart when he's sober.

Shawn had an attitude,

when he drank even more so on top of pills

and Shawn would say,

you know, the wrong thing at the wrong time.

And he was protected in a WB environment.

You know, but outside that environment‐‐

‐ Shawn Michaels, British Bulldog,

1‐2‐3 Kid walk into a bar.

Me, Scott, and Kev were in Europe.

It was where we find out that this all happened.

Bunch of Marines in a tough bar.

Every eye in that place turns to the three wrestlers

that just walked in the door,

of which Shawn is the megastar.

Every girl in that place starts to look at Shawn,

Shawn is very enamored with that,

and Shawn is at this point in his life,

like, "[bleep] you lookin' at? Is there a problem, jarhead?"

They go to walk out, six Marines walk out,

beat the [bleep] out of Shawn

and leave him in the side of the car.

‐ And the last thing I can remember is,

you know, there being the coat check.

The next thing is waking up in the hospital.

And everything else is a complete blank.

That was four days

out of a seven day week, situations like that.

Getting beat up by nine guys in Syracuse,

to me, there's not a whole lot of shame in.

You know, that kind of stuff just sort of happens to me.

I've got two choices‐‐

sit home and cry, or to come out and be a pain.

And I got news for you, folks, I'm all cried out.

‐ This moment of existence

was the 20 minutes in the ring every night.

He wouldn't be messed up.

He'd go in there and he'd kill it every night,

and then the second he was done‐‐

[clicks tongue]

"I'm in pain, and I took some stuff,

"so I wouldn't be in pain this morning,

but I'm messed up."

Why would you hang out with this misery 24/7?

No, it's not. It's again like your brother.

It's like a family member.

Shawn owes his life to Triple H,

Paul Leveque, owes his life to him.

‐ Shawn Michaels knows

that the greatest match of his life

must come this Sunday night.

By the time you get to the mid‐90s,

Bret Hart has become a crowd favorite.

Bret is a very soft‐spoken, quiet, Canadian gentleman.

Shawn is an outspoken, loud, brash American.

Only one person can be the absolute alpha dog.

The Iron Man match, the boyhood dream realized,

it added another layer to the Shawn Michaels character.

‐ The Iron Man match,

it's the opportunity where I get to,

you know, get my first world championship.

‐ There's only one Heartbreak Kid!

Unbelievable, what a ride!

‐ An hour‐long match,

it's gonna be a long night at the office, in wrestling terms.

‐ For the WWE Championship!

‐ We start to have our issues.

You know, I was never big on the Kliq idea.

It was a testy match in a lot of ways.

‐ Hart's in big trouble.

[cheers and applause]

‐ There was a famous part

where I jump off the second rope.

[groans]

He comes up and kicks me in the face

as hard as he could.

I mean, he almost knocked me out.

‐ Oh, my goodness!

We stiff each other a lot of times in that match.

[cheering and chatter]

‐ One, two, out!

[bell dings]

‐ The boyhood dream has come true!

‐ The boyhood dream has come true,

because that was Shawn's boyhood dream, it was.

And that's exactly what happened.

‐ It was a very big moment for my career.

It's like, oh, it's the first World Championship

and you go like, "Hmm, I pictured it being different."

I wasn't at a good place and all that kinda stuff.

Just a lot of responsibility that goes with that.

Now every guy in that locker room, their well‐being,

their life, you know, their livelihood and all that

depends on the job that you do.

You know, it all falls on your shoulders.

The whole thing was uncomfortable.

‐ As we got into 1996, Ted Turner, who owned WCW,

our competitors, was being very aggressive

in his quest for new talent.

Scott Hall and Kevin Nash,

they were going to leave and go to Ted Turner's WCW.

The last matches being

in New York in Madison Square Garden.

‐ On my 19th, 1996,

one of the greatest days of wrestling,

and my life as well.

Me and my friend went to a house show

which was not televised,

we would sneak in a camera past security

and we would film the shows.

Shawn was my hero and was my idol growing up.

[audience cheering]

The ending shows Shawn Michaels

giving Diesel a super kick.

Match is over.

And then all of a sudden Razor Ramon comes out.

I'm like, "Oh, cool."

They start hugging and I'm screaming like a little girl.

Oh, my God!

Who's this?

And it turns out to be Hunter Hurst Helmsley.

They all start hugging and, you know, obviously saying goodbye.

It was insane. That night was magical.

Yeah!

The business was well protected

up until then, and our cameras still kept going.

The only camera that was there.

If we were not involved in taping the curtain call,

it would not be talked about as much today.

‐ Place is going insane.

Everybody knows everything on the inside of the business.

There's no secrets.

‐ People in the business didn't like it.

They thought it was the worst thing that happened.

Here's this bad guy, who we have no idea

is friends with all these other guys.

‐ It's breaking the fourth wall

and just telling people,

"Everything we just did is bull [bleep]."

Shawn Michaels is now hugging and kissing the guy

that he's just spent 20 minutes beating the hell out of.

We entertained you, but now it's all over,

we're really good buddies. Taboo in the wrestling business.

‐ The tape was leaked out to a writer.

The tape blows up on its own.

‐ I had no idea that was gonna happen.

It was something that's never been done before.

I'm watching this and going, "What the hell is going on?"

The Kliq was an insult to our business.

If they had done that in the '70s, early '80s,

they'd all four of them get the [bleep] beat out of 'em.

They wrestle each other and they all kiss and say goodbye.

‐ Somebody's gotta go down for it.

Kev's gone, Scott's gone, Shawn's the champ.

Stuff rolls downhill and, yeah, it all rolled on me.

‐ Triple H is the one

that probably paid the heaviest price

as far as his career

kind of hitting a roadblock at that point.

Shawn didn't really pay a price.

‐ I was inherently selfish regardless,

so I'm sure I didn't feel the compassion for him,

as maybe I should have.

‐ There was a bit of a shutdown on Shawn.

Business is‐‐it's okay, but it's not great.

You know, there's a lot of banter

about Shawn's not working as champion.

He's not drawing.

He's collapsing under the pressure.

I can see him falling apart.

Kevin and Scott are gone, and I'm all he's got now.

He's a mess.

‐ I felt a lot of pressure and I didn't handle it well.

For me, it was all about

running and escaping, and honestly,

you know, there was running

and escaping from the dude I'd become.

Better than having to face that,

I might just take a few of these and knock myself out.

Won't have to pay attention to it till tomorrow.

‐ He'd be pilled up, passed out,

put Shawn on a luggage cart and roll him up to his room,

and get him undressed, take the dip out of his mouth,

and put him on his side, put a pillow behind him

so he wouldn't roll over and choke to death in his sleep.

And set an alarm and get up every two, three hours

to go check on him.

And that was every night.

Well, you know, every night? Sad existence.

[cheers and applause]

‐ What everybody has to understand

about Shawn Michaels is this‐‐

If I wanna come out here

and look like a blithering idiot on live TV,

believe me, I'm gonna do it.

Why? Because I can.

‐ He had a drug problem for a while,

a serious one,

and he kind of fell in the hole even deeper.

But it wasn't until he became champion

that I felt that Shawn, uh,

started to question himself.

‐ I called his dad, the colonel,

and said, "I'd like to visit."

So I flew down to meet him

and I'm saying, "You're probably not aware of this,

Shawn really has a drug problem."

The colonel got angry.

He just didn't want to hear it.

‐ I don't know that anybody knew how to address it.

Even things like rehab, my parents,

you know, God love 'em,

I don't that they knew what it was that you did,

except just to be worried.

Not long after that I tweaked my knee.

[cheers and applause]

I went to this dude in San Antonio

who doesn't know anything about wrestling,

and obviously sees I've torn my ACL

and he's like, "Dude, you're done."

You know, he said, "You're not wrestling with a torn ACL."

I know that over the last several months,

I've lost a lot of things,

and one of them has been my smile.

‐ He went in the ring to announce he was retiring

'cause he had a bad knee.

I didn't believe his knee was the issue.

I always thought the issue was

he didn't want to wrestle me at WrestleMania 13

and drop the belt to me.

I doubted Shawn's integrity as far as his injury went.

You phony little faker,

why don't you take your little pussyfoot injury‐‐

‐ All right, all right, knock it off.

No, no, no. ‐ It's all right.

I'm not going anywhere.

‐ And go back and find your smile.

‐ I got accused of faking it.

Bret told everybody I was faking it.

My excuse is drug addicts lie all the time.

Well, there's no doubt

that you found your smile again as you stated...

‐ A year off of the wrestling business

was a year of no pay.

That's just not‐‐ That isn't feasible.

And they said, "Well, look, you can put a brace on it

and wrap it up."

They went and they got me a brace and everything else.

I was like, "Okay, I can do this."

And it is time for the Heartbreak Kid,

Shawn Michaels to return to action!

[suspenseful music]

‐This was a moment where things needed to change.

Business was bad.

WCW was starting to kill us.

Put Shawn and I together on TV.

We will multiply each other's personalities on screen.

Put us together. DX is born.

[hard rock music]

‐ ♪ Degenerate into something fool ♪

♪ We just got tired of doing what you told us to do ♪

‐ Degeneration X consisted of Shawn,

Triple H, and Chyna.

Two goofs in Shawn and Hunter that were immature,

and did everything that you weren't supposed to do.

‐ Shawn Michaels,

you're a disgrace to professional wrestling.

I saw it as inmates had taken over the asylum.

I'm gonna start with the degenerate

right beside you in the green shirt.

‐ ♪ Degeneration X

‐ Suck it! [laughs]

‐ Yeah, I can't say I liked it.

That smut and the crotch shots.

It did get pretty raunchy.

‐ I don't think it was over the line.

You know, we were getting our tails kicked in the ratings.

DX took it to the very, very tipping point

of going too far.

But that's what we needed.

It was kind of a whole facelift for the company.

They loved it.

Ratings are going up, your segments are hot.

We are the Degeneration X,

you make the rules, and we will break 'em!

‐ They were the anti‐authority.

They could do anything they wanted.

‐ We were just trying to make each other laugh,

say something so stupid that people would go,

"Oh, my God, I can't believe he said that."

Your old lady is not too thrilled with your privates.

‐ You would think, like, okay, so now everything's great

backstage with Shawn. No.

We're still approaching this from a place of anger.

We know we're pissing people off

and we're trying to be dicks.

‐ I got in trouble for a lot of stuff

that we all thought was funny,

and clearly we might have been the only ones.

I'm goin' out in a blaze of glory!

[cheers and applause]

‐ At that point, Shawn's DX personality

and his real personality have kind of morphed,

so Shawn really never turned it off.

‐ This is what it's come down to,

they're looking at somebody

that's got no respect for anything.

‐ There was a true animosity

between Bret and Shawn,

just spiraled completely out of control.

‐ In the beginning, Shawn and Bret were friends

and the antagonistic relationship

that they had on camera, that was all orchestrated.

But it became personal.

It became personal between Bret and Shawn,

because one guy would go too far.

‐ I never knew enough to avoid the confrontation.

If something bothered Bret, I made sure that I did it.

He stabbed the WWE in the back.

Why? For his financial gain.

‐ Instead of facing me like a man,

but you were too busy posing for girlie magazines.

You know, you don't like me talking about you

posing for "Playgirl," but you did pose for "Playgirl."

And we finally had a fisticuff in the dressing room.

‐ Oh, my God, Bret and Shawn just got into a fight

and pulled each other hair in the locker room. What?

I run over there and find Shawn,

he's got a big chunk of hair missing

out of the side of his head. "What are you doing?"

‐ I realize that I hate your guts.

‐ We had a lot of these resets and talks,

and we would always end up offending each other quickly

right after that. [laughs]

‐ We are live

in the sold‐out Molson Centre in Montréal, Quebec,

where tonight, it will finally be settled.

Who is the man?

‐ Bret is the champion,

but Bret's on his way to WCW,

and he doesn't wanna drop the title to Shawn.

But they couldn't let Bret leave with the title,

and then show up on WCW TV the next night.

‐ Who's gonna win?

‐ I don't know.

‐ Bret thought the match was going to go one way,

Shawn and Vince McMahon come up with a different plan.

Bret doesn't know about the plan.

‐ We're being told by Vince,

like, this goes to your grave.

This is high‐level espionage, man.

Nobody ever knows this.

‐ It's kind of what's best for business.

‐ Look out!

Shawn Michaels is not gonna waste any time.

‐ The whole thing was uncomfortable.

I was out there, you know, being Judas.

[dramatic music]

[groans]

‐ They had created a spot

where Shawn was gonna put Bret's move,

which is a submission hold, the Sharpshooter, on Bret.

‐ Look at this!

‐ Oh, you're kidding me.

‐ It's definitely one of the most fabled stories

in our industry.

The Montreal Screw Job.

‐ It's just minutes into that match,

not one person on Planet Earth

thinks the match is going to end.

‐ Are you kidding me?

[bell rings]

[rock music playing]

‐ So when, all of a sudden, the bell rings,

there's complete confusion as to why the match has ended.

‐ What happened?

Bret Hart gave up in a Sharpshooter.

‐ He said, "Bret submitted," which didn't happen.

‐ Wow, you talk about controversy.

‐ It was basically a hit

to make sure that they got the title off of Bret.

‐ Ring the bell! Ring the bell!

‐ I could see Vince yell at him to ring the bell.

‐ Ring the bell! [bell rings]

‐ Like, "They're trying to screw me now."

‐ Michaels with a Sharpshooter

has become the WWE Champion!

And Bret Hart is standing in disbelief.

‐ He didn't know Vince was coming out.

I think he just felt like maybe if he was out there,

he might get some heat off me,

you know, thus making my denial plausible.

Vince says, "I wanna take the heat for this.

"I don't want anyone to think

you had anything to do with it."

‐ Maybe you could go?

‐ Okay, let's get outta here.

‐ I took the heat, and should have.

I didn't want anyone to know Shawn was involved.

And Bret comes over and knocks the [bleep] outta me.

One punch, and knocked him out cold.

He went straight down on his back.

Out cold.

And after I knocked Vince out,

Shawn was crying.

Shawn was sat on the bench and was crying.

‐ And even though I didn't feel

like I did anything wrong that night,

you're still carrying a burden by not coming clean with that.

To say, "Yes, I knew."

‐ Vince asked Shawn to do something

for everyone in this company.

Who else would have had the balls,

the guts, right or wrong,

how many other people would have done it?

‐ I remember going to his house in San Antonio,

and I'm driving my minivan down there.

I've got my wife and three kids at home,

and I pull into his gorgeous home.

I don't have 20 bucks in my pocket.

And I'll never forget,

he put his arms out like this, and he just looked up

and he goes, "You could have had all this."

But I realize, you know, somewhere along the way,

that I saw him lose so much.

He got into drugs

and there were some really bad side effects to his fame.

‐ I looked at Kenny a lot of times,

and having a wife and a family,

and just being as happy as can be.

And I've always looked at and admired,

and thought it was pretty enviable to have.

But in my line of work, it was always wondering

can you have both, or is that not possible?

They don't mix.

[cheers and applause]

‐ The following contest is a casket match

for the WWE Championship!

[cheers and applause]

‐ This casket match

is the Undertaker's specialty.

‐ The object of a casket match

is to beat your opponent down far enough

that you can throw them into the casket or coffin

and shut the lid.

And if you do that, you win the match.

Somewhere through the course of that match,

I threw him over this giant coffin...

[grunts]

‐ Michaels' back dropped

on that big old wooden casket.

I wanted to clear it and go to the floor,

and I just didn't quite get far enough,

and bam, I just hit the corner.

But I didn't really think much about it.

You know, you still finish the match.

‐ Look at the look on his face!

The Undertaker dragging Michaels

right down into the depths of Hell!

The next day, I just remember getting up like,

ah, you know, waking up and not being able to move.

First time I recall being in that much pain.

We do all the X‐rays.

Apparently, I blew a disc,

and that's the kind of stuff that needs to be fused.

Doctor says, "Oh, you can't wrestle after that."

[explosion] [cheers and applause]

He said I'm never gonna wrestle again, yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I said, "Nobody tells me what to do,

so we're going to WrestleMania with Steve."

You have never, ever had one of these!

So you give me enough drugs, all right,

so let's do whatever we can to get me to WrestleMania.

‐ Getting Shawn to WrestleMania was a battle.

He had a bad back, he was heavily medicated.

He is the WWE Champion

and the man who will defend his title

against Stone Cold,

with Mike Tyson as the Enforcer.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, Shawn Michaels.

‐ I choose to make an ass

out of a toughest SOB.

I can do that anytime I want.

[overlapping chatter]

‐ I was gonna have to dope myself up

and drop the belt to Steve,

and then I guess I'll let my career be over.

[dramatic music]

‐ He was bitter.

It had nothing to do with him losing,

it had to do with being replaced.

He never had his moment. He never had his run.

I'm still the greatest. And then this‐‐

Now it's his run.

What do I do? Now I'm the backup guy?

One of the most messed‐up things

I ever heard Shawn say in his life is,

"I should've taken so many pills,

"I died after WrestleMania 10.

"I'd have been the biggest star of all time.

I'd have been Elvis."

‐ It's hopelessness,

and certainly, that's where I was.

I am not just, uh, you know, a drug addict.

I'm an angry one,

and I mean angrier than ever.

At that time in my life, that's all I had.

I identified who I was with what I was doing in that ring.

And without it, I wouldn't have known what to do with my life.

[cheers and applause]

‐ On the day of WrestleMania 14,

we barely talked.

He didn't feel like doing business with me.

Triple H was a conduit between most of it.

‐ He was pissed.

He wasn't about to talk to Steve about this match.

I helped him put it together by going from room to room,

and it was just‐‐it was so difficult to do.

‐ It was difficult. I remember that day.

I'm thinking, I don't know what Shawn's going to do.

‐ He's retiring,

you know, this could be his final screw you.

‐ Nobody has ever, ever outperformed

Shawn Michaels in a big match situation.

‐ I'm not in great shape.

My back, pretty bad being in that much pain.

Get the cortisone shots and stuff like that.

‐ Oh, my God!

I feel like I'm putting him over, that's good enough.

‐ Awesome, he got it! The Stunner!

Mike Tyson in!

[cheers and applause]

‐ Shawn's always been a troublemaker,

he always wants to get in your face, talk [bleep].

Even when he's on your team, he was talking.

He's an irritant, that's what he is.

Shawn, um, has sour grapes.

[cheers and applause]

‐ Tyson! Tyson!

‐ It was kind of a close blow,

'cause Shawn was pretty much out for a little while.

‐ Tyson takes the Austin 3:16 shirt

and lays it across Shawn's chest.

This was adding insult to injury,

and this was rubbing salt in the wound.

I would have been pissed too.

‐ Not exactly the screw job,

but it was them getting the last laugh

as far as, you know, "Good, little prick,

"you put us through hell this week,

but we're at least gonna get you going out the door."

‐ The new WWE Champion,

Stone Cold Steve Austin.

[applause]

He was going to that press conference

to just let everybody know I'm pissed off.

He walked in the door and he yelled some stuff.

‐ Oh, yeah. It's [bleep] up.

It was just‐‐it's selfish and it's stupid,

but, you know, that's where he was at that time.

‐ Shawn is suffering from ruptured disc

as we speak, and will not participate

at this press conference.

Nonetheless, he participated, uh, in the arena

in an extraordinary way,

and there is no athlete in the world

that can say they can do what Shawn Michaels does.

[dramatic music]

[soft music]

‐ I got on the plane the next morning

and went home and began to, I don't know,

let it all sort of sink in.

It takes some time

before it goes from being time off to the reality

of how exactly is the rest of your life gonna go

when you're done at 33?

Okay, see if I can get one done here.

All they knew at the time

was stuff like that, you don't recover from,

people don't get back in the ring and wrestle again.

The thing is,

I can't keep coming out here week after week after week

going back and forth with all this.

I get to get busy with my rehab‐‐

My physical therapy.

My physical therapy for my back.

[sighs]

Now I've got a legitimate reason to have pain pills

and I've got a prescription and everything else.

I just wanna be a pro wrestler.

That's what I was trying to go back to.

So I began to start the Shawn Michaels Wrestling Academy.

We had a couple of rings, I had a little workout room.

There were a couple of guys that came through my school

that went on to have WWE success.

It was a great experience, it really was.

I did it for about two and a half, three years.

So I'm at home, and I'm watching TV,

and then all of a sudden

the introduction of this new Nitro Girl.

‐ Tampa Bay girl herself, Whisper.

And she's out there with this chair,

just doing this dance, and it's captivating.

And she's absolutely the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

[soft music]

‐ We were at a rehearsal

and one of the Nitro Girls, Spice,

had mentioned to me that a man named Shawn Michaels,

a former wrestler, wanted to meet me

and that was the first time I'd ever heard of him.

I called her up.

We probably talked for three hours

on the phone each night for two weeks.

‐ Two weeks of talking and emailing,

and then I flew out to San Antonio to see him,

and we dated for about two weeks.

After that he told me he loved me,

and I told him I loved him.

Two weeks after that, we got married.

‐ It was the Graceland Wedding Chapel, yeah. Yeah.

You know, an Elvis impersonator

walking down the aisle.

[humming]

It was fantastic.

It was just the greatest‐‐ the greatest thing ever.

There was one evening where my pills have kicked in,

and I'm out of it.

‐ Shawn was in tremendous pain.

When he would take the muscle relaxers,

he would usually pass out over his food.

The very first time that Shawn ever did that

was when we were first married,

so it was a bit of a shock to me.

So I got him in the shower,

'cause he had spilled food all over his chest,

and I would say it probably happened a couple times a week.

‐ The worst time, again,

was when she was eight months pregnant

and she's doing everything she can,

at eight months pregnant with her belly,

trying to hold me up.

‐ I took pity on him,

and I just prayed for him, is all I could do.

But it didn't make me think, you know,

"What in the world have I gotten into?"

If I was fearful, I was fearful for our unborn child.

And I hoped that it would end whenever the baby was born,

and it didn't.

‐ Here in Cleveland, Ohio, we will make history.

‐ I don't remember why Shawn was there.

He must have been some doing something in the show.

We all go, me, Taker, Rock, Vince is in the ring.

"Now I own WCW."

Shawn is messed up, pilled up.

So this is a celebratory moment.

He's belligerent, loud, falling down, staggering,

Vince calls him in, tells him, "Go home, I'm done with you."

Shawn goes ballistic.

Walks by me in the hallway, just goes off.

‐ You know, I went

and browbeat Hunter unfairly, obviously.

‐ And I just went off back,

you know, in his face, screaming match back and forth,

and he storms out.

‐ Now that's another one that makes me cry.

I went and said some mean stuff to him

and walked out.

And, you know,

that sucks as well.

‐ And I don't talk to him for a long time.

‐ We didn't speak, I don't know,

I mean I would think at least a year, two years.

It was, what do they call it, the rock bottom.

[dramatic music]

[indistinct chatter]

‐ Our son was at the age to where he was,

you know, walking around, more aware of things,

and it was the night

when Shawn had fallen asleep on the couch‐‐

a drug‐induced sleep‐‐

with our son climbing all over him

and saying, "Daddy's asleep."

‐ To me, the biggest thing again

was Cameron saying, "Daddy's tired."

And it sort of dawning on me

that he was now being able to recognize

clearly my state of mind.

I went into the bathroom and closed the door.

Looking at yourself in the mirror

and, you know,

I sat there and cried like a baby and wept,

you know, realizing that you are failing,

you know, a two‐year‐old little boy.

And all of those things

sort of came crashing down that night,

and I just‐‐it's the first time I ever feel

like such a frickin' failure.

And I think that that was the last straw for him,

and when he woke up the next morning,

he told me he was never taking pills or drinking again,

and from that point, he didn't.

It was an instantaneous letting go

of the drugs and alcohol.

‐ I just called him up out of the clear blue,

I just asked him when the last time he talked to Paul,

and, um, he just avoided that situation.

I just said, "Man, you're wrong, you got to call him."

I called Hunter and let him know,

you know, how sorry I was and how out of line I was.

And I said, "I hope you can forgive me."

I needed that from Hunter.

For me, it was easy, like, I didn't‐‐

as long as it wasn't drugs talking to me.

‐ It's good to see you.

[patting]

‐ Group hug.

‐ Of course, I do regret the pain

that it caused people in my life,

but there is a part of that that I don't think

that Michael Shawn Hickenbottom can get

to where he got creatively

without a little bit of that reckless, risky mindset.

I wouldn't have had the guts to do it.

‐ It was our first Christmas together,

and I gave Shawn a Bible and some other books,

and he began reading them.

‐ I had never had anything that I could grasp

that was bigger than the wrestling business.

That's just not enough to base, I don't know, a life on.

‐ I worked at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas.

All of a sudden I heard a deep voice said,

"I want to come to a Bible study."

And then I got up from my desk

and stuck my head out the door,

and I said, "Well, you can come to mine."

When he left, everybody came out and said,

"Do you know who that was?"

I said, "No, I don't know who that was, who was it?"

And they said, "Shawn Michaels,"

and I said, "Well, who's Shawn Michaels?"

He said, "Well, first, Keith,

I want you to pray for my back."

He says, "I've been out of wrestling

and I want to go back."

I said, "Well, there's a simple prayer

that we can pray together."

And while he was saying that prayer,

tears just come out of his eyes.

‐ I got nobody to blame but me,

and I don't have anything in common with the other dude,

and I don't know how I got that way.

It wasn't from family. It wasn't from upbringing.

‐ He was so desperate

to get back in that close relationship with Rebecca

and his son.

‐ I was now a dad, I was a husband,

and I was really devoted and thrilled about that.

‐ You're like a child,

you just want to tell everybody, "I've been saved."

‐ Once Shawn got his life together

and found Christ, it was night and day.

When he looks back at his life,

that's the biggest thing that he ever did.

‐ You were dealing with the grownup

when Shawn came back,

someone who was there to do business.

Shawn was a lot calmer and much easier to deal with.

‐ Shawn Michaels of old

is very different from Shawn Hickenbottom,

the man I married.

The sexy boy and all that kinda stuff,

and his cocky attitude

and the cocky little smile that he does.

That's so far from who he really is.

‐ I remember somebody asking me,

they said, you know, "Hey, I heard Shawn found religion."

Yeah. They laughed,

and I said, "I don't anybody that died OD'ing on religion."

‐ He had called Triple H.

He thanked Hunter for the time on the road

because before his marriage to me,

the one who took care of him was Hunter.

That night, after Shawn had gone to bed,

he woke up in the morning and the pain was gone in his back.

It was definitely a miracle.

So, he was physically ready to go back in the ring,

and I knew that the Lord would take care of him.

‐ We were kind of having conversations

at the time, and then he said,

"I want my son to see me do this one time,"

he said, "But I don't know that I can do it,

I don't know physically if I can or not,"

and he said, "If I'm going to,

I only trust one person, that's you.

If you consider it, I would love to do it.

What do you think?"

‐ Moments away from the non‐sanctioned fight

between two men who were, at one time, best friends,

Shawn Michaels and Triple H.

Shawn Michaels last wrestled 1,609 days ago,

if you can believe that.

‐ His whole family was there.

You know, they were all scared to death.

Got in the ring, did a couple of things.

[bell rings]

Never missed a beat, not a moment, not an anything.

‐ I was on my chair like a redneck,

just screaming and yelling for him.

Of course, I cried at the end.

‐ Like, how is this possible,

that he is this good still, after all that time

and injury and everything else? Unbelievable.

‐ It was just as easy as the day is long,

it was poetic, it was phenomenal,

it was everything that is right and good about the world

in this line of work, and, you know, my family there,

out there with my best friend.

‐ The Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels!

‐ After the Summerslam,

that's when there was a sense of peace and joy

in the midst of doing your job and your family,

combining these two worlds that I've never had together,

and I'm not even the same person.

And now, and it all feels so right.

That's as good as it gets, you know,

it's heaven on Earth here in this room.

‐ Shawn Michaels changed completely

as a human being.

And somehow, as a character,

he managed to keep a lot of the aura that he always had.

I could argue that Shawn was at his best after he came back.

[cheers and applause]

‐ To me,

the greatest in‐ring performer

of all time.

[soft music]

‐ It gets more difficult

to find a new mountain, a new challenge.

Sometimes that mountain or that new challenge

just isn't there.

And so later on in my career, I learned that

when I disconnect from it, something will usually happen,

and, you know, the one with Flair

is the one I honestly always speak of.

Remember the story of Old Yeller?

The Showstopper's gonna take you, Old Yeller,

behind the woodshed and put you out of your misery.

I lost myself in that drama. [laughs]

I get a call from my buddy, Kenny,

who's now been made aware of the match.

It's like, oh my goodness, he said, "Can you believe it?"

‐ It was overwhelming to think that the guy that we idolized

that we would watch a little TV box in San Antonio, Texas,

somehow their lives were going to interconnect.

Ric was his guy. He absolutely loved Ric Flair.

‐ Kenny took me back to that time.

‐ This was why I went from New York to Orlando,

was to see this moment.

[bell rings]

‐ Now in this match,

should Ric Flair lose, he must retire.

‐ I remember feeling

like the way Ric Flair started this match,

that he had a chance.

[grunts]

‐ There's no other way to put it‐‐he carried me.

He gave everything that anybody could ever give

to a match that night.

‐ Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, look out.

Good grief!

Oh, not again!

‐ It becomes clear

that Ric Flair just doesn't have enough.

I love this part, I could tear up talking about it.

Flair, like an old dog, still fighting,

he thinks he still has it.

And that's when Shawn sort of has to have that moment

where he says, "I'm sorry, I love you."

‐ Flair wants to fight.

‐ And just turns the lights out.

It was as beautiful and perfect an ending to a wrestling match

as you will ever have.

‐ He knew I didn't want to go,

and he said, "I love you."

It's a great moment in wrestling.

I don't care what anyone says,

you can't replace something like that.

‐ Unashamed

that it was my love letter to, you know,

the wrestling business and to Ric Flair.

‐ It is show day, and we're off to the shi‐zow.

I've been doing this for 35 years,

and days like today,

it's a different kind of anxiety that I have now.

I have anxiety for the performers

for the entire show as a whole.

For me it's just all fantastic,

especially when it goes well for them,

and they come back and they're jacked.

It's ten times better than‐‐

than when I had that opportunity.

This is where I'm supposed to be.

I absolutely love it.

[soft music]

‐ What moment would you say

you're most proud of, and then by the same token,

what moment would you say you are least proud of?

‐ Most proud I guess would be

winning the world title.

And least proud would probably be the Montreal incident.

One is everything you aspire to do,

and the other is the complete opposite.

Something you really don't want to be a part of.

It's the long‐term guilt, it's the shame,

it's the loathing that you know this person has for you.

‐ There was so much bad blood between us,

and I was always like, if I see him, I'll kill him.

I've always believed that I had so much anger,

that I think it led to my stroke

and lot of things that I went through.

And I remember thinking about Shawn

and how we were good friends once upon a time,

and, you know, that it wasn't just Shawn.

I was guilty too.

And I remember thinking it'd be good to put it to bed.

‐ And I've certainly talked about my regret

and the hope for reconciliation.

It took him some time to get there.

Vince had suggested there's gotta be a way

we can do this live, in front of the world.

‐ I've got 12 years of things

that I've wanted to get off my chest.

I want to call back there

and ask Shawn Michaels to come out here.

I call for a truce,

and I call for you to shake my hand.

The fact that we did that in the ring

and we shook hands and all that was very honest

and very sincere.

‐ You know that everybody's watching

when you are trying to have this very real moment

with one another.

Art does imitate life.

‐ He's matured, and he's a different guy,

[cheers and applause]

And I thought he finally, you know,

he's got his priorities all in order.

[cheers and applause]

‐ Welcome

to the 25th anniversary

of WrestleMania!

70,000 WWE fans.

‐ By the time Shawn Michaels and Undertaker

meet at WrestleMania 25, they're veterans,

they've been around forever.

And somehow,

they're actually both in their absolute prime.

[ethereal music playing]

‐ One of my favorite entrances,

Shawn as The Undertaker,

but in all white, ascending from the clouds.

Such a stark contrast to what I'm about to do.

It was the battle between heaven and hell.

‐ Prior to 2002,

we did not have a great relationship.

We did not like each other outside the ring.

‐ This guy, I genuinely liked now.

And it had been years and years and years

since we had worked together,

since the time that he had injured himself

in the casket match.

‐ Unknown to us at the time,

we're about to create one of the most epic things ever done

in the wrestling business.

‐ There's that brash arrogance.

70,000 chanting HBK the other half, Undertaker.

[audience screaming]

‐ Ooh! ‐ Whoa!

[cheers and applause]

[triumphant music]

‐ You know when you're in the middle

of something really special, and we did.

‐ Incoming!

Tombstone piledriver.

♪

[bell rings]

‐ I just remember getting to Shawn,

and we just embraced, and hugged,

and thanked each other.

It was an awesome moment.

‐ It was on the ride home the next day,

just settling into me that I just don't know

that I'm ever going to encounter,

from a performance standpoint,

anything greater than that thing

that I experienced last night.

‐ There's only one match

that can be considered Match of the Year,

Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker.

[rock music playing]

‐ Undertaker, I can beat you.

You and me, WrestleMania, one more time.

[cheers and applause]

‐ So, I remember tuning into WrestleMania 26.

I had a knot in my stomach

knowing that if Shawn Michaels wasn't able to win this one

that he would retire.

But it was a beautiful, artistic way

to end the career of Shawn Michaels.

[cheers and applause]

‐ One, two, three! [bell dings]

‐ Shawn Michaels' career is over.

‐ My heart was broken. My heart was broken.

But I'm glad also that he got to leave on his own terms.

‐ It was important that I get out of there

to let the fans show him the appreciation he deserved.

[cheers and applause]

‐ I have to imagine that Tom Brady

and Michael Jordan, as much as they appreciate the fans,

I think more than anything it's about their teammates

and the people that they played that means the most to them.

[clapping]

[dramatic music]

A lot of time, there's still a chasing

of that last perfect one,

and that's why I'm so appreciative

that I can define some form of finish line.

There's two things that I thrive on,

it's two things that I'm in love with,

which is, you know, Rebecca and the kids,

and the wrestling business.

Oh, yeah, my team.

They're the two greatest loves of my life.

That's never changed.

[applause]

You've probably been to more ladder matches

than half the people in the ring, I would imagine.

[soft music]

And then stops, loads up the‐‐

Whoa, he goes down.

‐ It's awesome for me to have Shawn there.

I can tell you what he's thinking,

he can tell you what I'm thinking,

and there's a chemistry there.

We have this uncanny with each other.

‐ There's just a little something in there

to do, just a small little‐‐

‐ Shawn's, you know, a legend

and for a legend to walk into an environment

full of performers.

‐ Go get them, boys. [laughs]

‐ They revere him so much.

‐ Welcome to NXT Takeover.

There is the North American Championship.

Who will climb the ladder?

‐ Shawn has been a role model

both in and out of the ring.

‐ Ding, ding, ding.

‐ I have so much respect for that man,

for not just what he's done for professional wrestling,

but for the type of person he is.

‐ [laughs]

‐ To me and so many others, he's the greatest.

[all exclaiming]

And it's insane how kind, generous,

and humble the guy is.

‐ That is good stuff.

‐ Sometimes I think he doesn't realize

that he's Shawn Michaels.

Step carefully. Whoa! Gee.

Oh, my God!

That was frickin' great!

When you said a tale of two lives,

that's what it's been.

Believe it or not, the same business

that might have almost killed me,

I think, is the same business that saved me.

No, you did a great job, phenomenal.

Thank you very much.

‐ These guys are easy to work with, so‐‐

‐ I know I accomplished more than what I wanted.

I never lost touch with the 19‐year‐old dude

that was hoping to have a car and an apartment,

and be the Southwest Heavy weight champion.

A lot more has happened since then.

[applause]

Whoa!

Jiminy Cricket.

Holy Toledo. [laughs]

‐ That's like the Shawn thing. That's like the Shawn dance.

‐ Golly!

Frickin' awesome.

‐ ♪ I'm just a sexy boy

♪ Sexy boy

Oh, goodness gracious! That is good stuff.