WWE legend, Shawn Michaels was the most recent guest on E&C’s Podcast Of Awesomeness alongside Hardcore legend, Mick Foley. During the show, the various parties discussed what it means to be on the same page as the guy you’re working with, Michaels & Foley discussed their table spot from “In Your House: Mind Games” & more.
Here are the highlights: (transcripts by WrestlingINC)
Michaels On Being On The Same Page As Your Opponent:
“For me, the most important thing about being in the ring with a guy is getting his timing or knowing if his timing is the same as yours. Do you know what I mean? And sometimes, if it isn’t, you’ve got to find that and adjust to that and work around that. All of that stuff in the ring in a match for the first time, to find that with somebody the very first time when you get in there, you know, the sooner you can cross that off your list or do that first whatever, then you go, ‘okay’ and to know that, because that’s one issue you no longer have to worry about. You know he’s going to be there, you know he’s going to do this, you know you’re going to turn, your timing, and all of that. You’re going to be there. The next thing is going to be going on and that can’t be overstated because if it isn’t, it stands out.”
HBK On The Development Of His Character:
“Coming off of the ‘boyhood dream’ and the sort of sterilization that they did with me and again, nobody’s fault, but it wasn’t the rough attitude guy that sort of got me there and this was a huge kick in the pants for the HBK character at that time with that kind of gritty, tough type of match.”
Mick Foley On The Table Bump From Him & Shawn’s Match:
“Preparation for that match was the only time I ever practiced a move. I’ll tell you, if I were coming into the company now, out of necessity, you have to know how to do a lot of cool things with your opponent. But, at that time, most of the cool stuff I did was, people trusting that I wouldn’t hurt them too badly when I came off of things. As far as, like, doing complex things, twisting, turning, really comprehensive lifting moves, I just didn’t have any and Shawn, do you know what move I’m talking about? Do you remember going out with me and I’m like, ‘I want to do this one thing backwards with the table’? I had to know in my heart that we could do this thing without killing the champion and so, we went out there and I stood out on that second turnbuckle and I said, ‘all I need to know is,’ and I’m going to lift like I’m going for a back suplex and Shawn turned it into a cross-body. So what we did out there, I lifted, he turned and I said, ‘okay, we’ve got this thing and so I had all the confidence in the world that we were going to be able to do that spot at the right time and that Shawn was going to make it out of there okay. But that was the only time I ever worked on a move before a match.”
Michaels Elaborates More On Characters Evolving:
“You were still evolving and, heck, I know I was. You’re still evolving as who you are. You’re still trying to figure it out. I was champion for whatever, I was still trying to [figure it out]. I mean, I think my match with [Vader] was the first time I can recall stomping for the superkick and you’re the champion, so you’re still figuring out new ways to develop and grow and evolve. It’s not a knock, but I don’t know how many people are doing that. People are sort of set in their sequence, their distinguished move-set of whatever and, heck, we were still trying to grow in a main event of a pay-per-view, do you know what I mean? It was a constant effort for character development so to speak, as opposed to being set in that and just moving forward.”
“And again, it’s not to be critical of anybody, it’s just sometimes when I watch [WWE programming], it’s just people are pretty set on who it is they are and I don’t know if that’s the most positive way of going about doing it. You want to continue to grow as a character, to stretch and have more range and have more emotion and have more everything because once you do sort of get settled in it, then it becomes repetitive, right?”
