Club 520 - Shawn Michaels on WRESTLEMANIA 42, Sexyy Red, The Undertaker, HBK's origin

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What's going on? You know what it is?
Club five twenty Live and wrestle Mania Las Vegas, Nevada. Man,
we got us back out here. Ww always show it's
great hospitality. Man, it's only right we start off our
interviews this week. We got a legend in the building.
You know how it goes here. We're gonna introduce the
last to my far lit if we got my dog
Bishop be hearing out the prailes, how you were, sir,
cool and nasty.
Let's get to it. I'm excited for this and I
got a couple of questions. He defeated one of my
dogs back in the day, so I got all.
You got to pay. Yeah, the best thing about this
is me. He's a little bit new with to the
wrestle world. Now, he's a little bit to it, but
he been locked in last couple of years to be
the acne mom.
So for about this, he's definitely tapped it for sure.
I always remember you from back in the day that
show because it was back.
Legend for sure, for sure.
To my right, we got my dog young Nato Fatigue
the restlers of in the building.
How you feeling, I'm geek y'all know this is one
of my top five wrestlers of all time.
So to have him in the building and sit down.
With us, yeah, excited now listen, man, know but I
know I keep it very professional on the show, but
today I am not doing none of that.
Ship Man. We got my favorite rest of all time.
The reason why I got in trouble in middle school,
the reason why I thought I could practice wrestling moves.
Ah, my friends, man HBK.
One of the best champions of all time, Sean Michael's
in the build a big dog.
We appreciate you having this, man.
I thank you guys.
Very much for having me, and I'm honored to have
contribute to your delinquencies.
Come on, listen, do you need this right right here?
This caused the wave right here? This was middle school times.
Everybody walking down the hallway with this. We had no
business doing that at eleven twelve years old. And I
know while we got in trouble for it, I don't
care anyway.
Man. We got a lot to talk about with you.
But what's that moment like when y'all had some of
the craziest merch ones of all time that was pre
social media.
To be in the crowd and see all the d
x rs, what was that like?
Well, again, for us, back back then, you didn't really
mark sales.
I mean they were a big part of me.
You didn't focus on that. It was just something that
they kind of made shirts here and there. But we
just knew we were onto something special with the dx
you know, sort of attitude era in general, and it
was it was all derived out of very much you know,
kind of anger and bitterness and yeah, you know, bucking
the system, so to speak. And it turned out obviously
in a very positive way for us. But at the beginning,
if it makes feel any better, we were getting in a.
Lot of trouble to his left shows.
Stuff we were doing was not technically okayd Before we
went out, we just did it anyway because it was
live television and it was much easier to come back
and say, oh sorry that it was to ask for permission.
That legendary song man and used to ring out in
the halls, But it was the light hearing that growing
up and see Shaw Michael now Mann, this.
Is crazy to really just sitting next to you, man,
I really discovered you. You defeated my dog, British Bulldog
in the match back in the day.
You kicked his ass.
Man, Well, Yigga's ass might be a little a little loose.
Fortunate enough to again to get to work with Davy,
who was an unbelievably talent dude. Yeah, he and I
actually were on live events.
He and I were married to each other for years.
For having sakes, and he was always just a fantastic
dude to work with. Fortunately, one of the guys that
helped me begin to you know, ascend the rosters, so
to speak.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
I never would have known to be here with her.
Was a British bulldog fan.
Yeah, you know, I told you early.
On, I was like, y'all, yeah, it took me to
about eleven or twelve to you know what I mean.
Switch over just a little bit.
As I'm a huge wrestling fan, so I know pretty
much everything. I know your story from day one, But
I want to talk about when you was with the
Marty Jeanetti and y'all was a tag team. But that
moment where you were able to go solo, you threw
them through the glass, messed him up, hit him with
the sweecham music, all that good stuff.
Like, what was that moment for you like in your career, Like, well, you.
Certainly at the time, we never everything was so in
the moment and.
You weren't thinking about the future.
You were never thinking about anything from the standpoint of
I hope this is something that's memorable, will go down
in history, is one of the greatest turns ever.
You never certainly didn't.
I didn't have the mental capacity to think about things
from the perspective of a sixty year old man I
was at.
That time in my life.
I never thought I'd even lived a sit so but
it was an idea, really, it was an idea that
I had for both Marty and I as the.
Rockers, to do with the Nasty Boys.
That was a whole idea that I was going to
try to pitch, you know, to Pat Patterson Vince McMahon
at the time for a storyline because we were just
kind of existing the Rockers, you know, we kind of
had had our peak and we're just kind of plateauing
at that time.
So I was just trying to think of different ideas
for storylines.
And then the opportunity, you know, came up to go singles,
and I just shifted the idea to doing it with
Marty and I and now all these years later has
become one of these iconic terms turns. And also I
knew that the glass shattering was going to be a
big impact moment.
I mean, the turn and everything.
Was special, but at that time tag team, and it's
not like Marty and.
I were the main tag team or anything.
So to do and angle that serious and that impactful
at the time, was a big deal.
He you know, he.
Bled and everything else said for us to be able
to have that kind of moment on television just highlighted
for us turned out to be much bigger, I think
than both of us ever imagined.
No, definitely one of my best hill of times. I
would say johnsena recently turned the hill. I was like,
Johnson is like, but sure number one for me, Like
that moment was crazy.
Well, it's like again that that is something that I
think over time has really gotten more special. And to
be honest, yeah, because you do you realize how impactful
it was, and my career was, you know, has just
been so fortunate then to be a part of some
really big moments. To be a part of the first
Ladder match, and you know, you know, the first Iron
Man match, the first tell in a sound match. There
were so many aspects in my career that I'm very
fortunate to have been involved in. The degeneration next come
on man, you know, collaboration with all of us. Those
things are just absolutely huge things in the in the
scope of the ww.
And I was fortunate to be a part of a
lot of them.
Now I know we are wrestle may I want to
ask you this question two times back to back, Royal
Rumble winner, what was more funck you?
Royal Rumble or Medium?
So from a pure fun standpoint, the Rumble is more
fun because it's not as pressure filled and one focused
on you. It's more about the entire match and just
the idea. I'm very happy. I feel like the Rumble
has gotten bigger than it was in our day. I
think it's become so much more special over time, and
people have really began to appreciate the Rumble and everything
that goes on with them.
But at that time it was.
Certainly I think from a guy, if you're working in
the ring and you look at it and you go,
that's an easier thing to have to do because you're
part of a much bigger segment, so to speak. When
it's one on you, I get is at WrestleMania, that's
when the doing of the stress, the anxiety, pressure of
making sure you go out there and deliver, and as
you go up in the card and then you're foolish
enough to call yourself mister WrestleMania after a while, then
the spotlight really gets focused on you and as enjoyable
as that can be. On one hand, that means everybody's
going to be looking at you, and the minute you
don't perform at a really high level, you're kind of screwed.
But fortunately for me, that was something that I was,
nine times out of ten pretty dark capable of living
up to.
The name, and I was good about it.
I always do look at I see things by Michael Jordan,
and he was so com competitive, and he was somebody
with very little time on the clock. He wanted the pressure,
he wanted the moment, and that's something that I realized
back then that I had in common from that standpoint.
It was it was even though it drove me crazy
from a stress and anxiety standpoint, I wanted that kind
of pressure because I felt like that's without those kinds
of things on me, I'm not motivated enough to do
it just on my own.
There's dope and obviously it makes sense. Oh yeah, it
makes a lot of sense. Shout outs to the dude
documentary lovel pakout right now.
I'll watched that before here, so to see like how
you perform and like how you balance what was.
Going on your personal life. It's a still get out
there and do what you did.
There's nothing but respect because obviously you had a hell
of a work like balance, but you got out there
every night and put it on the line. Memorable moments
for everybody. And it's funny because he's been taped back
in to wrestling recently and the first thing we went
to was Roy Rump. Yeah, that was gonna He was
just like, it's a huge difference, but it was, like
you said, the two different types of pressure between us
two was real.
Yeah.
Well, and you know, obviously.
I don't know. It's it's very strange for me at
the time. All these years later, I think everybody looks
at it as if it was it was always going
to happen.
Yeah.
Very early on, I was just always thinking to myself,
if I don't do well each and every time I
go out there, I'm going.
To lose my spot.
I was at somebody that the company kind of looked
at and said, hey, let's go with him. It was
something that sort of fell into my lap. Fortunately, and
then after that I just felt like at any moment
it could be taken away.
So it made me just make sure even a live
events I didn't take.
I didn't take many nights off live events, because I
just it was something that I felt like if I
slipped at any time, I was going to lose that opportunity,
And again, probably put way more pressure on myself early
on than I needed to, And then as I got over,
I was able to balance it in a much more
positive way.
Now And how did you even join the sport wrestling mass?
So I again, I watched it when I was twelve
years old, way back San Antonio, Texas. At twelve o'clock
on Saturday night, Southwest Championship Wrestling was on, and just
the montage at the beginning of the show, you know,
you see everybody jumping off the ropes and doing all
this cool stuff, and I was just, oh my god,
this is the coolest stuff ever. And it was McDaniels, Tully, Blanchard,
Gino Hernandez, Andie Mansfield, Scott Casey. Every now and then
Nick Bockwinkle or Bruise and Brodie would come through, and
it just I just thought it was the coolest thing
in the world. And then talk about age and yourself.
Then cable television camera and then you're exposed to world
class wrestling and ron ericson the Freebirds and then WTBS
with Rick Flair and so many other people, Harley Race,
w o R t V in New York back then
Jimmy super Fly snooker diving.
Off the cage on a legend.
And so it was just captivating. It was absolutely the
coolest thing I'd ever seen. And it looked like a
job that took a lot of athleticism. And I was
an athlete, you know, my entire young life. The linebacker, right, Yeah,
I was. I went to a y you know, I
was on the base. It was in a high school.
It is a small school, so I never got off
the field. I was an offensive tackle and an outside
linebacker on d Yeah, well I was.
For me, I was a chubby kid. Ah so I
was two hundred pounds in our school.
That was big. So I was, Yeah, I was. I was.
I was a right tackle and like I said, an
outside linebacker. You know for sure, stuff like that, you know,
to give you on the kickoff teams, return team.
Everybody, yeah, almost everybody played this said it didn't come
out of the field though.
I guess who's out about Travis Hunter Corner.
I think they had I want to say, eighteen to
twenty two guys on the team.
Wow, so you had to play.
We fluctuated between two A and three A focal time.
So and that's when five A was I think the biggest.
So there was a small school. So yeah, you never
got off the creeld man.
That line backer background makes sense now, no what I guess,
believe it or not. I was.
I had footwork.
That was the thing that helped men, and that put
ended up helping me so much in wrestling, is that
I had really good footwork and I was very coordinated,
and thankfully there, I was not smart enough to be
careful about anything I did not you know, going out
there with reckless abandon seemed fun to me. So getting
up the ladders or you know, jumping off the cages
and things like that. Yeah, it seems like a lot
of fun. They never once started about getting hurt.
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called one day hundred Gambler in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan,
New Jersey, Tennessee, and Virginia. I want to ask you
this question. One of my favorite finishing moves of all
time sweetchen music. How did that come about?
Man?
So that I was watching World class wrestling and a
guy by the name of Gentlemen Chris Adams, he did
the super kick, and I just that was a move
that I didn't see a lot of people do, and
when he would do it, he did it so quickly,
and the guy would take a great snap pump, and
I just thought, that's a really cool move and it
was one of those you.
Didn't see everybody doing.
And and so that was something that once I got
into wrestling, I certainly put in my arsenal, and then
Marty and I would use it in tag team matches,
and then I eventually when I went singles. It was
something early on that I did to set up. You know,
I'd gone singles, and you always feel like, well, I've
got to I've got to have a finishing maneuver. And
so I started doing this, uh side suplex is sort
of like a double underhook and you know a crotch,
you know, uh bellied back, so to speak. And it
was okay, but I would set it up with the kick,
and then eventually Pat Patterson.
Came to me.
He was like, and you just do the kick better,
and and I thought okay, and so I started doing that.
And then one time I just sat in the corner
and it was taking a little bit, so I felt
like I needed to do something, so I started stomping
and everything, just for me in my career, they just
sort of naturally happened. Doors kind of opened that I
kind of walked through, and I would stumble into something
pretty innovative, and uh, none of it was ever by
plan or by straight out execution.
I was fortunate enough to come about most.
Of this stuff organically, and I think that's what made
it feel so real to the people because it.
Was now My favy one of all time is we
have a thelm minute show tipic we say lay you
to death.
Typically at bath and it comes after that when you
hear we're flairing with that I love you.
Yeah, yeah, what was that moment? Like man especially worked
for somebody you was tapped in early.
Yeah, well that again, that that's one that I'm thinking
about it and the match on an emotional level for
me and Rick and I were so close and you
are now finding yourself friends with this guy you watched
for so many years. And I remember it was probably
a week before the match, and my buddy from high school, Kenny,
calls me and he was saying, like, oh my goodness,
I can't believe you're wrestling Rick Flair WrestleMania. You've ever
thought about that when we were fifteen in my mom's
house watching him on TV, And that just took me
back to that time. And you know, later on that night,
I wake up in the middle of the night and
this idea of the end of the match just comes
to me and I start writing it down, and all
of a sudden, I know, it's very weird because it's
you know, it's pro wrestling.
Yeah, you know lives.
I don't know, like, you know, the world's not waiting
for the professional wrestling business to save it, you know,
you know, to show it the future, but it was
so personal and emotional to me.
I thought it was really cool and special.
But sometimes you worry that you're the only one thinking that,
And I wasn't sure if at that time time that
would tap into the emotion of all the wrestling fans
out there. But thankfully, at that time, I think in
that moment, we took every person in the crowd back
to when they first fell in love with wrestling in
that moment, and that's what made it work, and that's
what made it resonate so much. But the people is that,
no matter how cynical we can all get, in that moment,
they all remembered the first time they became a wrestling fan,
and it meant something to him.
Yeah, it was a huge moment of vulnabilly despite everything
that was going on in the moment where that was
an iconic thing that happened, especially when it happened.
For sure.
No, we talked about this all the time. One of
my favorite matches from you, You and Bray hart Man. Yeah,
iconic match.
What was that like? Man at high stage?
Everybody, Yeah, especially at that time period, I was two
of the most regardinated the business.
Do you remember much from that situation.
Yeah, Well, so the first thing is there's nobody you
want to be out there with him. You're having to
do an hour. No better person to be out there
with than Brett Hart. So he and I felt very
comfortable about doing it. The thing that I'm most proud of,
and I say this all the time, is that we
were willing to take the risk. That was sort of
a time in the business where you were kind of
feeling like things were going to change.
But also and it's sort of moving towards that more fast.
Paced type match idea, and here we are having to
go out there and do an hour and it's not
as if, very different than the match. The hour match
I had with John Cena many years later. People didn't
know that one was going an hour, and so you're
able to suspend the disbelief in a different kind of way.
Your match psychology can be different when they don't know
you're going an hour, but when they know it's going
to go an hour, it's very difficult. And it was
a big risk at that time. So I was very
proud of the match just from that standpoint, and there
was nobody that I would rather be out there doing
that with the Brett Hart, and so we knew that
we'd be able to. We wanted to put on what
we felt was a wrestling clinic, and to this day,
some people will argue it's not their favorite, but uh,
I'm still very proud of that matches. I thought what
he and I did was really special. We went, you know,
we went the full hour and then had the overtime
in it, and it was just something that again first
time guys, first time doing that kind of match on
a pay per view.
Very proud of everything and how it turned out.
I mean, it's hard for us to our episode, let
alone to wrestle for an.
Hour through torture. Bro, that is crazy.
I gotta I love the some of my favorite measures
when you you know, you went away for a while,
you came back and you're an Undertaker, had some of
the greatest wrestling matches I ever seen, man, and some
of the rise that you took that were the crowd
on the Undertaker and tapping out and kicking out at
certain times.
It was an amazing experience to watch that.
And recently I went back and watched some of those
matches cause you speak about someone those wrestlmating in moments
with the Undertaker.
Sure, well, it all started early on in our career.
Both of us were you know, he was obviously had
this unbelievable character. I've got easily a polar opposite character,
and unbeknownst to us at the time that we found
out later in our careers, but at one time, it
was spoken within the creative forces at the time that
Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker would never wrestle because people
just won't They won't be able to believe that there's
no way that the heartbreak kid could hang with the Undertaker.
But then from a company standpoint, you sort of get
yourself into a situation where, well, that's one of the
only places we haven't gone. And so back in well,
you know, i'd say early or late ninety six ninety seven,
we start to have a few matches, and man, anytime
he and I got in the ring with each other,
natural chemistry, it was just magic. Every time, you know,
I got in there and matched up with one another.
And again, unbeknown to us, we didn't know that they
didn't ever want that, well, we knew.
It was like holy cow. Every time we're in the
ring together.
It's not only fantastic, but it's a piece of cake
to do because the story is just so darnise. He's
for two characters that they didn't think would match up,
meshed together seamlessly, and and then we you know, so
we had it culminated with the Helen a Cell match
early on and that was just.
Blast.
It was just it was so so much fun. We
went out there, We had like fifty some odd minutes.
I can I can remember before we went out. You know,
at that time, it's pay per view and you have
to make it to the end of the pay per
view time, and we had way more time left in
the pay per view than we were supposed to have.
And I can remember looking at Daker and from a
distance and going, we've got like fifty five minutes left
in pay per view time.
Damn.
We're like, what are we gonna do? And he looked
at me, I'll walk slough.
Then I was like, I you know, it was like
another that was his way of saying, don't worry about it,
We're gonna do our thing. And and yeah, we went
out there and just had a fantastic match. You fast
forward and I'm sorry I'm long winded here, but you
fast forward all the years later to the WrestleMania matches. Again,
both he and I personally and professionally very different early
on and then later on in our careers, just absolutely
adored one another, a friendship that you know, I value
so much. So we were just at such a different
place personally with one another, and it's crazy to think
that the chemistry could get better than it once was,
but it did, and we went out there and had
those two WrestleMania matches, and again, between both of those,
those were the ones that let me know it's okay
to go. It's it's you know you can. You've done
everything you needed to do, and Uh, and what I've
learned in all those years past, that's the best send
off you can get to be at peace with yourself
when you leave this stuff, as I'm sure you guys
are leaving anything. If you feel complete with what you've done,
you know what you've given, you've received out of it
what you want, and you can walk away peacefully. It
was the best gift I ever got. And Uh, like
I said, it's something that we're both extremely proud of
to this day. And and proud of the fact that
it's something that people remember for a long long time.
Absolutely made and it's crazy like you as an individual,
you as a part of a conglomerate. We was always
talking about the culture, like wrestling. The culture has been
so synonymous recently, but for you to be like, for
you to walk out and see people your merch, like,
what's that feeling?
Light?
Still to this day people still hold you out a
hoigh regard. Maybe kids don't even know who you are,
but they know who HdK is.
What's that light? Especially an event like this where everybody
endors you, Well.
It is you really.
So with social media and dreaming, and I would have
never imagined at sixty going on sixty one that, for instance,
somebody like a sexy red make me seriously, would make
me relevant. Yet sure, just late in my life. You
know again, I'm an old man and I'm I'm and
I'm I had some swagger and some aura, as you
kids say back in the nineties, real aura. But it
was but it was because I was app you know,
I was. I was an absolute train wreck and I
was a menace that played well thankfully on television. Well,
but but I came back in two thousand and two,
and everything, Oh, I was just a I'm a nerd, I'm.
A dad, I'm boring, I'm all of those things. And
the idea that he's still cool, that character is still
cool all these.
Years later, and sometimes arguably maybe even cooler. I mean,
it's amazing to me. I have to be honest, I didn't.
I didn't realize that HBK and that swagger and that
cockiness and that confidence resonated so well.
Yeah, just so many people.
I guess I just you know something, I guess when
you're in it, you're not you know, you're sort of
in this bubble and you don't have the opportunity to
see beyond that. And now I, at least I'm able
to take the time, I guess, to be that and
to notice that. And you go you think to yourself, like, well, damn,
that's pretty cool.
You hope to see you get your firelight.
It's a video you walking down the ramp, obviously get
ready for a match, and somebody likes drink at you.
You just kind of flick her here.
They were just like kids, I know this is real,
or like this is not stage? Is just what he
was on every day. So to see that, like you say,
you got kids and they buy it with HBK in
front of that, like you and their birth. The generation
of people with that type of swag.
Man, how does that say? How did that sexy red
link up happen? Man? How do you even cross paths? Bro?
It was just from from her social that she put out.
It was just I think the first one was her
playing my song in the background and the h and
smoking one while she was doing it.
It's great marketing standing.
I don't know, will not condone.
The show, but.
Uh, and yeah, it just sort of went from there.
And and then of course, uh, you know, she would
play highlights of me, you know, doing my spret and
doing my taking stuff like that during so many of
her songs.
And after that, we just thought we got to reach
out to her and I needed.
I was just curious if she was if it was
just something she did out of fun or she was
really a fan. And after that, I don't know, she said,
we invited her, We had a great time. She was
just wonderful with us, and we continue, you know, she
continues to include me just out of the goodness of
her heart. I guess and I don't know. It's absolutely
a fun little uh partnership that we have.
That's burden of the gap right there.
Yeah, you know me.
Again, and it is those are things once again, never
tried to execute. It wasn't a plan. It's just one
of those things that's falling you out and I feel
like it's a door open and it is. It's all
very genuine.
Yeah, because I'm.
I'm I'm you know, I'm almost sixty one, but I
am still a kid at heart, absolutely never grown up.
That's why I feel so good about what I do
with NXT.
Again.
I still have a you know, a joyful spirit in
my life. Uh and uh, you know those kids keep
me young and you know they're they're passionate. What we
do in NXT is still the purest form of what
it is we do. It's before you know, it's before
it becomes all of this. It comes, you know, business
and making money, which is all understandable because this is
life changing stuff that can go on. But in NXC,
it's the responsibility that we take seriously, but we have
fun while we're doing it and do our best to
equip them to be ready for moments like this and
weekends like this or wrestle Amima.
I want to ask you that I know some of
the AST fans a little mad right now, they trying
to get sect you were in the Mets.
Yeah, no, no, I hope this stuff is not not
easy to do.
I think there.
I think somebody might have actually asked her about it
at one time. But no, I we would never uh
I would. I would never encourage her to to try
this stuff just because it isn't the easiest stuff in
the world.
Non Oswell work, What hobbies did you have outside of wrestling?
Man? Like?
How did you balance like home life and the wrestling life.
That was one of the problems early on.
I didn't have anything one my focus right, and I
had no idea who I was away from it. Thankfully again,
when I when I met my wife and our children,
they obviously became a huge part of that. But also,
you know, believe it or not, hunting, fishing, getting out
doing just that. Learning life, how to live to have
something outside of that outside of this was a learning
process for me. It was something that I had to
do and it's something that to this day I still
make sure that I, you know, take time for that.
You know again, it's something.
You know, we go on little vacations as a family,
My wife and I go to the beach.
You know.
I'm very much into you know, true crime and drama
and stuff like that.
Happy what's all you be watching?
Man?
Say? True Carl? What what some of I SBK Fight
Resulting TV?
All right?
I watched I watched almost non stop the I V
Channel Walk out to my house, you know, the snap
Donat Oh yeah, yeah on h L and the forensic yeah,
everything that. I'm yeah, I just think that's I don't know. Uh,
it's like you just gotta tell that, you know, the
husband's out there. I gotta look at you first, stop
doing You're not gonna You're not gonna get away. And
then you can't you can't fill out the big life
insured and then do something like seven days later. Still,
I'll be damned if they still try to give it
a world because they're going to be the ones that
can get away with that.
Now. I'm fine, Sorry, I'm joking. No violence.
It's crazy, but I would have loved HBK long order
came out. That would have been crazy as a huge.
HBK would have been fired for sure.
For sure. Well you be nice to be on the
good site.
Yeah, for sure. I got to ask you before we get
out of here about the click.
So I was a skyhall raising my mom fan, come
on man all the time, favorite wrestler. But you know
Kevin Nash, big sexy, the Diezel, you got a triple
h you also got X pox.
What was that connection like? Being part of the click?
And so that was real friendship really when and here's
the thing.
It might have helped. Hunter was probably the only one
that was.
Uh more so grounded than who he was. But he
wasn't preachy and he would never judge any of us,
and who knows, I don't know that we would have
listened even if he did. But they were at least
the people that I could talk to about the things
you might have been struggling with. You could get real
with those guys and talk about for me anyway, I
don't know some of the fears, the you know, vulnerabilities,
And they didn't mock or make fun of me to
try to you know, at the very least, I don't
know we would. They helped me escape from him, and
maybe not in the healthiest way, but they were still
my friends. Kevin Nash didn't know me from Adam and
he went in, you know, kind of exaggerated the truth
to get his release from w CW and picked up
and came up and hitched his wagon to me without
ever knowing me, not speaking a word to me, and
about one trust in me, you know, for his career
and his livelihood, and was a buddy to me from
day one.
And and so I don't know, that just meant so
much to me.
And then Scott and I we knew each other in
Kansas City, that's when we first met and then got
to re establish our relationship in WW and you know,
we were you know, two train wrecks, but we were
also two guys again, very emotional and guys kind of
you know, struggle with some of the maybe I don't know,
more common things in life that people struggle with.
So we could at least drown our sorrows with each other.
And and like you said, Hunter was just a guy
that again he liked the idea that we were one hundred,
all of us dedicated to the business and getting better.
And because he was, as everyone says, a student of
the game. We that's all we all thought about. We
were with each other more than we were with anybody else,
and we all just leaned on each other when you know,
when we were doing this, we were on the road
three hundred days at that time in our teams, and
we were with each other. Waltman came in at a
young age. We snatched him up right away. I didn't
even know that we gave.
Poor kid a choice, perfectly honest.
He came in, you know, on one time and we said,
you're riding with us, and I think he was probably
just afraid to say no. He guys stuck with us
ever since. But I'm I'm so honored that it's, you know,
to be I don't know, to have a friendship like that.
That still goes on to this day.
And even though you know, you know the types of
friends you have, but you don't have to see each
other all the time. But when you do, you pick
up right where you left off as something that you
know last for the you know, eternity and for the
rest of your lives.
I well said, the which you being over n x T.
Was it, like you said, you pouring into those young
guys to see them come to this stage of some
of those guys being able to be at WrestleMania.
What's that like for you? Obviously putting in the work
to see those guys flours and.
That's that's why you do it. Yes, it really is.
This is the biggest reason. I I mentioned it on
another interview. Kind of done a lot of these, done
a lot of WrestleMania's always honored to come out and
certainly represent an XT, But the most enjoyable part is
watching Lash and Jordan trick mellow Oba and watch them
not just be a part of WrestleMania Weekend, but be
a big part main WrestleMania Weekend and watching them go
out and enjoy that that moment out there and know
that this is just the beginning. Yeah, very excited for them,
And it really is. That's it's the reason when we
do that, because they do they put a lot of
trust in us at the Performance Center in Orlando, and
it's so awesome when we see the fruits of our
labor and the fruits of their labor go out there
and culminate in something that is this big and the special.
Yeah, now listen, two things we're excited to let be
here attacking with Alba. Yeah, that's for Brock Lesnar. He's
not too from Maria, so I'm excited for him to
see that specially came up.
Through the n XC.
Yeah, yeah, that was one.
Of you guys.
Yeah, he was a shot putterer at the University of attlmanmaw.
Picture of him.
He should have been playing.
Well, but again and Oba Trick and Javon Wi all
very different but all so special and unique.
And I don't know.
To me, it's just great because it's such a diverse
but accurate representation of NXC. And then you've got Lash
and Jordan over there with the l eighties. That is
also a great representation because you have these people that
some had some indie experience, but that others just came
straight from college. They're all just and none of them
are the same. They're not cookie cutter, all very different
and but all still equally a special and the Skuy's
the limit for all of them. And we're very excited
that this WrestleMania uh is kind of going to be
their launching past.
Yeah.
Now listen, last wrestle may we try to like it
in now we got you here. We're trying to get
be here in the world experience in Orlando man, were
trying to get be here in the rock.
They get some training. How we feel it?
Man, Yeah, I need I need to get in there, man,
get my body together.
You know what I'm saying. Well, look all you have
to do. You know we have we have people here,
give us, give us a call.
Man.
Yeah, you guys are welcome and invited anytime to come on.
I always wanted to know what that experience is like.
And then how do you choose, like, I don't know.
How do you know when they reached, they peak and
n they seed to send them over this way.
Well that's that's a a collaboration between uh, you know
one hundred and nine main Roster and and NXC. A
lot of it is the week. We can have people
that aren't ready, maybe we feel but they need people,
They need a certain so weird it's it all depends
on if if there's a role they need to feel
sort of like you know, no different than any sport.
Holy cow, I need a quarterback. One of our guys
went down. I need a quarterback to have so many quarterbacks.
But if our linement went down, you know, what do
you what if you guys got who do you think
is ghost ready swere. There could be times when again
they just feel like we want something fresh, something new.
They are they can they can come in kind of
like what they just did recently. And I don't want
to say clean us out, but it's a you know,
maybe a spring clean.
It's not not a not a total overhaul. It very
but we have to be ready.
Uh short of like the Marines. You gotta be ready
whenever they call you. You gotta jump on a jump on
a plane and get ready to go.
Gotcha, man, this has been a special moment for us.
Man, legendary mom for me and my guys as well.
Shout to our family at boost Mobile. Shouts to stock
x Man, shout the hard rock back our guys, h
b K. We appreciate you. You got something before we
got out here.
They want to do the TikTok dance. Is a TikTok
dance supposed were going on. Man, oh oh, malk corner.
Now he's a wrestling love right here. My god, Malo, man,
he would have happened with cose it if possible.
Man, crying right, some of the stupid stuff right here.
Clearly I'm not a good judge of anything, so I
try anything one you like, The club five.
The volume