1
00:00:05,970 --> 00:00:10,390
I mean, that way, Keith, it looks like
it's higher, right? Did you do that from

2
00:00:10,390 --> 00:00:11,390
the second rope?

3
00:00:12,350 --> 00:00:13,350
Boom.

4
00:00:13,630 --> 00:00:17,890
This job to me is the greatest life that
I could ever live.

5
00:00:19,010 --> 00:00:24,270
For years, people told me that I was too
small, that I couldn't do this, that I

6
00:00:24,270 --> 00:00:26,030
couldn't do that, and I wasn't going to
make it.

7
00:00:26,570 --> 00:00:28,310
And I've shoved it in everybody's face.

8
00:00:28,810 --> 00:00:33,690
No time out for this man. I realize I
can't be popular with everybody all the

9
00:00:33,690 --> 00:00:38,870
time. So in the meantime, I'm going to
be popular with me, and I'm going to be

10
00:00:38,870 --> 00:00:39,870
the best.

11
00:00:40,250 --> 00:00:46,010
There are definitely two lives of Shawn
Michaels, even as who he was before.

12
00:00:46,330 --> 00:00:52,430
You will not ever in your lives see a
man more charismatic, more

13
00:00:52,430 --> 00:00:57,250
flamboyant, or more talented than the
heartbreak kid Shawn Michaels.

14
00:00:57,550 --> 00:00:58,550
The greatest.

15
00:00:58,680 --> 00:01:02,900
in -ring performer of all time.

16
00:01:03,580 --> 00:01:05,360
Being a prick doesn't actually sound.

17
00:01:05,820 --> 00:01:06,658
It did.

18
00:01:06,660 --> 00:01:07,660
It was a dick.

19
00:01:08,920 --> 00:01:15,480
There was so much bad blood between us,
and I was always like, if I see him,

20
00:01:15,540 --> 00:01:16,960
I'll kill him.

21
00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:18,820
I had so much.

22
00:01:19,500 --> 00:01:25,660
anger about it nobody steals my
spotlight i want it all sean michaels

23
00:01:25,660 --> 00:01:31,060
absolutely anything any style to
perfection with anyone when the bell

24
00:01:31,060 --> 00:01:36,540
one is as good as sean i will give you a
show like you have never ever seen

25
00:01:36,540 --> 00:01:43,160
before why because i can the only man to
win every major title

26
00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:48,230
you can't say anybody was better but
also tormented It was like on self

27
00:01:48,230 --> 00:01:49,230
-destruct mode.

28
00:01:49,430 --> 00:01:52,750
I just knew that he didn't love himself.
There was something in him that he

29
00:01:52,750 --> 00:01:55,630
despised. You're taking pain pills at 12
in the afternoon.

30
00:01:56,270 --> 00:01:58,370
Belligerent, falling down, staggering.

31
00:01:58,770 --> 00:02:02,670
Everything that you have in your life is
this. And it's all going away.

32
00:02:04,350 --> 00:02:08,470
On more than one occasion, I really
wanted a big tail light shot.

33
00:02:08,850 --> 00:02:12,150
But I knew there was a good man behind
all this other crap.

34
00:02:12,750 --> 00:02:14,290
The biggest thing that he ever did.

35
00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:17,180
is turning his life around to where he
is now.

36
00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:23,000
And so, yep, there are two lives there,
but there's one Shawn Michaels.

37
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,940
The very best sports entertainer in the
world!

38
00:02:35,560 --> 00:02:39,880
I love it. I say this, I say, again,
Vince, he's always telling me, you go

39
00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:41,300
the way out there, I'll reel you back
in.

40
00:02:41,820 --> 00:02:46,180
if I want to, you know what I mean? NXT
started out as a developmental brand

41
00:02:46,180 --> 00:02:51,800
that grooms WWE superstars. Any kind of
count -out, DQ or whatever, ends the

42
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:55,800
match. There are Shawn's fingerprints in
almost every talent in NXT.

43
00:02:56,260 --> 00:02:57,500
Shawn is very hands -on.

44
00:02:57,720 --> 00:03:02,580
Then he sits up behind him and then...
He sold out arenas all around the world

45
00:03:02,580 --> 00:03:04,220
when he was the Heartbreak Kid.

46
00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:07,200
He's in a different place in his life
now. He's humble.

47
00:03:07,460 --> 00:03:09,760
He wants to be behind the scenes. It
isn't about him.

48
00:03:10,030 --> 00:03:15,430
He wants to help others achieve their
dreams. Say it with passion and anger.

49
00:03:15,670 --> 00:03:18,470
Here we go, guys. Three, two, one.

50
00:03:18,770 --> 00:03:24,810
Seeing Shawn today, it's sometimes hard
for people to believe that Shawn

51
00:03:24,810 --> 00:03:29,130
Michaels, certain levels of talent,
commands certain levels of respect.

52
00:03:31,530 --> 00:03:37,110
His knowledge and his...

53
00:03:37,470 --> 00:03:39,590
wisdom of the business and all that
stuff.

54
00:03:39,890 --> 00:03:41,350
It's so valuable.

55
00:03:43,190 --> 00:03:47,730
Shawn Michaels' life is a story that a
lot of people could relate to.

56
00:03:48,210 --> 00:03:49,850
He always wanted more.

57
00:03:50,070 --> 00:03:51,970
It was a life of never enough.

58
00:03:52,490 --> 00:03:55,250
And then his life totally changes.

59
00:03:55,750 --> 00:03:57,270
A lot of us have that.

60
00:03:57,650 --> 00:04:01,770
If we're lucky, I think the Shawn
Michaels story is one that's really cool

61
00:04:01,770 --> 00:04:03,790
one that all of us can stand to learn
from.

62
00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:10,860
I was born into a military family.

63
00:04:11,140 --> 00:04:13,380
My father was in the Air Force.

64
00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:17,940
It was Michael Sean Hickenbottom, but
everybody in my family called me Sean.

65
00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:25,280
My father was a pilot. So early on, we
moved a lot. He was going to Vietnam.

66
00:04:25,280 --> 00:04:31,380
We went to England, then Maryland, and
then we moved to Texas. I was about

67
00:04:31,380 --> 00:04:34,980
-ish. From that point on, I was in the
state of Texas.

68
00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:41,400
You don't have long -lasting friendships
in the Air Force. The hardest part for

69
00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:45,820
making friends was having the last name.
The roll call, Hickenbottom, Michael

70
00:04:45,820 --> 00:04:49,420
Hickenbottom. You'd hear the snickers
all over the road, Hickenbottom, and of

71
00:04:49,420 --> 00:04:50,419
course you did.

72
00:04:50,420 --> 00:04:52,920
And it's like, son of a biscuit, I wish
I had a different last name.

73
00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:59,680
Sean was well -loved. He was always very
quiet and very shy.

74
00:05:00,980 --> 00:05:03,320
Growing up, he wasn't an extrovert.

75
00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:05,600
He was just a good.

76
00:05:07,030 --> 00:05:08,730
friendly, nice little boy.

77
00:05:09,030 --> 00:05:14,630
And people liked him. He was involved in
sports all of his life. He just enjoyed

78
00:05:14,630 --> 00:05:16,330
doing everything.

79
00:05:17,650 --> 00:05:21,770
I was a big fan of playing football
because of the contact.

80
00:05:22,050 --> 00:05:25,530
You know, contact and athletics were
appealing to me.

81
00:05:26,750 --> 00:05:30,990
And then I'm 12 years old, getting to
stay up late on a Saturday night.

82
00:05:32,500 --> 00:05:36,940
And this wrestling show starts,
Southwest Championship Wrestling.

83
00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:41,780
The beginning montage of the guys, slow
motions, jumping off the top rope.

84
00:05:41,980 --> 00:05:46,160
I was enthralled. It was just the
neatest thing I ever saw.

85
00:05:46,540 --> 00:05:49,780
The best in professional wrestling, and
I'm Steve. After the show, I walked out.

86
00:05:49,820 --> 00:05:52,820
My mom was in the kitchen. I said, I
know what I'm going to do when I grow

87
00:05:53,180 --> 00:05:55,620
And she said, what? I said, I'm going to
be a professional wrestler.

88
00:05:55,940 --> 00:05:57,420
I was like, oh, that's nice, honey.

89
00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:02,240
He began to talk about that's what he
wanted to do.

90
00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:07,520
And I was sure that ultimately he would
grow out of that, but he never did.

91
00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:14,520
Down at the Freeman Coliseum, Sean would
periodically get to go and, oh, he saw

92
00:06:14,520 --> 00:06:18,960
Tully Blanchard. Wahoo McDaniels, Eddie
Mansfield, Scott Casey.

93
00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:23,020
Of course, then later, Ric Flair was the
wrestling god.

94
00:06:23,930 --> 00:06:28,250
And he would buy wrestling magazines,
and he would look at Ric Flair, and then

95
00:06:28,250 --> 00:06:31,970
he'd stand in the mirror and try to talk
like him and look like him.

96
00:06:32,430 --> 00:06:37,190
Being a wrestling fan, it was really a
black sheep source of mockery.

97
00:06:37,650 --> 00:06:40,190
It's not something you say with a great
deal of pride.

98
00:06:41,450 --> 00:06:45,410
It was just a relationship between me
and wrestling for a while.

99
00:06:45,630 --> 00:06:49,970
And my dad was an amateur wrestler at
the University of Iowa, so he was a real

100
00:06:49,970 --> 00:06:54,540
wrestler. And, of course, he just gave
some gruff, like, ah, that stuff's fake.

101
00:06:54,700 --> 00:06:59,580
The kindest thing I could say about it
was I considered it to be an athletic

102
00:06:59,580 --> 00:07:05,140
soap opera, which has always been my
description of professional wrestling.

103
00:07:05,860 --> 00:07:08,840
Then a new kid gets transferred, but his
name is Kenny Kent.

104
00:07:09,540 --> 00:07:12,420
I met Sean the summer of 1980.

105
00:07:12,760 --> 00:07:14,660
We were sophomores in high school, both
15.

106
00:07:15,220 --> 00:07:18,840
He would want to wrestle and throw
around his friends, and they didn't like

107
00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:24,180
And so I instantly became his little tag
team partner, and we would just bash

108
00:07:24,180 --> 00:07:27,580
each other and throw each other around,
and that's really what developed our

109
00:07:27,580 --> 00:07:31,200
friendship. They'd practice out in the
pool, frightening.

110
00:07:32,420 --> 00:07:36,940
Sean would lift him straight up, and
then they'd fall into the pool.

111
00:07:37,540 --> 00:07:39,120
His way of practicing.

112
00:07:40,180 --> 00:07:44,680
Sean dreamed of wrestling. He would call
me and tell me these matches that he

113
00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:45,860
would lay out and prepare.

114
00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:47,940
He was really obsessed with it.

115
00:07:49,160 --> 00:07:53,700
In that time, you struggle back and
forth with people are telling you it's

116
00:07:53,780 --> 00:07:55,340
but I am there watching the guy.

117
00:07:55,860 --> 00:07:58,400
I mean, hit the guy and sweats flying
off.

118
00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:00,860
There's something to it.

119
00:08:01,340 --> 00:08:03,340
They've got me hook, line, and sinker.

120
00:08:04,020 --> 00:08:07,940
We were a very small school. We did not
have a wrestling team, but our senior

121
00:08:07,940 --> 00:08:12,480
year, we had a talent show, and it was
Sean's idea that me and him were going

122
00:08:12,480 --> 00:08:13,480
do a wrestling match.

123
00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:17,360
Everything was going quite well until I
threw Sean off the stage.

124
00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:21,580
into the crowd and beat his head on the
table a couple of times.

125
00:08:22,100 --> 00:08:24,420
And there's just blood gushing all over
his head.

126
00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:26,360
And people are going nuts.

127
00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:28,100
I think we came in second.

128
00:08:28,520 --> 00:08:29,520
We didn't win.

129
00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:32,280
We got beat by a group of cheerleaders.

130
00:08:32,500 --> 00:08:37,940
So, you know, two guys in little tighty
-whities versus cheerleaders, they're

131
00:08:37,940 --> 00:08:38,940
going to win every time.

132
00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:44,260
We graduate, and then it's, what are you
going to do? Have you decided what you

133
00:08:44,260 --> 00:08:45,820
want? I still want to be a wrestler.

134
00:08:46,820 --> 00:08:53,240
I recognize that I said it when I was
12, but it's just been a big, big part

135
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:53,979
my life.

136
00:08:53,980 --> 00:08:56,360
Okay, that's awesome. That's not a
possibility.

137
00:08:57,060 --> 00:09:00,280
But, you know, at 17, you look at them
and you think, you don't know what

138
00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:01,059
talking about.

139
00:09:01,060 --> 00:09:02,560
We said you're going to college.

140
00:09:02,820 --> 00:09:06,560
There wasn't a lot of hope and
understanding in what I was doing.

141
00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:09,460
We went off to Southwest Texas State
University.

142
00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:13,940
When we lived together in college, there
were many nights I would hear him, and

143
00:09:13,940 --> 00:09:17,300
he's standing there with his shirt off,
and he'd be talking and screaming at the

144
00:09:17,300 --> 00:09:18,420
mirror, practicing.

145
00:09:19,440 --> 00:09:24,980
At the end of the second semester, I
think his GPA was .4.

146
00:09:25,340 --> 00:09:28,800
School just wasn't for him, and he was
ready to make his move into the

147
00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:34,580
world. Essentially, he said, I don't
want to waste any more of my time or

148
00:09:34,580 --> 00:09:37,380
money. I am going to be a professional
wrestler.

149
00:09:38,700 --> 00:09:43,340
My dad played golf with this guy, and
apparently he's the guy that's the local

150
00:09:43,340 --> 00:09:45,140
promoter here in San Antonio.

151
00:09:45,740 --> 00:09:49,160
We go down there, and Jose Lothario was
there.

152
00:09:49,460 --> 00:09:52,840
From San Antonio, Texas, superstar Jose
Lothario.

153
00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:57,620
I understood he was a legitimate name.
The gentleman's name where he has to be

154
00:09:57,620 --> 00:10:01,940
trained. Jose could do the training if
you wanted. It's going to cost $3 ,000.

155
00:10:03,180 --> 00:10:07,080
I thought about facing him when he was
35.

156
00:10:07,870 --> 00:10:14,370
40 years old, and having him say, Dad,
if you had just given me the chance,

157
00:10:14,610 --> 00:10:19,250
I could have been a professional
wrestler. And I couldn't face that

158
00:10:20,090 --> 00:10:22,810
And so I said, what the hell?

159
00:10:32,410 --> 00:10:36,550
You know, I wake up every day never
forgetting what I did for a living.

160
00:10:38,410 --> 00:10:42,470
Sort of developed to have him get up in
the morning, stretch in, and then the

161
00:10:42,470 --> 00:10:43,149
heat pad.

162
00:10:43,150 --> 00:10:48,370
Over the years, you just come up with a
system that your body responds well to.

163
00:10:49,270 --> 00:10:54,570
I do some form of training every day,
you know, to be comfortable for the rest

164
00:10:54,570 --> 00:10:55,570
of the day.

165
00:10:55,890 --> 00:10:59,770
I plan on getting, you know, new knees,
knee replacements, and shoulder

166
00:10:59,770 --> 00:11:03,950
replacements. Most things are going to
add to my quality of life.

167
00:11:04,230 --> 00:11:07,110
It's not like I got into this stuff
thinking, I want to be.

168
00:11:07,530 --> 00:11:13,030
independently wealthy, and be 100 %
healthy. That doesn't happen. So I don't

169
00:11:13,030 --> 00:11:15,930
mind any of it. I don't think that's
some big, crazy sacrifice.

170
00:11:25,810 --> 00:11:29,590
I first came across Shawn Michaels in
1983.

171
00:11:30,550 --> 00:11:33,990
Shawn was training with a gentleman by
the name of Jose Lothario.

172
00:11:34,310 --> 00:11:36,690
Jose was a big star in...

173
00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:39,280
Houston, Texas, Dallas, San Antonio.

174
00:11:40,340 --> 00:11:43,500
He was Hispanic, so there was a luchador
style.

175
00:11:43,780 --> 00:11:46,380
It was the aerial side of things.

176
00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:52,580
Thankfully, in all of that process, he
saw that, oh, my goodness, he's actually

177
00:11:52,580 --> 00:11:58,440
pretty good. It was worth the $3 ,000,
period, for him to get me my first job

178
00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:01,340
Louisiana. That could not have happened
without Jose Otero.

179
00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:05,240
The pride of Vero Beach, Florida, Terry
Taylor.

180
00:12:06,170 --> 00:12:10,410
First time I met Shawn Michaels working
for Mid -South, there was this young,

181
00:12:10,490 --> 00:12:15,910
innocent, cheerful, vibrant sort of lost
young man.

182
00:12:16,330 --> 00:12:17,650
I was scared of everything.

183
00:12:17,930 --> 00:12:20,690
It was a lot of confusion, a lot of
unknown.

184
00:12:20,990 --> 00:12:23,930
How in God's name is this supposed to go
on?

185
00:12:25,210 --> 00:12:28,030
They came walking to the back and Terry
Taylor was standing there at the

186
00:12:28,030 --> 00:12:30,010
curtain. I said, how long have you been
in the business?

187
00:12:30,330 --> 00:12:31,690
And he goes, that was my first match.

188
00:12:31,950 --> 00:12:33,010
I couldn't believe it.

189
00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:39,460
Because this isn't easy. Shawn Michaels,
very young man and very inexperienced,

190
00:12:39,500 --> 00:12:41,520
but he has a great deal of natural
athletic ability.

191
00:12:41,880 --> 00:12:46,200
We drove 3 ,000 miles a week. That means
there's a lot of time that you're in

192
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:50,340
the car doing this, and he would ask
questions. Young man who is quite

193
00:12:50,620 --> 00:12:54,460
I was very well -mannered. I was quiet,
and I wanted to do nothing but learn.

194
00:12:54,720 --> 00:12:56,880
Some young people come in, I know
everything.

195
00:12:57,460 --> 00:12:58,720
Nothing like that for Shawn.

196
00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:01,780
Humble, passionate, driven, hungry.

197
00:13:03,970 --> 00:13:10,030
At about six months, the owner, Bill
Watts, came to me and he got me set up

198
00:13:10,030 --> 00:13:11,029
Kansas City.

199
00:13:11,030 --> 00:13:16,530
I was going to have the opportunity to
begin to grow as a wrestler, as a

200
00:13:16,530 --> 00:13:17,530
performer.

201
00:13:17,610 --> 00:13:21,150
We're hearing all this like, gosh, John
Michaels, John Michaels coming in. We're

202
00:13:21,150 --> 00:13:24,690
like, damn, nobody's got any attention
like this.

203
00:13:24,910 --> 00:13:25,910
What's wrong with us?

204
00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:30,940
We walked into the dressing room, and
this guy had real short hair, green

205
00:13:30,940 --> 00:13:33,320
tights, pulled up to under his chest.

206
00:13:33,620 --> 00:13:36,940
Let me ask this nerd, like, hey, do you
know who Shawn Michaels is?

207
00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:39,360
And anybody goes, I'm Shawn Michaels.

208
00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:42,120
Oh, damn.

209
00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:46,640
We got some work to do. They threw us
together because they needed a match

210
00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:50,640
quick. We didn't have time to prepare
for it. But it clicked.

211
00:13:50,900 --> 00:13:52,320
Marty Janetti.

212
00:13:52,780 --> 00:13:57,100
Marty just carried himself with such
confidence. He was enjoying himself. He

213
00:13:57,100 --> 00:14:01,240
outgoing. I was so sort of shy,
conservative.

214
00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:08,520
Shawn came from a military family. Shawn
was protected from a lot of the

215
00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:10,840
evils that lurk in the real world.

216
00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:15,540
And having some notoriety, being on
television, you've got women, you've got

217
00:14:15,540 --> 00:14:19,060
alcohol, you've got drugs, and it's all
readily available to you.

218
00:14:19,830 --> 00:14:21,190
Yeah, he liked it right away.

219
00:14:21,450 --> 00:14:23,070
But at first he wasn't old enough.

220
00:14:23,610 --> 00:14:25,270
So he had to wait in the parking lot.

221
00:14:25,590 --> 00:14:28,150
We'd bring girls down to him and beer
down to him.

222
00:14:28,970 --> 00:14:32,750
Marty Gennetti one day said to me, you
know what, I see something in you. It's

223
00:14:32,750 --> 00:14:33,750
just dying to get out.

224
00:14:34,530 --> 00:14:36,650
He said, you just need somebody to bring
it out of you.

225
00:14:37,250 --> 00:14:38,330
And I'm going to bring it out.

226
00:14:38,870 --> 00:14:42,990
From the Showboat Hotel and Casino in
Las Vegas, Nevada.

227
00:14:43,790 --> 00:14:46,930
This is AWA, Championship Wrestling on
ESPN.

228
00:14:47,310 --> 00:14:50,970
So I was 20 years old, TV tapings are in
Las Vegas.

229
00:14:51,790 --> 00:14:55,750
At that time, Marty and I, you know, I
knew he was out there. So you just start

230
00:14:55,750 --> 00:14:57,050
looking around.

231
00:14:59,030 --> 00:15:03,750
All of a sudden, there he is. He's down
there playing and go down there. I went

232
00:15:03,750 --> 00:15:04,750
and just do, do, do.

233
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:08,120
Pulled it down. I'm sitting there with
him, and all of a sudden we hear this

234
00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:12,840
ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,
ding. Red lights go flashing around, and

235
00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:19,180
Sean hit triple sevens. Won $750 the
first time. The irony of it now, like,

236
00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:24,120
this place was Vegas, and the nightlife
of Vegas and everything else would be my

237
00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:27,580
downfall. It started later that night.

238
00:15:28,220 --> 00:15:30,280
It's the first line of Yale.

239
00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:35,940
You know, the first line of blow, and
it's, oh, my gosh, this is the greatest

240
00:15:35,940 --> 00:15:36,940
thing ever.

241
00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:40,600
And just this whole world opens up.

242
00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:45,020
I'd have never been able to get that guy
out of me. And Marty is the guy that

243
00:15:45,020 --> 00:15:48,260
helped tap into that. I don't even know
how much I knew was there.

244
00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:54,380
Me and Sean partied Monday night,
Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday

245
00:15:54,380 --> 00:15:56,260
night. Come Friday, we'll burn out.

246
00:15:56,660 --> 00:15:58,900
Big Van Vader, he comes to hang out with
us.

247
00:15:59,370 --> 00:16:03,610
He looked at Curt Hennig, and he goes, I
thought you said these guys partied.

248
00:16:04,350 --> 00:16:06,470
And Curt said, they don't start until
midnight.

249
00:16:06,930 --> 00:16:10,670
The Midnight Rockers, what a sensational
pair they are.

250
00:16:10,910 --> 00:16:11,910
It was like magic.

251
00:16:12,030 --> 00:16:13,810
The Judas Priest song, come on.

252
00:16:14,290 --> 00:16:16,530
They love to party.

253
00:16:16,770 --> 00:16:18,750
They've taken the AWA by storm.

254
00:16:19,010 --> 00:16:22,010
The move happening faster than we can
even talk about it. They've got to put a

255
00:16:22,010 --> 00:16:25,210
bigger roof on the arenas to hold these
two kids in it. These two are

256
00:16:25,210 --> 00:16:26,210
sensational,

257
00:16:27,070 --> 00:16:28,070
to say the least.

258
00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:30,600
Live in after midnight.

259
00:16:31,740 --> 00:16:34,040
Rock in till we're gone.

260
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:41,040
Midnight Rockers had a hell of a run in
the AWA that had TV on ESPN.

261
00:16:41,420 --> 00:16:45,560
The World Tag Team Championship is Marty
Zunetti and Shawn Michaels' goal. They

262
00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:50,060
were smaller guys, but they could work
with the Giants and have a great match.

263
00:16:51,500 --> 00:16:56,600
The Tag Team Championship of the World
is what they are fighting for here

264
00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:57,600
tonight.

265
00:17:01,230 --> 00:17:05,690
The blood match, if you will, is the
first time that a national audience got

266
00:17:05,690 --> 00:17:12,069
exposed to the talent of the Midnight
Rockers. This is absolute mayhem. The

267
00:17:12,069 --> 00:17:17,130
match itself was very bloody, very gory.
One of the toughest, roughest matches

268
00:17:17,130 --> 00:17:19,109
that we have ever seen.

269
00:17:19,510 --> 00:17:24,130
That was kind of like a defining moment
in their career that they were made at

270
00:17:24,130 --> 00:17:25,130
that level.

271
00:17:26,430 --> 00:17:30,130
If we was on the road 300 days a year,
we partied 290 of them.

272
00:17:31,330 --> 00:17:34,290
We used to do a lot of drugs. There was
a lot of powder around.

273
00:17:35,010 --> 00:17:37,330
You look at rock stars and you look at
rock bands.

274
00:17:37,690 --> 00:17:41,310
There was a tendency to want to go wild
and destroy things.

275
00:17:41,950 --> 00:17:45,070
It's fun when you're young because you
feel like a rebel.

276
00:17:45,390 --> 00:17:46,970
We've made it, man. Look at this.

277
00:17:47,590 --> 00:17:50,770
You throw a beer bottle up against the
wall and you're like, all right, we'll

278
00:17:50,770 --> 00:17:51,770
pay for it later.

279
00:17:51,810 --> 00:17:54,810
We always did the job, but it was just
burning all night.

280
00:17:55,070 --> 00:18:01,290
destroyed a room with a showboat, and we
got the entire AWA, the entire company

281
00:18:01,290 --> 00:18:02,290
got kicked out of there.

282
00:18:03,090 --> 00:18:06,990
It wasn't very long that we had a
reputation.

283
00:18:07,290 --> 00:18:10,810
And once you get it, everybody else
knows you got it.

284
00:18:12,590 --> 00:18:14,850
WWE was starting to really separate
itself.

285
00:18:15,170 --> 00:18:17,590
That's where you wanted to go. That's
where you set your goals.

286
00:18:18,810 --> 00:18:22,390
Finally, Marty got the call to go into
New York.

287
00:18:23,390 --> 00:18:28,470
In 1987, the Rockers started in Buffalo,
New York.

288
00:18:28,690 --> 00:18:34,710
Marty and Shawn looked at this as their
big break that night in the bar.

289
00:18:34,930 --> 00:18:41,290
The other talent looked at Shawn and
Marty as these two young punks with a

290
00:18:41,290 --> 00:18:42,269
on their shoulder.

291
00:18:42,270 --> 00:18:46,590
They're going to have to earn the
respect of the WWE locker room.

292
00:18:47,020 --> 00:18:52,040
We were scared, man. We were scared. So
that night, that's why we kind of kept

293
00:18:52,040 --> 00:18:53,040
to ourselves.

294
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:57,560
And Terry Garvin come up and he said,
no, don't do that. Don't do that. Y 'all

295
00:18:57,560 --> 00:18:58,560
have to mingle.

296
00:18:59,300 --> 00:19:04,100
And then all of a sudden, Jimmy Jack
Funk, he came over and he's hammering

297
00:19:04,100 --> 00:19:04,979
these drinks.

298
00:19:04,980 --> 00:19:07,480
And he's like, hey, you guys be
partiers.

299
00:19:07,700 --> 00:19:09,640
He starts eating his glass.

300
00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:12,340
Come on, let's do it.

301
00:19:12,780 --> 00:19:14,140
I at least got to be a little bit tough.

302
00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:16,160
So then I make wine glass all over my
head.

303
00:19:18,030 --> 00:19:20,550
And that was it. Turn around, I leave.

304
00:19:21,650 --> 00:19:25,710
I would never say we didn't earn our
reputations, any of that. But the

305
00:19:25,710 --> 00:19:29,270
business is one giant fish story, all
right? So if something happened once in

306
00:19:29,270 --> 00:19:31,450
the wrestling business, that gets
magnified to ten times.

307
00:19:31,750 --> 00:19:38,390
Some people say that Sean or Marty threw
a beer bottle, which started a chain of

308
00:19:38,390 --> 00:19:40,970
events that couldn't be stopped.

309
00:19:41,690 --> 00:19:45,610
And then these two guys, I mean, they're
in there just getting crazy, tearing up

310
00:19:45,610 --> 00:19:47,790
the bar, throwing stuff all over the
place.

311
00:19:48,830 --> 00:19:50,750
That is not at all what happened.

312
00:19:52,650 --> 00:19:59,270
The next day, Sean and Marty were fired,
and it was over for them after one day

313
00:19:59,270 --> 00:20:03,010
from just the story and the hearsay and
innuendo.

314
00:20:04,190 --> 00:20:09,130
I normally get reasons as to why I want
to do something, and I'm sure I did with

315
00:20:09,130 --> 00:20:09,959
them, but...

316
00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:11,620
That was one and done out.

317
00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:17,880
He said, guys don't like it. He said,
they won't let you make it here. In my

318
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:22,100
mind, I'm 23 and it's over.

319
00:20:23,140 --> 00:20:25,200
That was my one big shot.

320
00:20:26,260 --> 00:20:28,880
It happened now and it's gone.

321
00:20:34,340 --> 00:20:36,380
I was going to take a little takeover.

322
00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:38,680
We'll watch it and I'll scull you.

323
00:20:39,050 --> 00:20:40,050
Okay.

324
00:20:41,230 --> 00:20:46,070
Shawn Michaels put his heart and soul
into being the best pro wrestler that he

325
00:20:46,070 --> 00:20:51,290
could possibly be. And he does the exact
same thing as a coach and as a

326
00:20:51,290 --> 00:20:54,690
producer. Stop there and look at each
other. Can that stuff take a little

327
00:20:54,690 --> 00:20:59,690
longer? He will find ways to pick apart
every little thing to make it better.

328
00:21:00,010 --> 00:21:01,010
Same for the head.

329
00:21:01,490 --> 00:21:04,770
You can't hold back on that because it's
going to cause you not to get all the

330
00:21:04,770 --> 00:21:05,770
way around.

331
00:21:05,900 --> 00:21:11,140
Shawn has this amazing ability to
instill a confidence in you. This was

332
00:21:11,140 --> 00:21:15,440
tremendous. And when someone like Shawn
Michaels gives that to you, that's all

333
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:16,480
the motivation that you need.

334
00:21:20,380 --> 00:21:26,560
The unfortunate

335
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:33,400
byproduct of Shawn and Marty being fired
after their first day in WWE is

336
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:37,020
Marty and Shawn had... burned their
bridge in the AWA.

337
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:38,400
Where do you go?

338
00:21:38,620 --> 00:21:43,380
Welcome once again to Continental
Championship Wrestling. We ended up in

339
00:21:43,380 --> 00:21:46,080
Birmingham, Alabama, Continental
Wrestling.

340
00:21:46,740 --> 00:21:52,060
I was wrestling in front of 25 people at
$300 a week. If you wanted to get $50

341
00:21:52,060 --> 00:21:57,060
in cash, get your other $50 in blow, you
could do that, which is probably what I

342
00:21:57,060 --> 00:21:58,240
did nine times out of ten.

343
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:03,580
I heard him talk about how depressed he
was.

344
00:22:04,030 --> 00:22:06,290
At that time, we was doing a lot of
cocaine.

345
00:22:06,930 --> 00:22:10,570
And we would talk about wrestling, and
we would watch wrestling videos, and we

346
00:22:10,570 --> 00:22:14,470
would study. I had to go home to my
girlfriend like at 2 or 3 or 4 in the

347
00:22:14,470 --> 00:22:17,250
morning. Sometimes the next morning, the
sun was out.

348
00:22:17,450 --> 00:22:22,450
And evidently, the way he says it, I let
him down because I didn't stay with him

349
00:22:22,450 --> 00:22:25,550
more, and he was by himself. When you're
doing cocaine, you don't want to be

350
00:22:25,550 --> 00:22:26,550
alone.

351
00:22:28,970 --> 00:22:32,350
When you're up at 4 o 'clock in the
morning coming down from...

352
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:36,160
The yayo, that's, like, that's very
dreary.

353
00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:39,540
Because the low is just so really new.

354
00:22:40,100 --> 00:22:43,680
I was, like, man, if I had a gun, this
is one of those times that I was

355
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:45,200
enough to have the balls to do it.

356
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:50,860
At that time, it would have wrecked my
parents. You know, their suffering is

357
00:22:50,860 --> 00:22:52,700
what pulled me back from that.

358
00:22:53,620 --> 00:22:56,080
But the thing is, I never told them the
truth.

359
00:22:56,420 --> 00:22:59,320
So I'm not telling, like, jeez, Mom, I'm
just partying and getting hammered and

360
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:00,320
doing blow.

361
00:23:01,610 --> 00:23:07,530
Sean and Marty, they wanted to come
back. I remember Pat Patterson giving

362
00:23:07,530 --> 00:23:14,390
the advice to continue to work and
continue to reverse the reputation that

363
00:23:14,390 --> 00:23:16,850
have and prove to us that you belong.

364
00:23:17,250 --> 00:23:19,690
And that's what Marty and Sean did.

365
00:23:20,010 --> 00:23:24,650
Pat was instrumental in saying, Vince,
he's a great talent. And it was

366
00:23:24,650 --> 00:23:27,950
for me to make that decision because he
was a jerk at me doing some stupid

367
00:23:27,950 --> 00:23:29,290
things. But Pat was right.

368
00:23:30,700 --> 00:23:36,280
I was there in 88 when they came back.
It had been a year since the Rockers had

369
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:37,860
kind of screwed up on their first day.

370
00:23:38,360 --> 00:23:41,980
We're going to bring you back with John
Probation. You know, keep it together.

371
00:23:43,380 --> 00:23:44,380
Yes, sir.

372
00:23:45,300 --> 00:23:51,560
I met John in

373
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:55,320
1990. They were pretty much, you know,
fun -loving guys.

374
00:23:55,700 --> 00:23:59,640
They even tested me a little bit with
their, you know, their antics.

375
00:24:00,060 --> 00:24:03,620
Actually, you know, they were both
pretty much peckerheads. I mean, I got

376
00:24:03,620 --> 00:24:05,200
call a spade a spade.

377
00:24:06,700 --> 00:24:12,640
They were definitely

378
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:19,200
innovators doing tandem moves together.
You know, such a cohesive unit.

379
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:24,280
The fans were nuts for them, especially
the women. You know, the long hair and

380
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:25,280
all that.

381
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:31,600
There was a transitional moment
happening in the business where the

382
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:36,080
was picking up the ability to do things
that Sean and Marty could do.

383
00:24:36,780 --> 00:24:38,060
Oh, what a backdrop!

384
00:24:38,500 --> 00:24:43,380
Tag team wrestling now has been impacted
a great deal by what Marty and I did.

385
00:24:45,580 --> 00:24:48,140
First time you ever make a magazine is
huge.

386
00:24:48,360 --> 00:24:51,840
And we would always go through the
stores, stop and look at the magazine

387
00:24:52,060 --> 00:24:54,680
I remember one time I heard Sean, oh my
God!

388
00:24:55,200 --> 00:25:00,300
And there's a picture of us. It said,
from imitators to innovators. And he's

389
00:25:00,300 --> 00:25:04,360
holding it up, and he was so proud. And
I was like, oh, man, we did it.

390
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,780
Shawn Michaels, Marty Jannetty, the
Rocker!

391
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:13,480
That's a real notch in the belt to be on
Saturday Night's Main Event.

392
00:25:13,740 --> 00:25:18,600
Saturday Night's Main Event was finally
going to be the Rockers winning the tag

393
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,860
team championship against Red Heart, Jim
the Animal Nightheart.

394
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:24,120
It was going to be...

395
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:25,379
Five stars.

396
00:25:25,380 --> 00:25:27,260
It's going to be as good a match as we
ever had.

397
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:34,260
We're in the process of having that
match, and all of a sudden, the rope

398
00:25:36,100 --> 00:25:41,200
Brett, the consummate pro, he
understands it's not live. It's taped.

399
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:45,560
all this. It's taped. All you got to do
is grab a hold, and then they'll fix it,

400
00:25:45,620 --> 00:25:49,100
and then you're still in that hold, and
the match can carry on. And I told him,

401
00:25:49,100 --> 00:25:53,400
I said, just fix the rope. Fix the rope.
Fix the rope. We'll take care of this.

402
00:25:54,140 --> 00:25:59,160
And then we get word just to continue
without it. So that's what we do.

403
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:03,500
It was a disaster and I was so sick
about it.

404
00:26:03,900 --> 00:26:09,420
We get our championship victory. We are
doing our best to look excited in what

405
00:26:09,420 --> 00:26:14,480
is this huge steaming pile of crap in
the ring.

406
00:26:14,820 --> 00:26:17,760
It just looked horrible. So the match
never aired.

407
00:26:18,610 --> 00:26:22,870
Vince calls me and said, we're not going
to acknowledge that you won. We're

408
00:26:22,870 --> 00:26:23,870
going to give the belts back.

409
00:26:26,070 --> 00:26:28,690
I go, okay. Are we going to have another
opportunity?

410
00:26:28,990 --> 00:26:30,930
No, we're probably just going to go
another direction.

411
00:26:33,910 --> 00:26:38,110
Unbelievably disappointed because that's
not what you imagine that moment being.

412
00:26:38,370 --> 00:26:39,390
Done. It's over.

413
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:50,660
We were on the road 300 days a year for
years.

414
00:26:53,020 --> 00:26:58,300
Same hotel, same rent -a -car, some of
the same girls.

415
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:07,060
I remember we were in Denver.

416
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,840
Roddy Piper came into the room, and we
had a few girls there.

417
00:27:11,140 --> 00:27:13,740
And Roddy kept bragging on Sean.

418
00:27:14,510 --> 00:27:18,510
He was stirring up the pot as far as
saying, you know, I could be a singles

419
00:27:18,550 --> 00:27:21,450
you know, have great success and things
like that.

420
00:27:21,670 --> 00:27:24,870
And he'd look at me and go, well, you
got to work on you. You're still rough

421
00:27:24,870 --> 00:27:25,870
around the edges.

422
00:27:26,550 --> 00:27:29,510
I was like, Roddy, shouldn't we talk
about that some other time?

423
00:27:30,150 --> 00:27:32,890
And Sean shoved me at that point.

424
00:27:35,410 --> 00:27:39,350
Everybody got in a fight because
everybody was not in their, you know,

425
00:27:39,350 --> 00:27:41,370
frame of mind, like all the time.

426
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,180
And he tackled me in the hallway, and I
didn't want to hit him once, let alone,

427
00:27:46,260 --> 00:27:47,260
you know, over and over.

428
00:27:47,420 --> 00:27:51,080
I had blood like, it looked like, you
know, gutted a deer or something.

429
00:27:53,660 --> 00:28:00,600
All of my

430
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:05,040
success at that point was tag teams, but
there was never a time in my career

431
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:06,060
where someone...

432
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:10,880
didn't say to me, like, I think you've
got some talent. It was eventually going

433
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:12,080
to come down to me.

434
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:17,820
I remember the first time he told me, I
want to be the world champion one day. I

435
00:28:17,820 --> 00:28:20,140
don't want to tag the rest of our
career.

436
00:28:20,420 --> 00:28:23,920
I just need you to let me know when
you're ready for that. Don't spring it

437
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:25,740
me. And he sprung it on me anyway.

438
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,000
Welcome to the barbershop, ladies and
gentlemen.

439
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:33,240
Let's welcome them right now.

440
00:28:33,660 --> 00:28:35,020
They're the Rockers!

441
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:41,820
Recently, there's been a lot of
controversy, a lot of rumors flying,

442
00:28:42,060 --> 00:28:44,000
Maybe you guys are going to break up.

443
00:28:44,220 --> 00:28:45,660
You've been having some problems.

444
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:51,720
I didn't become familiar with Shawn
until he showed up in WWE with Marty

445
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:55,700
Jannetty as The Rockers. That's my first
introduction to Shawn Michaels.

446
00:28:56,660 --> 00:28:58,900
See, one without the other isn't any
good.

447
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,340
Oh, I knew he was going to do that.

448
00:29:01,900 --> 00:29:03,680
I just knew he was going to do that.

449
00:29:09,130 --> 00:29:13,350
I would argue the barbershop window is
the greatest tag team breakup of all

450
00:29:13,350 --> 00:29:17,370
time. It is the standard bearer for
turning on a friend.

451
00:29:17,690 --> 00:29:19,650
It's super good. Oh, he laid again.

452
00:29:20,730 --> 00:29:23,090
Oh, he got me back for Denver.

453
00:29:24,450 --> 00:29:26,090
Is there a problem?

454
00:29:26,530 --> 00:29:33,530
It was so effective that it makes Sean
one

455
00:29:33,530 --> 00:29:35,410
of the most hated men in wrestling.

456
00:29:36,390 --> 00:29:39,510
Shawn Michaels changed forever on that
day.

457
00:29:41,990 --> 00:29:48,570
I have this strange thing with Marty
because

458
00:29:48,570 --> 00:29:55,250
without him, so much of the good doesn't
happen for me.

459
00:29:55,550 --> 00:29:58,350
But there's a ceiling on being a tag
team, period.

460
00:29:58,590 --> 00:30:03,370
Whether it's called a leading man as
opposed to a leading duo, it's just a

461
00:30:03,370 --> 00:30:04,370
natural evolution.

462
00:30:04,970 --> 00:30:10,230
Now everybody is going to find out what
Shawn Michaels has known all along, that

463
00:30:10,230 --> 00:30:14,390
he is without a doubt the hottest thing
the World Wrestling Federation has ever,

464
00:30:14,450 --> 00:30:15,990
ever laid eyes on.

465
00:30:21,350 --> 00:30:27,270
The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels was
something that Don just pretty much came

466
00:30:27,270 --> 00:30:32,610
up with. I don't think that anybody
really mapped out the Heartbreak Kid.

467
00:30:42,389 --> 00:30:47,970
It was allowing me a vehicle to let this
other person out.

468
00:30:48,230 --> 00:30:53,010
To get out there in front of a bunch of
people and you can just be somebody

469
00:30:53,010 --> 00:30:54,010
you've never been.

470
00:30:55,670 --> 00:30:59,970
No, I don't know where all that came
from. I really don't. He figured Tom

471
00:30:59,970 --> 00:31:01,470
Michaels could do whatever he wanted to.

472
00:31:02,110 --> 00:31:06,830
What, an alter ego? Maybe. The Kentucky
Waterfall mullet alone.

473
00:31:07,290 --> 00:31:09,470
Probably one of the greatest mullets of
all time.

474
00:31:09,690 --> 00:31:10,689
He is arrogant.

475
00:31:10,690 --> 00:31:12,430
He's cocky. The dangling earrings.

476
00:31:12,910 --> 00:31:14,290
The village people outfit.

477
00:31:14,750 --> 00:31:16,110
Your girlfriend wants him.

478
00:31:16,310 --> 00:31:20,190
You're going to go over and kick his
ass. But maybe he's going to kick yours

479
00:31:20,190 --> 00:31:21,190
take her anyway.

480
00:31:21,430 --> 00:31:22,850
And that's where his heat was.

481
00:31:23,370 --> 00:31:24,450
I was a pretty kid.

482
00:31:24,710 --> 00:31:25,890
I was a pretty man.

483
00:31:26,250 --> 00:31:27,630
I don't mind telling you at one time.

484
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:29,540
Could play the part of Mr.

485
00:31:30,020 --> 00:31:32,700
Confident and everything else and could
do everything under the sun.

486
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:33,920
Couldn't do a lick.

487
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:40,280
Elvis and Freddie Mercury were on stage.
They were so freaking positive. But in

488
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:41,980
their lives, they struggled.

489
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:47,260
There was something there between me and
those individuals that I could relate

490
00:31:47,260 --> 00:31:50,400
to. You're not comfortable with who you
are. You're not comfortable with

491
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:53,620
yourself. Not knowing who I was as a
human being.

492
00:31:54,010 --> 00:31:59,710
Out there, you're playing this role, but
you can do it with just unbridled

493
00:31:59,710 --> 00:32:00,710
confidence.

494
00:32:00,890 --> 00:32:06,610
And you absolutely cannot do it by
yourself in your own hotel room. I am a

495
00:32:06,610 --> 00:32:08,710
-performance, state -of -the -art
wrestling machine.

496
00:32:09,130 --> 00:32:14,130
I think any great character will be
confused between the human being and the

497
00:32:14,130 --> 00:32:19,530
character. And Sean Higginbottom kind of
morphed into the heartbreak kid at all

498
00:32:19,530 --> 00:32:22,290
times. Sean is becoming a little bit
more difficult.

499
00:32:23,150 --> 00:32:26,290
And the Intercontinental title is coming
to the sexiest man.

500
00:32:26,870 --> 00:32:31,930
The WWE was still the land of the
giants. And there was still a lot of big

501
00:32:32,070 --> 00:32:36,490
And Shawn wanted to break through what
he considered a glass ceiling of.

502
00:32:36,690 --> 00:32:39,910
I'm not six foot eight. I'm not 300
pounds.

503
00:32:40,590 --> 00:32:43,070
I want to be what I am.

504
00:32:43,370 --> 00:32:44,870
And I want to be the guy.

505
00:32:45,570 --> 00:32:47,230
When you are that talented.

506
00:32:47,740 --> 00:32:53,200
And that hell -bent on succeeding would
have the chip on your shoulder of being

507
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,420
the little guy to get to where he needed
to be. He had to stand his ground. He

508
00:32:56,420 --> 00:32:57,420
had to fight for what he wanted.

509
00:32:57,660 --> 00:33:02,520
I was at the very least as good or
better than, you know, anybody else that

510
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,600
was sharing a locker room with. I was
getting an opportunity that not many

511
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:07,740
like me were going to get.

512
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:09,760
We got a new intercontinental champion!

513
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:16,140
Tom made him 6 '1", but his eagle and
the chip on his shoulder made him 9 '5".

514
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:24,720
By 92, 93, Intercontinental Champion at
the time, we're looking for Shawn to

515
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:28,120
really step up and become a huge star
for us.

516
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:33,320
One thing I did have is I wasn't scared
of anything. I was the most dangerous

517
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,480
person in the world because I had
nothing to lose.

518
00:33:35,900 --> 00:33:40,140
And when you are like that in a creative
line of work, you are freaking

519
00:33:40,140 --> 00:33:41,960
unbeatable.

520
00:33:43,580 --> 00:33:46,320
Welcome to WrestleMania 10!

521
00:33:49,550 --> 00:33:54,870
In the process of studying Shawn
Michaels' matches, the one that many

522
00:33:54,870 --> 00:33:59,170
back to is the infamous ladder match,
the match that Shawn Michaels and Razor

523
00:33:59,170 --> 00:34:01,170
Ramon made famous at WrestleMania X.

524
00:34:01,390 --> 00:34:03,190
We are making history here.

525
00:34:03,490 --> 00:34:08,090
So right before WrestleMania X leading
up, there was a suspension with Shawn

526
00:34:08,090 --> 00:34:12,030
where Shawn had been out of the company
for a while. Shawn left as the

527
00:34:12,030 --> 00:34:13,090
Intercontinental Champion.

528
00:34:13,590 --> 00:34:16,070
Yeah, he failed a drug test for roids.

529
00:34:16,650 --> 00:34:19,989
At that time, brother, pills were being
passed around in bars.

530
00:34:20,270 --> 00:34:22,850
Like, guys would go, here, man, Canadian
virus, here, take this.

531
00:34:23,530 --> 00:34:27,710
Sean did not feel that he should have
been suspended, was pissed off.

532
00:34:28,330 --> 00:34:31,889
Vince didn't want to put up with him,
thought he was an out -of -control

533
00:34:31,889 --> 00:34:37,230
egomaniac. And they tell Sean to send
the bell back, and he says, no, I'm not

534
00:34:37,230 --> 00:34:38,230
sending it back.

535
00:34:38,610 --> 00:34:42,370
Sean decides he wants to come back, but
Razor's their Continental Champion.

536
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:47,440
Take both championship belts, hang them
above the ring. You fight to climb the

537
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:51,760
ladder. Whoever gets championships above
the ring, that's your true champion.

538
00:34:52,060 --> 00:34:55,679
But two intercontinental championship
belts hanging from above.

539
00:34:55,940 --> 00:35:00,700
For the following contest, there are no
rules.

540
00:35:01,740 --> 00:35:03,220
Put the ladder in.

541
00:35:03,820 --> 00:35:07,220
The most.

542
00:35:11,020 --> 00:35:14,740
barbaric, insane car crash excitement
you've ever seen.

543
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:22,880
I was able to have a presence that I
don't think they knew that I

544
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:26,300
had. It isn't about size, it is about
presence.

545
00:35:30,620 --> 00:35:36,300
Sean actually lost the match, but it put
Sean in a different level that...

546
00:35:36,620 --> 00:35:40,340
People believed this little bastard
could do anything.

547
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:50,320
If you didn't before or you didn't want
to believe, Sean made you

548
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:51,320
believe.

549
00:35:59,210 --> 00:36:01,150
She closed it, just dropped it to the
side.

550
00:36:01,430 --> 00:36:05,610
Boom, and then she said, okay, mister,
here we go. I don't know, just throw it

551
00:36:05,610 --> 00:36:06,408
out there.

552
00:36:06,410 --> 00:36:10,730
This weekend we have one of our bigger
events, five -man ladder match.

553
00:36:11,470 --> 00:36:13,330
Someone will be holding that right
there.

554
00:36:13,690 --> 00:36:17,890
Many, many years ago, it was just two of
us and one ladder.

555
00:36:18,210 --> 00:36:21,350
And now these young men and women have
taken it to a whole other level.

556
00:36:21,750 --> 00:36:27,870
I always dreamed of being in a ladder
match, obviously, because of Sean and

557
00:36:27,870 --> 00:36:28,870
Razor.

558
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:36,200
Ladder matches are about crazy stunts,
big balls, the car crash coming to life.

559
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:40,300
He is the fate of the ladder match. And
to have him kind of help us out, have

560
00:36:40,300 --> 00:36:42,340
him kind of watch over us, you can't
dream it up.

561
00:36:42,660 --> 00:36:43,660
It's perfect.

562
00:36:44,740 --> 00:36:45,180
I

563
00:36:45,180 --> 00:36:52,180
met

564
00:36:52,180 --> 00:36:57,680
him in the locker room in 1993 and
wanted to know if I would be interested

565
00:36:57,680 --> 00:36:58,900
becoming his bodyguard.

566
00:36:59,470 --> 00:37:04,230
And the first thing out of Shawn's mouth
is, just so you know, everybody hates

567
00:37:04,230 --> 00:37:05,230
us.

568
00:37:05,470 --> 00:37:10,910
The bodyguard position was 24 -7. It
wasn't just on television persona.

569
00:37:11,430 --> 00:37:13,270
He had a lot of people who didn't like
him.

570
00:37:14,150 --> 00:37:18,830
Shawn Michaels was misunderstood all
throughout his career. There was a

571
00:37:18,830 --> 00:37:23,070
perception that he was, frankly, Shawn
was selfish.

572
00:37:23,570 --> 00:37:27,510
Shawn did have an out -of -control ego.
And Shawn did feel he was better than

573
00:37:27,510 --> 00:37:28,510
everybody else.

574
00:37:28,670 --> 00:37:34,470
To be successful and to take it to the
next level, you have to start looking

575
00:37:34,470 --> 00:37:35,169
for yourself.

576
00:37:35,170 --> 00:37:36,430
It's not a team sport.

577
00:37:37,290 --> 00:37:43,530
The one thing that was the saving grace
for Shawn was he was so good in the

578
00:37:43,530 --> 00:37:48,350
ring. As a performer, if you work with a
guy that makes you look that good, I

579
00:37:48,350 --> 00:37:50,450
don't care what you think of him, you
want to work with him.

580
00:37:51,310 --> 00:37:57,090
Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall,
1 -2 -3 Kid, and then Paul Levesque,

581
00:37:57,190 --> 00:37:58,190
Triple H.

582
00:37:58,230 --> 00:38:04,430
These were guys that loved hanging out
together, and hence the clique began to

583
00:38:04,430 --> 00:38:05,430
form.

584
00:38:06,250 --> 00:38:11,450
We all just hit it off. What we did was
talk nonstop about the business, and we

585
00:38:11,450 --> 00:38:15,690
were all just so passionate about it.
The perception was that the clique was

586
00:38:15,690 --> 00:38:19,810
-knowing and all -powerful, and that if
you crossed the clique, they'll just go

587
00:38:19,810 --> 00:38:21,250
to Vince and you'll be blackballed.

588
00:38:21,570 --> 00:38:25,870
They couldn't call any of the shots, but
I listened, and they had some really

589
00:38:25,870 --> 00:38:26,859
good ideas.

590
00:38:26,860 --> 00:38:30,940
Really smart individually, and Sean was
very smart when he was sober.

591
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:37,380
Sean had an attitude when he drank even
more so, on top of pills.

592
00:38:37,700 --> 00:38:40,880
And Sean was the wrong thing at the
wrong time.

593
00:38:41,740 --> 00:38:47,240
And he was protected in the WB
environment, but outside of the

594
00:38:49,060 --> 00:38:52,980
Sean Michaels, British Bulldog, 1 -2 -3
kid, walked into a bar.

595
00:38:53,220 --> 00:38:55,900
Me, Scott, and Kev were in Europe.

596
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:58,240
is where we find out that this all
happened.

597
00:38:58,540 --> 00:39:00,820
A bunch of Marines in a tough bar.

598
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:04,960
Every eye in that place turns to the
three wrestlers that just walked in the

599
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:07,320
door, of which Sean is the megastar.

600
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:10,400
Every girl in that place starts to look
at Sean.

601
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:14,980
Sean is very enamored with that. And
Sean is at this point in his life like,

602
00:39:15,140 --> 00:39:16,200
what are you looking at?

603
00:39:16,580 --> 00:39:17,620
A problem jarhead?

604
00:39:18,340 --> 00:39:22,340
They go to walk out. Six Marines walk
out, beat the out of Sean and leave him

605
00:39:22,340 --> 00:39:23,440
the side of the car.

606
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,700
And the last thing I can remember is,
you know, there being the coat check.

607
00:39:28,700 --> 00:39:31,400
next thing is waking up in the hospital.

608
00:39:32,240 --> 00:39:35,380
And everything else is a complete blank.

609
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:38,920
That was four days out of a seven -day
week.

610
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:41,080
Situations like that.

611
00:39:41,720 --> 00:39:44,980
Getting beat up by nine guys in
Syracuse, to me, there's not a whole lot

612
00:39:44,980 --> 00:39:45,678
shame in.

613
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,680
You know, that kind of stuff just sort
of happens to me. I've got two choices.

614
00:39:49,980 --> 00:39:52,720
Sit home and cry or to come out and be a
pain.

615
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:54,000
I've got news for you, folks.

616
00:39:54,730 --> 00:39:58,850
I'm all tied up. His moment of existence
was the 20 minutes in the ring every

617
00:39:58,850 --> 00:40:02,910
night. He wouldn't be messed up. He'd go
in there and he'd kill it every night.

618
00:40:03,050 --> 00:40:07,790
And then the second he was done, I'm in
pain.

619
00:40:08,450 --> 00:40:12,290
And I took some stuff, so I wouldn't be
in pain this morning, but I'm not messed

620
00:40:12,290 --> 00:40:15,490
up. Why would you hang out with this
misery 24 -7? No, it's not.

621
00:40:15,710 --> 00:40:20,730
It's, again, like your brother. It's
like a family member. Sean owes his life

622
00:40:20,730 --> 00:40:23,050
Triple H. Call him back. He owes his
life to him.

623
00:40:24,270 --> 00:40:30,930
Shawn Michaels knows that the greatest
match of his life must come this Sunday

624
00:40:30,930 --> 00:40:36,170
night. By the time you get to the mid
-90s, Bret Hart has become a crowd

625
00:40:36,170 --> 00:40:40,750
favorite. Bret is a very soft -spoken,
quiet Canadian gentleman.

626
00:40:41,130 --> 00:40:44,950
Shawn is an outspoken, loud, brash
American.

627
00:40:45,190 --> 00:40:49,130
Only one person can be the absolute
alpha dog.

628
00:40:49,470 --> 00:40:52,510
The Iron Man match, the boyhood dream,
realize.

629
00:40:53,290 --> 00:40:56,990
it added another layer to the Shawn
Michaels character.

630
00:40:57,450 --> 00:41:02,550
The Iron Man match, the opportunity
where I get to, you know, get my first

631
00:41:02,550 --> 00:41:05,810
championship. There's only one
heartbreak kick!

632
00:41:06,810 --> 00:41:08,810
Unbelievable! What a ride!

633
00:41:10,130 --> 00:41:11,590
An hour -long match.

634
00:41:11,870 --> 00:41:14,930
It's going to be a long night at the
office in wrestling terms.

635
00:41:15,270 --> 00:41:18,650
For the World Wrestling Federation
Championship!

636
00:41:19,370 --> 00:41:21,050
We started to have our issues.

637
00:41:21,850 --> 00:41:24,470
You know, I was never big on the click
idea.

638
00:41:24,910 --> 00:41:27,010
It was a testy match in a lot of ways.

639
00:41:31,750 --> 00:41:34,610
There's a famous part where I jump off
the second rope.

640
00:41:36,510 --> 00:41:40,250
He comes up and kicks me in the face as
hard as he could. I mean, he almost

641
00:41:40,250 --> 00:41:41,250
knocked me out.

642
00:41:41,790 --> 00:41:44,370
We skipped each other a lot of times in
that match.

643
00:41:58,070 --> 00:42:03,310
Boyhood dreams come true because that
was John's boyhood dream. It was, and

644
00:42:03,310 --> 00:42:05,090
that's exactly what happened.

645
00:42:05,490 --> 00:42:07,790
It was a very big moment for my career.

646
00:42:08,110 --> 00:42:11,750
It's like, oh, it's the first world
championship, and you go like, oh, I

647
00:42:11,750 --> 00:42:12,609
it being different.

648
00:42:12,610 --> 00:42:15,170
I wasn't at a good place and all that
kind of stuff.

649
00:42:15,450 --> 00:42:19,390
There's a lot of responsibility that
goes with that. Now every guy in that

650
00:42:19,390 --> 00:42:23,610
locker room, their well -being, their
life, their livelihood and all that

651
00:42:23,610 --> 00:42:26,750
depends on the job that you do.

652
00:42:27,180 --> 00:42:29,220
You know, it all falls on your
shoulders.

653
00:42:29,460 --> 00:42:30,860
The whole thing was uncomfortable.

654
00:42:33,660 --> 00:42:35,600
We got into 1996.

655
00:42:35,860 --> 00:42:42,600
Ted Turner, who owned WCW, our
competitors, was being very aggressive

656
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:49,400
quest for new talent. Scott Hall and
Kevin Nash, they were going to leave

657
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,300
and go to Ted Turner's WCW.

658
00:42:52,970 --> 00:42:57,290
The last matches being in New York in
Madison Square Garden.

659
00:42:58,690 --> 00:43:05,650
On May 19, 1996, one of the greatest
days of wrestling and my life as well.

660
00:43:05,930 --> 00:43:09,850
Me and my friend went to a house show,
which was not televised.

661
00:43:10,070 --> 00:43:13,790
We would sneak in a camera, pass
security, and we would film the shows.

662
00:43:14,830 --> 00:43:18,230
Sean was my hero and was my idol growing
up.

663
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:23,880
The ending shows Shawn Michaels giving
Diesel a super kick. Match is over.

664
00:43:25,780 --> 00:43:29,100
And then all of a sudden, Razor Moon
comes out. Like, oh, cool.

665
00:43:29,340 --> 00:43:32,460
They start hugging, and I'm screaming
like a little girl.

666
00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:33,760
Oh, my God!

667
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:38,020
Who's this? And it turns out to be
Hunter Hearst Hounsley. They all start

668
00:43:38,020 --> 00:43:40,100
hugging and, you know, obviously saying
goodbye.

669
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:41,480
It was insane.

670
00:43:41,720 --> 00:43:42,980
That night was magical.

671
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:48,780
The business was well protected up until
then.

672
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:54,220
And our cameras still kept going. The
only camera that was there. If we were

673
00:43:54,220 --> 00:43:58,460
involved in taping the current call, it
would not be talked about as much today.

674
00:43:59,420 --> 00:44:01,200
Place is going insane.

675
00:44:01,700 --> 00:44:04,820
Everybody knows everything on the inside
of the business. There's no secrets.

676
00:44:05,220 --> 00:44:08,980
People in the business, they didn't like
it. They thought it was the worst thing

677
00:44:08,980 --> 00:44:13,320
that happened. Here's this bad guy who
we have no idea is friends with all

678
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:14,279
other guys.

679
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:19,320
It's breaking the fourth wall and just
telling people everything we just did is

680
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:20,920
Shawn Michaels.

681
00:44:21,340 --> 00:44:25,660
Now hugging and kissing the guy that he
just spent 20 minutes beating the hell

682
00:44:25,660 --> 00:44:29,100
out of. We entertained you, but now it's
all over. We're really good buddies.

683
00:44:29,580 --> 00:44:30,900
Taboo in the wrestling business.

684
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:34,500
The tape was leaked out to a writer.

685
00:44:34,720 --> 00:44:36,820
The tape blows up on its own.

686
00:44:37,140 --> 00:44:41,500
I had no idea it was going to happen. It
was something that's never been done

687
00:44:41,500 --> 00:44:42,500
before.

688
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:46,400
I'm watching this and going, what the
hell is going on?

689
00:44:46,720 --> 00:44:48,540
The clique was an insult to our
business.

690
00:44:49,180 --> 00:44:53,600
If they had done that in the 70s, early
80s, they'd have all four fingers beat

691
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:57,220
out of them. They wrestled each other
and they all kissed and said goodbye.

692
00:44:58,340 --> 00:44:59,660
Somebody's got to go down for it.

693
00:44:59,960 --> 00:45:00,960
Kev's gone.

694
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:02,299
Scott's gone.

695
00:45:02,300 --> 00:45:03,300
Sean's the champ.

696
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:04,480
Stuff rolls downhill.

697
00:45:05,140 --> 00:45:08,160
And, uh, yeah, it all rolled on me.

698
00:45:08,830 --> 00:45:15,830
Triple H is the one that probably paid
the heaviest price as far as his career

699
00:45:15,830 --> 00:45:19,710
kind of hitting a roadblock at that
point. Sean didn't really pay a price.

700
00:45:20,850 --> 00:45:26,230
I was inherently selfish regardless, so
I'm sure I didn't feel the, you know,

701
00:45:26,230 --> 00:45:31,050
the compassion for him as I, maybe as I
should have.

702
00:45:32,490 --> 00:45:34,650
There was a bit of a shutdown on Sean.

703
00:45:35,370 --> 00:45:37,710
Businesses, it's okay, but it's not
great.

704
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:41,380
You know, there's a lot of banter about
Sean's not working as champion.

705
00:45:42,220 --> 00:45:43,220
He's not drawing.

706
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:45,440
He's collapsing under the pressure.

707
00:45:45,700 --> 00:45:47,520
I can see him falling apart.

708
00:45:47,940 --> 00:45:49,480
Kevin and Scott are done.

709
00:45:49,740 --> 00:45:50,980
And I'm all he's got now.

710
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:52,400
He's a mess.

711
00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:55,660
I felt a lot of pressure, and I didn't
handle it well.

712
00:45:55,860 --> 00:45:58,620
For me, it was all about running and
escaping.

713
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:03,140
And honestly, you know, it was running
and escaping from the dude I'd become.

714
00:46:03,740 --> 00:46:07,460
Better than having to face that. I might
have just taken a few of these and...

715
00:46:07,950 --> 00:46:10,710
Knocked myself out. I wouldn't pay
attention to it till tomorrow.

716
00:46:11,010 --> 00:46:16,410
He'd be pilled up, passed out, put Sean
on a luggage cart, roll him up to his

717
00:46:16,410 --> 00:46:20,330
room, get him undressed, dig dip out of
his mouth, and put him on his side, put

718
00:46:20,330 --> 00:46:23,050
a pillow behind him so he wouldn't roll
over and choke to death in his sleep,

719
00:46:23,190 --> 00:46:27,390
and set an alarm and get up every two,
three hours to go check on him. And that

720
00:46:27,390 --> 00:46:28,530
was every night.

721
00:46:29,010 --> 00:46:31,050
You know, every night.

722
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:59,900
He had a drug problem for a while, a
serious one, and he

723
00:46:59,900 --> 00:47:06,660
kind of fell in the hole even deeper.
But it wasn't until he became champion

724
00:47:06,660 --> 00:47:08,100
that I felt that Shawn...

725
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:11,280
Started to question himself.

726
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:18,560
I called his dad, the colonel, and said,
I'd like to visit. So flew down to meet

727
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,340
him, and I'm saying, you're probably not
aware of this.

728
00:47:21,940 --> 00:47:24,000
Sean really has a drug problem.

729
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:25,700
The colonel got angry.

730
00:47:26,380 --> 00:47:28,720
He just didn't want to hear it.

731
00:47:29,740 --> 00:47:34,120
I don't know that anybody knew how to
address it. Even things like rehab, my

732
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:36,260
parents, you know, God love them, I
don't know if they knew.

733
00:47:36,990 --> 00:47:39,310
what it was that you did, except just to
be worried.

734
00:47:39,530 --> 00:47:41,910
Not long after that, I tweaked my knee.

735
00:47:42,490 --> 00:47:49,030
I went to this doctor in San Antonio who
doesn't know anything about wrestling.

736
00:47:49,170 --> 00:47:51,710
Obviously, he sees I've tore my ACL.
He's like, dude, you're done.

737
00:47:52,730 --> 00:47:54,870
You're not wrestling with a torn ACL.

738
00:47:56,670 --> 00:48:02,670
I know that over the last several
months, I've lost a lot of things, and

739
00:48:02,670 --> 00:48:03,670
them has been my smile.

740
00:48:04,300 --> 00:48:09,220
He went in the ring to announce he was
retiring because he had a bad knee and

741
00:48:09,220 --> 00:48:13,720
didn't believe his knee was the issue. I
always thought the issue was he didn't

742
00:48:13,720 --> 00:48:17,080
want to wrestle me at WrestleMania 13
and drop the belt to me.

743
00:48:17,460 --> 00:48:21,240
I doubted Shawn's integrity as far as
his injury went.

744
00:48:21,700 --> 00:48:25,700
You phony little faker, why don't you
take your little pussy foot injury?

745
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:27,060
No, no, no.

746
00:48:27,500 --> 00:48:34,300
I got accused of faking it. Brett told
everybody I was faking it.

747
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:37,360
My excuse is drug addicts lie all the
time.

748
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:43,940
A year off of the wrestling business was
a year no pay.

749
00:48:44,580 --> 00:48:46,720
That's just not, that isn't feasible.

750
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:51,720
And they said, well, look, you can put a
brace on it and wrap it up. They went

751
00:48:51,720 --> 00:48:54,520
and they got me a brace and everything
else. I was like, okay, I can, you know,

752
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:55,520
I can do this.

753
00:48:56,780 --> 00:49:00,880
For the heartbreak kid, Shawn Michaels,
to return to action.

754
00:49:02,700 --> 00:49:05,500
This was a moment where things needed to
change.

755
00:49:06,220 --> 00:49:07,420
Business was bad.

756
00:49:07,980 --> 00:49:09,400
WCW was starting to kill us.

757
00:49:09,620 --> 00:49:11,240
Put Shawn and I together on TV.

758
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:14,380
We will multiply each other's
personalities on screen.

759
00:49:15,060 --> 00:49:16,060
Put us together.

760
00:49:16,340 --> 00:49:17,440
DX is born.

761
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:31,320
D -Generation X consisted of Sean,
Triple H, and Chyna. Two goofs in Sean

762
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:36,320
Hunter that were immature and did
everything that you weren't supposed to

763
00:49:36,660 --> 00:49:40,560
Sean Michaels, you're a disgrace to
professional wrestling.

764
00:49:41,100 --> 00:49:44,480
I saw it as inmates had taken over the
asylum.

765
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:48,020
I'm going to start with that degenerate
right beside you in the green shirt.

766
00:49:48,460 --> 00:49:50,540
D -Generation X! Suck it!

767
00:49:52,940 --> 00:49:58,640
Yeah, I can't say I liked it. The smut
and the crotch shots, it did get pretty

768
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,440
raunchy. I don't think it was over the
line.

769
00:50:01,660 --> 00:50:04,700
You know, we were getting our tail hit
in the ratings.

770
00:50:05,580 --> 00:50:10,400
DX took it to the very, very tipping
point of going too far.

771
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:15,840
But that's what we needed. It was kind
of a whole facelift for the company.

772
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:17,078
They loved it.

773
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,220
Cranes are going up. Your segments are
hot.

774
00:50:24,259 --> 00:50:26,140
They were the anti -authority.

775
00:50:26,340 --> 00:50:27,760
They could do anything they wanted.

776
00:50:28,260 --> 00:50:29,680
We were just trying to make each other
laugh.

777
00:50:29,900 --> 00:50:32,980
Say something so stupid that people
would go, oh my God, I can't believe he

778
00:50:32,980 --> 00:50:37,480
that. Your old lady is not too thrilled
with your privates.

779
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:40,180
You would think like, okay, so
everything's great backstage.

780
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:43,160
We're still approaching this from a
place of anger.

781
00:50:43,500 --> 00:50:45,840
We know we're pissing people off and
we're trying to be dicks.

782
00:50:47,020 --> 00:50:48,420
I got in trouble for a lot of stuff.

783
00:50:48,750 --> 00:50:52,930
that we all thought was funny and
clearly we might have been the only

784
00:50:53,130 --> 00:50:56,630
I'm going out in a blaze of glory.

785
00:50:58,610 --> 00:51:05,450
At that point, Sean's DX personality and
his real personality kind of morphed.

786
00:51:05,450 --> 00:51:07,910
So Sean really never turned it off.

787
00:51:08,250 --> 00:51:13,230
This is what it's come down to. You're
looking at somebody that's got no

788
00:51:13,230 --> 00:51:14,229
for anything.

789
00:51:14,230 --> 00:51:16,750
There was a true animosity.

790
00:51:17,340 --> 00:51:20,600
Between Brett and Sean just spiraled
completely out of control.

791
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:27,600
In the beginning, Sean and Brett were
friends. And the antagonistic

792
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:33,120
relationship that they had on camera,
that was all orchestrated.

793
00:51:33,940 --> 00:51:38,340
But it became personal. It became
personal between Brett and Sean because

794
00:51:38,340 --> 00:51:39,340
guy would go too far.

795
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:43,380
I never knew enough to avoid the
confrontation.

796
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:47,400
If something bothered Bret, I made sure
that I did it. He stabbed the World

797
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:52,360
Wrestling Federation in the back. Why?
For his financial gain.

798
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:57,340
Instead of facing me like a man, you're
too busy posing for girly magazines.

799
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,620
You know, I know you don't like me
talking about you posing for Playgirl,

800
00:52:01,620 --> 00:52:02,860
you did pose for Playgirl.

801
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:07,840
And we finally had a fisticuff in the
dressing room.

802
00:52:08,220 --> 00:52:10,740
Oh, my God, Brent Shawnee's going to do
a fight and pull each other's hair out

803
00:52:10,740 --> 00:52:11,740
of the locker room. What?

804
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:14,980
And run over there and find Shawnee with
a big chunk of hair missing on the

805
00:52:14,980 --> 00:52:17,820
side. He's like, what are you doing? I
realize that I hate your guts.

806
00:52:18,220 --> 00:52:22,700
We had a lot of these resets and talks,
and we would always end up offending

807
00:52:22,700 --> 00:52:24,640
each other quickly right after that.

808
00:52:40,940 --> 00:52:44,880
Brett is the champion, but Brett's on
his way to WCW.

809
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:51,560
And he doesn't want to drop the title to
Sean. But they couldn't let Brett leave

810
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:55,760
with the title and then show up on WCW
TV the next night.

811
00:52:55,980 --> 00:52:56,980
Who's going to win?

812
00:52:59,100 --> 00:53:00,100
I don't know.

813
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:02,980
Brett thought the match was going to go
one way.

814
00:53:03,580 --> 00:53:06,780
Sean and Vince McMahon come up with a
different plan.

815
00:53:07,180 --> 00:53:09,380
Brett doesn't know about the plan.

816
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:13,700
We're being told by Vince, like, this
goes to your grave.

817
00:53:14,580 --> 00:53:17,720
This is high -level espionage, man.

818
00:53:18,380 --> 00:53:19,680
Nobody ever knows this.

819
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:22,100
It's kind of what's best for business.

820
00:53:23,140 --> 00:53:27,320
The whole thing was uncomfortable.

821
00:53:28,420 --> 00:53:31,560
I was out there, you know, being Judas.

822
00:53:37,580 --> 00:53:43,380
They had created a spot where Sean was
going to put Brett's move, which is a

823
00:53:43,380 --> 00:53:46,060
submission hold, the sharpshooter, on
Brett.

824
00:53:46,460 --> 00:53:47,460
Look at this!

825
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:49,320
Oh, you're kidding me.

826
00:53:49,860 --> 00:53:54,320
It's definitely one of the most fabled
stories in our industry, the Montreal

827
00:53:54,320 --> 00:54:01,140
Screwjob. Just minutes into that match,
not one person on planet Earth

828
00:54:01,140 --> 00:54:03,340
thinks the match is going to end.

829
00:54:13,290 --> 00:54:18,970
So when all of a sudden the bell rings,
there's complete confusion as to why the

830
00:54:18,970 --> 00:54:19,970
match has ended.

831
00:54:21,250 --> 00:54:26,110
He said Brett submitted, which didn't
happen.

832
00:54:27,770 --> 00:54:33,710
It was basically a hit to make sure that
they got the title off of Brett.

833
00:54:36,670 --> 00:54:39,330
I could see Vince yell at him to ring
the bell.

834
00:54:42,009 --> 00:54:43,370
Like they're trying to screw me now.

835
00:54:44,910 --> 00:54:45,270
I

836
00:54:45,270 --> 00:54:53,190
didn't

837
00:54:53,190 --> 00:54:56,650
know Vince was coming out. I think he
just felt like maybe if he was out

838
00:54:56,670 --> 00:55:00,770
he might get some heat off me, thus
making my denial plausible.

839
00:55:10,620 --> 00:55:12,320
Vincent, I want to take the heat for
this.

840
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:14,940
I don't want anyone to think you had
anything to do with it.

841
00:55:15,240 --> 00:55:22,120
I took the heat. I didn't want anyone to
know that Sean was

842
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:23,120
involved.

843
00:55:23,560 --> 00:55:27,780
Brad comes over and knocks Deej. One
punch.

844
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:32,300
And knocked him out cold. Went straight
down on his back.

845
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:33,520
Out cold.

846
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:38,740
And after I knocked Vince out, Sean was
crying.

847
00:55:40,190 --> 00:55:42,270
Sean sat on the bench and was crying.

848
00:55:42,850 --> 00:55:46,510
Even though I didn't feel like I did
anything wrong that night, you're still

849
00:55:46,510 --> 00:55:49,410
carrying a burden by not coming clean
with that.

850
00:55:49,610 --> 00:55:50,890
You just say, yes, I do.

851
00:55:52,770 --> 00:55:56,270
Vince asked Sean to do something for
everyone in this company.

852
00:55:56,670 --> 00:56:02,910
Who else would have had the balls, the
guts, right or wrong, how many other

853
00:56:02,910 --> 00:56:03,910
people would have done it?

854
00:56:08,270 --> 00:56:12,630
I remember going to his house in San
Antonio, and I'm driving my minivan down

855
00:56:12,630 --> 00:56:17,050
there. I've got my wife and three kids
at home, and I pull into his gorgeous

856
00:56:17,050 --> 00:56:21,810
home. I don't have 20 bucks in my
pocket. And I'll never forget, he put

857
00:56:21,810 --> 00:56:26,490
out like this, and he just looked up and
he goes, you could have had all this.

858
00:56:27,770 --> 00:56:32,030
But I realized, you know, somewhere
along the way that I saw him lose so

859
00:56:32,070 --> 00:56:35,630
He got into drugs, and there was some
really bad side effects to his fame.

860
00:56:36,350 --> 00:56:37,370
I looked at Kenny.

861
00:56:37,920 --> 00:56:43,300
A lot of times I'm having a wife and a
family and just been as happy as can be.

862
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:49,000
And I've always looked at and admired
and thought it was pretty enviable to

863
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:55,000
have. But when my line of work, it was
always wondering, can you have both? Or

864
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:56,260
is that not possible?

865
00:56:56,860 --> 00:56:58,040
They don't mix.

866
00:57:03,300 --> 00:57:07,060
The following contest is a casket match.

867
00:57:07,770 --> 00:57:11,750
for the World Wrestling Federation in
the end zone.

868
00:57:13,630 --> 00:57:17,670
This casket match is the Undertaker's
specialty.

869
00:57:19,690 --> 00:57:23,890
The object of a casket match is to beat
your opponent down far enough that you

870
00:57:23,890 --> 00:57:28,150
can throw them into the casket or coffin
and shut the lid. And if you do that,

871
00:57:28,270 --> 00:57:29,790
you win the match.

872
00:57:30,930 --> 00:57:36,150
Somewhere through the course of that
match, I threw him over this giant.

873
00:57:42,839 --> 00:57:46,100
I wanted to clear it and go to the
floor.

874
00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:50,580
And I just didn't quite get far enough.
And bam, I just hit their corner.

875
00:57:51,060 --> 00:57:54,080
But I didn't really think much about it.
You know, you still finish the night.

876
00:57:56,260 --> 00:58:03,200
The next day, I just remember getting

877
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:04,200
up like, ah.

878
00:58:04,540 --> 00:58:06,500
You know, waking up and not being able
to move.

879
00:58:08,260 --> 00:58:12,340
First time I recall being in that much
pain, we do all the x -rays.

880
00:58:13,380 --> 00:58:17,520
Apparently, I blew the disc, and that
kind of stuff, that needed to be fused.

881
00:58:18,300 --> 00:58:21,020
Doctor says, you can't be wrestling
after that.

882
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:28,340
He said, I'm never going to wrestle
again, yada, yada, yada. I said, nobody

883
00:58:28,340 --> 00:58:31,500
tells me what to do, so we're going to
WrestleMania with Steve.

884
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:40,100
So you give me enough drugs, all right,
to let's do whatever we can to get me to

885
00:58:40,100 --> 00:58:41,100
WrestleMania.

886
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:48,000
Getting Shawn to WrestleMania was a
battle. He had a bad back. He was

887
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:49,980
heavily medicated.

888
00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:53,580
He is the World Wrestling Federation
champion, the man who will defend his

889
00:58:53,580 --> 00:58:57,900
against Stone Cold. But Mike Tyson is
the enforcer here, ladies and gentlemen,

890
00:58:58,040 --> 00:58:59,040
Shawn Michaels.

891
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:01,760
I choose to make an ass out of it.

892
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,560
Toughest SOB. I can do that any time I
want.

893
00:59:12,140 --> 00:59:15,880
I was going to have to talk myself up
and drop the belt to Steve, and then I

894
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:18,440
guess I'll let my career be over.

895
00:59:20,820 --> 00:59:21,759
He was bitter.

896
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:25,940
It had nothing to do with him losing. It
had to do with being replaced.

897
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:29,000
He never had his moment. He never had
his run.

898
00:59:29,380 --> 00:59:30,380
I'm still the greatest.

899
00:59:30,720 --> 00:59:31,840
Now it's his run.

900
00:59:32,350 --> 00:59:33,350
What do I do?

901
00:59:33,730 --> 00:59:34,850
I'm the backup guy?

902
00:59:35,250 --> 00:59:38,650
One of the most messed up things I ever
heard Sean say in his life is, I should

903
00:59:38,650 --> 00:59:42,010
have taken so many pills I died after
WrestleMania X. I'd have been the

904
00:59:42,010 --> 00:59:43,010
star of all time.

905
00:59:43,670 --> 00:59:44,670
I've been Elvis.

906
00:59:45,990 --> 00:59:48,430
It's hopelessness, and certainly that's
where I was.

907
00:59:49,190 --> 00:59:55,350
I am not just, you know, a drug addict.
I'm an angry one. And I mean angrier

908
00:59:55,350 --> 00:59:56,350
than ever.

909
00:59:56,610 --> 00:59:58,750
At that time in my life, that's all I
had.

910
00:59:59,590 --> 01:00:03,070
I identified who I was with what I was
doing in that ring.

911
01:00:03,370 --> 01:00:06,610
And without it, I wouldn't have known
what to do with my life.

912
01:00:08,830 --> 01:00:12,170
On the day of WrestleMania 14, we barely
talked.

913
01:00:12,450 --> 01:00:14,690
You know, he didn't feel like doing
business with me.

914
01:00:14,950 --> 01:00:18,250
Triple H was the conduit between most of
it.

915
01:00:18,910 --> 01:00:20,010
He was pissed.

916
01:00:20,510 --> 01:00:24,050
He wasn't about to talk to Steve about
this match. I helped him put it together

917
01:00:24,050 --> 01:00:27,690
by going from room to room, and it was
just so difficult to do.

918
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:30,080
It was difficult. I remember that day.

919
01:00:30,820 --> 01:00:33,840
I'm thinking, I don't know what Shawn's
going to do.

920
01:00:35,020 --> 01:00:36,560
He's retiring, Joe.

921
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:38,940
This could be his final screw you.

922
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:45,040
Nobody has ever, ever outperformed Shawn
Michaels in a big match situation.

923
01:00:45,800 --> 01:00:47,140
I'm not in great shape.

924
01:00:47,900 --> 01:00:51,420
My back was pretty bad being in that
much pain.

925
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:53,940
Got the cortisone shots and stuff like
that.

926
01:00:57,180 --> 01:00:59,440
I feel like I'm putting him over. That's
good enough.

927
01:01:08,840 --> 01:01:11,600
Sean's always a troublemaker. He always
wants to get in your face, talk.

928
01:01:12,380 --> 01:01:14,100
Even when he's on your team, he just
talks.

929
01:01:14,480 --> 01:01:16,040
He's an irritant. That's what he is.

930
01:01:17,680 --> 01:01:20,040
Sean had sour grapes.

931
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:30,480
It was kind of a close blow because Sean
was pretty much out for a little while.

932
01:01:33,640 --> 01:01:37,440
Tyson takes the Austin 316 shirt and
lays it across Sean's chest.

933
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:42,280
This was adding insult to injury, and
this was rubbing salt in a wound. I

934
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:43,280
have been pissed too.

935
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:49,960
Not exactly the screw job, but it was
them getting the last laugh as far as,

936
01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:53,600
know, you know, good little prick, you
put us through hell this week, but we're

937
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:54,980
at least going to get you going out the
door.

938
01:01:55,660 --> 01:01:59,240
The new World Wrestling Federation
champion, Stone Cold Steve Austin.

939
01:02:01,620 --> 01:02:06,240
He was going to that press conference to
just let everybody know, I'm pissed

940
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:08,780
off. He walked in the door and he yelled
some stuff.

941
01:02:10,580 --> 01:02:16,820
Oh yeah, it's selfish and it's stupid,
but you know, that's where he was at

942
01:02:16,820 --> 01:02:17,820
time.

943
01:02:18,180 --> 01:02:24,080
Sean is suffering from ruptured disc as
we speak and will not participate at

944
01:02:24,080 --> 01:02:25,080
this press conference.

945
01:02:25,630 --> 01:02:30,870
Nonetheless, he participated in the
arena in an extraordinary way, and there

946
01:02:30,870 --> 01:02:35,310
no athlete in the world that can say
they can do what Shawn Michaels does.

947
01:02:43,430 --> 01:02:49,550
I got on the plane the next morning and
went home and began to, I don't know,

948
01:02:49,610 --> 01:02:51,550
let it all sort of sink in.

949
01:02:52,030 --> 01:02:54,310
It takes some time before...

950
01:02:54,730 --> 01:03:00,470
It goes from being time off to the
reality of how exactly is the rest of

951
01:03:00,470 --> 01:03:03,290
life going to go when you're done at 33.

952
01:03:04,810 --> 01:03:06,950
Okay, see if we can get one done here.

953
01:03:07,470 --> 01:03:12,830
All they knew at the time was stuff like
that you don't recover from. People

954
01:03:12,830 --> 01:03:14,430
don't get back in the ring and wrestle
again.

955
01:03:14,850 --> 01:03:20,550
The thing is, I can't keep coming out
here week after week after week, going

956
01:03:20,550 --> 01:03:23,430
back and forth with all this. I've got
to get busy with my rehab.

957
01:03:24,780 --> 01:03:27,920
My physical therapy. My physical therapy
for my back.

958
01:03:29,560 --> 01:03:32,800
Now I've got a legitimate reason to have
pain pills.

959
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:36,340
And I've got a prescription and
everything else.

960
01:03:37,200 --> 01:03:41,840
I just want to be a pro wrestler. That's
what I was trying to go back to.

961
01:03:42,240 --> 01:03:45,360
So I began to start the Shawn Michaels
Wrestling Academy.

962
01:03:45,700 --> 01:03:48,460
We had a couple rings. I had a little
workout room.

963
01:03:48,820 --> 01:03:52,580
There were a couple guys that came
through my school that went on to have

964
01:03:52,580 --> 01:03:53,580
success.

965
01:03:54,160 --> 01:03:57,500
It was a great experience. It really
was. I did it for about two and a half,

966
01:03:57,540 --> 01:03:58,540
three years.

967
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:04,980
So I'm at home, and I'm watching TV.
Then all of a sudden, it's the

968
01:04:04,980 --> 01:04:06,580
of this new nitro girl.

969
01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:09,760
Tampa Bay girl herself, Whisper.

970
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:16,840
And she's out there with this chair,
just doing this dance.

971
01:04:17,500 --> 01:04:22,700
And it's captivating. And she's
absolutely the most beautiful thing I've

972
01:04:22,700 --> 01:04:23,700
seen.

973
01:04:25,810 --> 01:04:30,630
We were at a rehearsal, and one of the
night show girls had mentioned to me

974
01:04:30,630 --> 01:04:35,110
a man named Shawn Michaels, a former
wrestler, wanted to meet me. And that

975
01:04:35,110 --> 01:04:38,110
the first time I'd ever heard of him. I
called her up. We probably talked for

976
01:04:38,110 --> 01:04:42,350
three hours on the phone each night for
two weeks. Two weeks of talking and

977
01:04:42,350 --> 01:04:46,750
emailing, and then I flew out to San
Antonio to see him.

978
01:04:47,010 --> 01:04:48,830
And we dated for about two weeks.

979
01:04:49,230 --> 01:04:52,290
After that, he told me he loved me. I
told him I loved him. Two weeks after

980
01:04:52,290 --> 01:04:53,290
that, we got married.

981
01:04:54,350 --> 01:04:57,430
It was the Graceland Wedding Chapel.
Yeah, yeah.

982
01:04:58,190 --> 01:05:00,730
You know, an Elvis impersonator walking
down the aisle.

983
01:05:01,490 --> 01:05:03,710
Regrets. It was fantastic.

984
01:05:04,330 --> 01:05:06,490
It's just the greatest thing ever.

985
01:05:08,370 --> 01:05:14,390
There was one evening where my pills had
kicked in, and I'm out of it.

986
01:05:15,510 --> 01:05:17,330
Sean was in tremendous pain.

987
01:05:17,530 --> 01:05:23,250
When he would take the muscle relaxers,
he would usually pass out over his food.

988
01:05:24,910 --> 01:05:28,670
The very first time that Sean ever did
that was when we were first married, so

989
01:05:28,670 --> 01:05:31,970
it was a bit of a shock to me. So I got
him in the shower because he had spilled

990
01:05:31,970 --> 01:05:33,030
food all over his chest.

991
01:05:33,410 --> 01:05:37,490
And I would say it probably happened a
couple times a week.

992
01:05:38,210 --> 01:05:43,570
The worst time, again, was when she was
eight months pregnant.

993
01:05:43,950 --> 01:05:47,510
She's doing everything she can at eight
months pregnant with her belly trying to

994
01:05:47,510 --> 01:05:48,870
hold me up.

995
01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:54,660
I took pity on him, and I just prayed
for him is all I could do, but it didn't

996
01:05:54,660 --> 01:05:57,760
make me think, you know, what in the
world have I gotten into? If I was

997
01:05:57,900 --> 01:06:03,380
I was fearful for our unborn child, and
I hoped that it would end whenever the

998
01:06:03,380 --> 01:06:05,280
baby was born, and it didn't.

999
01:06:06,540 --> 01:06:13,440
I don't remember why

1000
01:06:13,440 --> 01:06:16,200
Sean was there. There must have been
something doing something in the show.

1001
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:18,840
We all go, me?

1002
01:06:19,340 --> 01:06:23,420
Taker, Rock, Vince is in the ring. I own
WCW.

1003
01:06:23,900 --> 01:06:27,740
Sean is messed up, pilled up.

1004
01:06:28,200 --> 01:06:31,280
So this is a celebratory moment.

1005
01:06:32,060 --> 01:06:36,500
He's belligerent, loud, falling down,
staggering.

1006
01:06:37,120 --> 01:06:41,580
Vince calls him in, tells him, go home,
done with you.

1007
01:06:42,140 --> 01:06:43,840
Sean goes ballistic.

1008
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:47,660
Walks by me in the hallway, just goes
off.

1009
01:06:48,330 --> 01:06:54,690
You know, I went and browbeat Hunter
unfairly, obviously. And I just

1010
01:06:54,690 --> 01:07:00,170
went off back, you know, just in his
face, screaming thatch back and forth,

1011
01:07:00,170 --> 01:07:01,170
he storms out.

1012
01:07:01,350 --> 01:07:04,730
Now, that's another one that makes me
cry. I went and said some mean stuff to

1013
01:07:04,730 --> 01:07:06,010
him and walked out.

1014
01:07:06,510 --> 01:07:11,790
And, you know, that sucks as well.

1015
01:07:14,010 --> 01:07:16,470
And I don't talk to him for...

1016
01:07:17,390 --> 01:07:18,390
A long time.

1017
01:07:18,530 --> 01:07:24,890
We didn't speak, I don't know, I mean, I
would think at least a year, two years.

1018
01:07:25,070 --> 01:07:27,910
That was, what do they call it, the rock
bottom.

1019
01:07:32,970 --> 01:07:39,750
Our son was at the age to where he was,
you know,

1020
01:07:39,750 --> 01:07:44,290
walking around more aware of things, and
it was the night when Sean had fallen

1021
01:07:44,290 --> 01:07:46,010
asleep on the couch, drug -induced.

1022
01:07:46,220 --> 01:07:50,840
sleep with our son climbing all over him
and saying daddy's asleep to me the

1023
01:07:50,840 --> 01:07:56,580
biggest thing again was cameron saying
daddy's tired and it's sort of dawning

1024
01:07:56,580 --> 01:08:03,340
me that he was now being able to
recognize clearly my state of mind went

1025
01:08:03,340 --> 01:08:08,360
into the bathroom and closed the door
looking at yourself in the mirror and

1026
01:08:08,360 --> 01:08:14,330
know i sat there and cried like a baby
and wept you know of realizing that you

1027
01:08:14,330 --> 01:08:19,490
are failing a, you know, a two -year
-old little boy. And all of those things

1028
01:08:19,490 --> 01:08:25,149
sort of came crashing down that night.
And I just, it's the first time I ever

1029
01:08:25,149 --> 01:08:28,050
fail like such a frickin' failure.

1030
01:08:28,410 --> 01:08:32,029
I think that that was the last straw for
him. And when he woke up the next

1031
01:08:32,029 --> 01:08:36,649
morning, he told me that he was never
taking pills or drinking again. And from

1032
01:08:36,649 --> 01:08:37,649
that point, he didn't.

1033
01:08:37,810 --> 01:08:41,170
It was an instantaneous letting go of
the drugs and alcohol.

1034
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:45,359
I just called him up out of the clear
blue. I just asked him when the last

1035
01:08:45,359 --> 01:08:46,359
he talked to Paul.

1036
01:08:47,120 --> 01:08:51,420
And he just avoided that situation.

1037
01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:55,479
I just said, man, you're wrong. You got
to call him.

1038
01:08:56,819 --> 01:09:02,920
I called Hunter and let him know how
sorry I was and how out of line I was.

1039
01:09:02,920 --> 01:09:04,479
I said, I hope you can forgive me.

1040
01:09:04,680 --> 01:09:06,319
I needed that from Hunter.

1041
01:09:06,920 --> 01:09:08,580
For me, it was easy. I didn't.

1042
01:09:09,899 --> 01:09:11,580
As long as the one with the drug is
talking to me.

1043
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:19,840
Of course I do regret the pain that it
caused people in

1044
01:09:19,840 --> 01:09:25,939
my life. There is a part of that that I
don't think that Michael Shaw and

1045
01:09:25,939 --> 01:09:32,140
Hickenbottom can get to where he got
creatively without a little bit of that

1046
01:09:32,140 --> 01:09:34,700
reckless, risky mindset.

1047
01:09:35,120 --> 01:09:37,160
I wouldn't have had the guts to do it.

1048
01:09:39,370 --> 01:09:43,350
It was our first Christmas together, and
I gave Sean a Bible and some other

1049
01:09:43,350 --> 01:09:44,790
books, and he began reading them.

1050
01:09:45,569 --> 01:09:50,490
I had never had anything that I could
grasp that was bigger than the wrestling

1051
01:09:50,490 --> 01:09:54,890
business. That's just not enough to
base, I don't know, a life on.

1052
01:09:56,110 --> 01:10:00,830
I worked at Cornerstone Church in San
Antonio, Texas. All of a sudden I heard

1053
01:10:00,830 --> 01:10:04,270
deep voice that said, I want to come to
a Bible study.

1054
01:10:04,750 --> 01:10:07,170
And then I got up from my desk and...

1055
01:10:07,980 --> 01:10:10,860
Took my head out the door, and I said,
well, you can come to mine.

1056
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:14,380
When he left, everybody came out to him.
He said, do you know who that was? I

1057
01:10:14,380 --> 01:10:16,200
said, no, I don't know who that was. Who
was it?

1058
01:10:16,540 --> 01:10:19,060
And he said, Shawn Michaels. I said,
well, who's Shawn Michaels?

1059
01:10:22,540 --> 01:10:27,040
He said, well, first, Keith, I want you
to pray for my back. He says, I've been

1060
01:10:27,040 --> 01:10:29,180
out of wrestling, and I want to go back.

1061
01:10:29,500 --> 01:10:33,700
I said, well, it's a simple prayer that
we can pray together. And while he was

1062
01:10:33,700 --> 01:10:37,310
saying that, Rare tears just come out of
his eyes.

1063
01:10:38,430 --> 01:10:43,590
I got nobody to blame but me, and I
don't have anything in common with the

1064
01:10:43,590 --> 01:10:44,930
dude. I don't know how it got that way.

1065
01:10:45,350 --> 01:10:47,450
It wasn't from family. It wasn't from
upbringing.

1066
01:10:48,330 --> 01:10:55,050
He was so desperate to get back in a
close relationship with Rebecca and his

1067
01:10:55,050 --> 01:10:59,230
son. I was now a dad. I was a husband,
and I was...

1068
01:11:00,180 --> 01:11:05,760
Really devoted and thrilled about that.
You're like a child. You just want to

1069
01:11:05,760 --> 01:11:07,120
tell everybody, I've been saved.

1070
01:11:14,460 --> 01:11:18,960
Once Sean got his life together and
found Christ, it was night and day. When

1071
01:11:18,960 --> 01:11:21,800
looks back at his life, that's the
biggest thing that he ever did.

1072
01:11:22,160 --> 01:11:24,940
You were dealing with a grown -up when
Sean came back.

1073
01:11:25,350 --> 01:11:27,470
someone who was there to do business.

1074
01:11:27,690 --> 01:11:30,590
Sean was a lot calmer and much easier to
deal with.

1075
01:11:31,330 --> 01:11:35,650
Sean Michaels of old is very different
from Sean Hickenbottom, the man I

1076
01:11:35,650 --> 01:11:39,890
married. The sexy boy and all that kind
of stuff and his cocky attitude and that

1077
01:11:39,890 --> 01:11:45,330
cocky little smile that he does. And
that's so far from who he really is.

1078
01:11:45,790 --> 01:11:49,870
I remember somebody asking me, they
said, you know, hey, I heard Sean found

1079
01:11:49,870 --> 01:11:53,070
religion. Yeah, they laughed. And I
said, well.

1080
01:11:53,680 --> 01:11:55,780
I don't know anybody that died ODing on
religion.

1081
01:11:57,020 --> 01:11:58,640
He had called Triple H.

1082
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:05,200
He thanked Hunter for the time on the
road, because before his marriage to me,

1083
01:12:05,220 --> 01:12:06,900
the one that took care of him was
Hunter.

1084
01:12:08,660 --> 01:12:13,280
That night, after Sean had gone to bed,
he woke up in the morning, and the pain

1085
01:12:13,280 --> 01:12:14,280
was gone in his back.

1086
01:12:14,940 --> 01:12:16,100
It was definitely a miracle.

1087
01:12:17,240 --> 01:12:21,020
So he was physically ready to go back in
the ring, and I knew that the Lord

1088
01:12:21,020 --> 01:12:22,020
would take care of him.

1089
01:12:24,400 --> 01:12:28,240
We were kind of having a conversation at
the time, and then he said, he was

1090
01:12:28,240 --> 01:12:30,880
like, I want my son to see me do this
one time. He said, I don't know that I

1091
01:12:30,880 --> 01:12:34,860
do it. I don't know physically if I can
or not. And he said, if I'm going to, I

1092
01:12:34,860 --> 01:12:35,900
only trust one person.

1093
01:12:36,220 --> 01:12:40,620
If you consider it, I would love to do
it.

1094
01:12:40,920 --> 01:12:41,920
What do you think?

1095
01:12:45,220 --> 01:12:51,040
Moments away from the non -sanctioned
fight between two men who are at one

1096
01:12:51,040 --> 01:12:53,700
best friends, Shawn Michaels and Triple
H.

1097
01:12:54,110 --> 01:13:00,410
John Michael's last wrestle, 1 ,609 days
ago, if you can believe that.

1098
01:13:01,710 --> 01:13:03,210
The whole family was there.

1099
01:13:03,790 --> 01:13:05,490
They were all scared to death.

1100
01:13:06,050 --> 01:13:07,490
Got a ring, did a couple of things.

1101
01:13:09,490 --> 01:13:12,450
Never met the beat, not a moment, not an
anything.

1102
01:13:13,410 --> 01:13:16,830
I was on my chair like a redneck, just
screaming and yelling for him. Of

1103
01:13:16,830 --> 01:13:17,830
I cried at the end.

1104
01:13:18,030 --> 01:13:22,450
Like, how is it possible that he is this
good still?

1105
01:13:23,180 --> 01:13:27,500
After all that time and injury and
everything else, unbelievable.

1106
01:13:29,300 --> 01:13:34,400
It was just as easy as the day is long.
It was poetic. It was phenomenal.

1107
01:13:34,680 --> 01:13:39,600
It was everything that is right and good
about the world and this line of work.

1108
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:43,080
And, you know, my family there, out
there with my best friend.

1109
01:13:50,960 --> 01:13:56,120
Summerslam, that's when there was a
sense of peace and joy in the midst of

1110
01:13:56,120 --> 01:14:00,720
your job and your family and combining
these two worlds that I've never had

1111
01:14:00,720 --> 01:14:07,000
together. And I'm not even the same
person. And it all feels so right. It's

1112
01:14:07,000 --> 01:14:09,940
good as it gets. It's heaven on earth
here in this world.

1113
01:14:10,580 --> 01:14:16,480
Shawn Michaels changed completely as a
human being. And somehow, as a

1114
01:14:16,660 --> 01:14:18,540
he managed to keep...

1115
01:14:19,000 --> 01:14:24,380
a lot of the aura that he always had. I
could argue that Sean was at his best

1116
01:14:24,380 --> 01:14:26,360
after he came back.

1117
01:14:29,720 --> 01:14:36,060
To me, he's the greatest in -ring
performer of

1118
01:14:36,060 --> 01:14:37,360
all time.

1119
01:14:41,840 --> 01:14:45,940
It gets more difficult to find a new
mountain, a new challenge.

1120
01:14:46,340 --> 01:14:50,320
Sometimes that new mountain or that new
challenge just isn't there. And so later

1121
01:14:50,320 --> 01:14:53,720
on in my career, I learned that when I
disconnect from it, something will

1122
01:14:53,720 --> 01:14:57,940
usually happen. You know, the one with
the player is obviously the one I always

1123
01:14:57,940 --> 01:14:59,220
speak of.

1124
01:14:59,520 --> 01:15:01,220
Remember the story of Old Yeller?

1125
01:15:01,720 --> 01:15:07,740
The showstopper's going to take you, Old
Yeller, behind the woodshed and

1126
01:15:07,740 --> 01:15:10,080
put you out of your misery.

1127
01:15:10,860 --> 01:15:12,840
I lost myself in that drama.

1128
01:15:14,580 --> 01:15:18,280
I get a call from my buddy Kenny, who's
now been made aware of the match. Like,

1129
01:15:18,320 --> 01:15:19,960
oh, my goodness. He said, can you
believe it?

1130
01:15:20,480 --> 01:15:24,980
It was overwhelming to think that the
guy that we idolized, that we would

1131
01:15:24,980 --> 01:15:29,660
on a little TV box in San Antonio,
Texas, somehow their lives were going to

1132
01:15:29,660 --> 01:15:33,820
interconnect. Rick was his guy. He
absolutely loved Rick Flair.

1133
01:15:34,120 --> 01:15:36,100
Kenny took me back to that time.

1134
01:15:39,850 --> 01:15:45,630
This was why I went from New York to
Orlando, was to see this moment.

1135
01:15:47,250 --> 01:15:52,990
Now in this match, should Ric Flair
lose, he must retire.

1136
01:15:53,390 --> 01:15:57,750
I remember feeling like the way Ric
Flair started this match, that he had a

1137
01:15:57,750 --> 01:15:58,750
chance.

1138
01:16:01,910 --> 01:16:04,670
There's no other way to put it. He
carried me.

1139
01:16:05,210 --> 01:16:08,310
He gave everything that anybody could
ever give.

1140
01:16:09,100 --> 01:16:11,840
To imagine that. Oh, wait a minute. Wait
a minute.

1141
01:16:12,280 --> 01:16:13,920
Look out! Get straight!

1142
01:16:15,660 --> 01:16:17,120
No! Not again!

1143
01:16:17,560 --> 01:16:21,940
It becomes clear that Ric Flair just
doesn't have enough.

1144
01:16:22,880 --> 01:16:26,960
I love this part. And I could tear up
talking about it. Flair, like an old

1145
01:16:27,180 --> 01:16:28,180
still fighting.

1146
01:16:28,420 --> 01:16:30,180
He thinks he still has it.

1147
01:16:30,600 --> 01:16:35,300
And that's when Sean sort of has to have
that moment where he says, I'm sorry.

1148
01:16:35,680 --> 01:16:36,680
I love you.

1149
01:16:36,910 --> 01:16:40,790
Ric Flair wants to fight. And just turns
the lights out.

1150
01:16:41,230 --> 01:16:47,550
It was as beautiful and perfect an
ending to a wrestling match as you will

1151
01:16:47,550 --> 01:16:48,550
have.

1152
01:16:48,910 --> 01:16:50,170
You know, I didn't want to go.

1153
01:16:50,910 --> 01:16:52,450
And yes, I love you.

1154
01:16:53,570 --> 01:16:56,030
It's a great moment of wrestling. I
don't care what anybody says.

1155
01:16:56,570 --> 01:16:58,350
You can't replace something like that.

1156
01:16:59,830 --> 01:17:05,150
I'm ashamed that it was my love letter
to the wrestling business and to Ric

1157
01:17:05,150 --> 01:17:06,150
Flair.

1158
01:17:12,650 --> 01:17:15,850
It is show day, and we're off to the
shizzo.

1159
01:17:16,850 --> 01:17:19,330
I've been doing this for 35 years.

1160
01:17:19,650 --> 01:17:23,710
Days like today, it's a different kind
of anxiety that I have now. I have

1161
01:17:23,710 --> 01:17:26,990
anxiety for the performers, for the
entire show as a whole.

1162
01:17:27,290 --> 01:17:32,010
For me, it's just all fantastic,
especially when it goes well for them

1163
01:17:32,010 --> 01:17:36,170
come back and they're jacked. It's ten
times better than when I had that

1164
01:17:36,170 --> 01:17:40,090
opportunity. This is where I'm supposed
to be. I absolutely love it.

1165
01:17:45,480 --> 01:17:47,860
What moment would you say you're most
proud of?

1166
01:17:48,160 --> 01:17:51,180
And then by the same token, what moment
would you say you're least proud of?

1167
01:17:51,340 --> 01:17:55,480
Most proud, I guess, would be winning
the world title. And least proud would

1168
01:17:55,480 --> 01:17:57,580
probably be, you know, the Montreal
incident.

1169
01:17:57,960 --> 01:18:02,960
One is everything you aspire to do, and
the other is the complete opposite.

1170
01:18:03,240 --> 01:18:05,180
Something you really don't want to be a
part of.

1171
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:10,700
It's the long -term guilt. It's the
shame. It's the loathing that you know

1172
01:18:10,700 --> 01:18:11,700
person has you.

1173
01:18:12,040 --> 01:18:15,740
There was so much bad blood between us,
and I was always like, if I see him,

1174
01:18:15,840 --> 01:18:17,600
I'll kill him.

1175
01:18:18,920 --> 01:18:22,360
I've always believed that I had so much
anger that I think it led to my stroke

1176
01:18:22,360 --> 01:18:23,940
and a lot of things that I went through.

1177
01:18:24,220 --> 01:18:27,900
And then I remember thinking about Sean
and how we were good friends once upon a

1178
01:18:27,900 --> 01:18:31,460
time, and, you know, that it wasn't just
Sean. I was guilty, too.

1179
01:18:31,740 --> 01:18:33,940
And I remember thinking it would be good
to put it to bed.

1180
01:18:34,360 --> 01:18:38,560
And I've certainly talked about my
regret and the hope for reconciliation.

1181
01:18:39,160 --> 01:18:41,240
It took him some time to get there.

1182
01:18:41,640 --> 01:18:45,380
Vincent suggested, there's got to be a
way we can do this live in front of the

1183
01:18:45,380 --> 01:18:50,200
world. I've got 12 years of things I
want to get off my chest. I want to call

1184
01:18:50,200 --> 01:18:52,600
back there and ask John Michaels to come
out here.

1185
01:18:53,680 --> 01:18:59,100
I call for truth, and I call for you to
shake my hand. The fact that we did that

1186
01:18:59,100 --> 01:19:02,720
in the ring and we shook hands and all
that was very honest and very sincere.

1187
01:19:03,240 --> 01:19:06,880
You know that everybody's watching when
you're trying to have this very real

1188
01:19:06,880 --> 01:19:09,380
moment with one another. Art does
imitate life.

1189
01:19:09,820 --> 01:19:11,820
He's matured, and he's a different guy.

1190
01:19:13,340 --> 01:19:16,460
And I thought he finally, you know, he's
got his priorities all in order.

1191
01:19:19,100 --> 01:19:24,820
Welcome to the 25th anniversary of
WrestleMania!

1192
01:19:27,920 --> 01:19:31,200
70 ,000 WWE fans!

1193
01:19:31,560 --> 01:19:36,420
By the time Shawn Michaels and
Undertaker meet at WrestleMania 25,

1194
01:19:36,420 --> 01:19:37,820
veterans. They've been around forever.

1195
01:19:38,490 --> 01:19:43,310
And somehow, they're actually both in
their absolute prime.

1196
01:19:48,310 --> 01:19:53,330
One of my favorite entrances, Sean as
the Undertaker, but in all white,

1197
01:19:53,430 --> 01:19:54,910
ascending from the cloud.

1198
01:19:56,110 --> 01:20:00,570
Such a stark contrast to what I'm about
to do.

1199
01:20:02,710 --> 01:20:04,650
Battle between heaven and hell.

1200
01:20:05,600 --> 01:20:08,820
Prior to 2002, we did not have a great
relationship.

1201
01:20:09,280 --> 01:20:13,720
We did not like each other outside the
ring. This guy I genuinely like now.

1202
01:20:14,420 --> 01:20:18,240
And I've been years and years and years
since we had worked together.

1203
01:20:19,440 --> 01:20:22,680
Since the time that he injured himself
in the casket match.

1204
01:20:23,120 --> 01:20:26,640
Unknown to us at the time, we're about
to create one of the most epic things

1205
01:20:26,640 --> 01:20:29,040
ever done in the wrestling business.

1206
01:20:29,540 --> 01:20:30,880
There's that brash arrogant.

1207
01:20:31,560 --> 01:20:34,760
70 ,000 chanting HBK. The other hand.

1208
01:20:47,370 --> 01:20:50,450
You know when you're in the middle of
something really special, and we did.

1209
01:20:54,750 --> 01:20:55,230
By

1210
01:20:55,230 --> 01:21:05,250
then

1211
01:21:05,250 --> 01:21:09,750
I just remember getting to Sean, and we
just embraced and hugged and thanked

1212
01:21:09,750 --> 01:21:10,549
each other.

1213
01:21:10,550 --> 01:21:12,010
It was an awesome moment.

1214
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:17,000
I was on the ride home the next day,
just settling into me that I just don't

1215
01:21:17,000 --> 01:21:22,960
know that I'm ever going to encounter
from a performance standpoint anything

1216
01:21:22,960 --> 01:21:26,240
greater than that thing that I
experienced last night.

1217
01:21:26,820 --> 01:21:31,560
There was only one match that can be
considered match of the year.

1218
01:21:31,780 --> 01:21:33,380
Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker.

1219
01:21:38,360 --> 01:21:40,840
Undertaker, I can beat you.

1220
01:21:42,220 --> 01:21:43,220
You and me.

1221
01:21:44,280 --> 01:21:48,240
WrestleMania one more time.

1222
01:21:53,040 --> 01:21:58,040
So I remember tuning in to WrestleMania
26, but I had a knot in my stomach

1223
01:21:58,040 --> 01:22:02,260
knowing that if Shawn Michaels wasn't
able to win this one, that he would

1224
01:22:02,260 --> 01:22:06,540
retire. But it was a beautiful, artistic
way to end the career of Shawn

1225
01:22:06,540 --> 01:22:07,540
Michaels.

1226
01:22:20,480 --> 01:22:22,100
Career is over.

1227
01:22:22,980 --> 01:22:26,540
My heart was broken. My heart was
broken. But I'm glad also that he got to

1228
01:22:26,540 --> 01:22:27,540
on his own terms.

1229
01:22:27,560 --> 01:22:31,960
It was important that I needed to get
out of there to let the fans show him

1230
01:22:31,960 --> 01:22:33,200
appreciation that he deserved.

1231
01:22:38,000 --> 01:22:42,540
You have to imagine that Tom Brady and
Michael Jordan, as much as they

1232
01:22:42,540 --> 01:22:46,940
appreciate the fans, I think more than
anything, it's about their teammates and

1233
01:22:46,940 --> 01:22:47,980
the people that they play.

1234
01:22:48,350 --> 01:22:49,490
That means the most to them.

1235
01:22:54,910 --> 01:22:58,610
A lot of times, there's still a chasing
of that last perfect one.

1236
01:22:58,850 --> 01:23:02,970
And that's why I'm so appreciative that
I could define some form of finish line.

1237
01:23:04,850 --> 01:23:08,210
There's two things that I thrive on.
There's two things that I'm in love

1238
01:23:08,270 --> 01:23:11,230
which is, you know, Rebecca and the kids
and the wrestling business.

1239
01:23:14,470 --> 01:23:17,130
They're the two greatest loves of my
life that's never changed.

1240
01:23:23,240 --> 01:23:26,420
You've probably been to more ladder
matches than half the people in the ring

1241
01:23:26,420 --> 01:23:27,420
would imagine.

1242
01:23:33,180 --> 01:23:35,460
It's awesome for me to have Sean there.

1243
01:23:36,020 --> 01:23:37,300
He'll tell you what he's thinking.

1244
01:23:37,960 --> 01:23:39,100
He'll tell you what I'm thinking.

1245
01:23:39,940 --> 01:23:43,000
And there's a chemistry there. We have
this uncanny thing with each other.

1246
01:23:46,300 --> 01:23:47,740
Sean's a legend.

1247
01:23:48,620 --> 01:23:50,580
And for a legend to walk in, too.

1248
01:23:51,130 --> 01:23:52,910
an environment full of performers.

1249
01:23:53,210 --> 01:23:56,190
They revere him so much.

1250
01:23:56,670 --> 01:23:59,270
Welcome to NXT TakeOver!

1251
01:23:59,550 --> 01:24:02,290
There is the North American
Championship.

1252
01:24:02,730 --> 01:24:04,250
Who will climb the ladder?

1253
01:24:04,610 --> 01:24:07,390
Shawn has been a role model both in and
out of the ring.

1254
01:24:08,970 --> 01:24:13,270
I have so much respect for that man for
not just what he's done for professional

1255
01:24:13,270 --> 01:24:14,970
wrestling, the type of person he is.

1256
01:24:16,770 --> 01:24:19,710
To me and so many others, he's the
greatest.

1257
01:24:22,640 --> 01:24:26,720
And it's insane how kind, generous, and
humble the guy is.

1258
01:24:27,300 --> 01:24:32,160
Sometimes I think he doesn't realize
that he's Shawn Michaels.

1259
01:24:37,800 --> 01:24:44,740
When you said a tale of

1260
01:24:44,740 --> 01:24:46,680
two lives, that's what it's been.

1261
01:24:49,960 --> 01:24:52,200
Believe it or not, the same business.

1262
01:24:52,600 --> 01:24:56,740
That might have almost killed me, I
think, is the same business that saved

1263
01:24:58,120 --> 01:25:04,820
I know I accomplished more than what I
wanted.

1264
01:25:05,820 --> 01:25:10,200
I've never lost touch with a 19 -year
-old dude that was hoping to have a car

1265
01:25:10,200 --> 01:25:13,420
and an apartment and be the Southwest
Heavyweight Champion.

1266
01:25:14,280 --> 01:25:16,000
A lot more has happened since then.

1267
01:25:24,260 --> 01:25:26,060
Holy Toledo.

1268
01:25:29,520 --> 01:25:32,000
That's like the Sean dance.

1269
01:25:36,400 --> 01:25:42,320
I'm just a sexy boy. Sexy boy.

1270
01:25:43,140 --> 01:25:46,180
Oh, goodness gracious.

1271
01:25:46,660 --> 01:25:48,320
Good stuff.