Shawn Michaels has been in the middle of the changes to the WWE NXT brand as it was rebranded as NXT 2.0 in addition to upgrading the production and using experienced smaller wrestlers to younger and taller wrestlers.
With Triple H going on hiatus to focus on his health, Michaels has been running the day-to-day operations.
The WWE Hall of Famer appeared on Instinct Culture by Denise Salcedo to discuss his initial thoughts on WWE making changes to the brand.
“I think the biggest thing was that I didn’t know I was gonna be the one having to do everything {laughs}. I was going to hopefully assist Hunter and put into place what he wanted us to put into place. It came a bit quick obviously. For the last 35 years that I’ve been with the WWE when they make a decision it’s done, it’s quick. They are so efficient, so quick and they just don’t sit and wait around. I think that was probably the biggest adjustment. I think we had probably three weeks, and we didn’t have a whole lot of information. By the time we got the information it was coming down by the last week and we went ahead and applied everything that we could. It’s fun, it’s a nervous excitement. You don’t really know what to expect but you’re looking at something where there’s no roadmap to doing it so you have to try and figure it out. I still enjoy that kind of stuff, Hunter and I, much like the DX days, we went out there not having any idea what we were gonna do, we were just gonna go out there and have fun and enjoy doing it. That’s how this kind of started from the get go. It would have been a lot easier had he been there the entire time to assist that’s for sure.”
Michaels also talked about the biggest challenges with new brand and he felt it was how the fans would react to it.
“It’s dealing with the reaction from that change. To be perfectly honest it’s like ripping a band-aid off, it was very sudden and to your fanbase that’s very tough. It’s like anything, change isn’t easy, when it’s your normal and you’re comfortable with it and then there’s an abrupt change that’s difficult. For me that was the hardest part, to at least let your fanbase know ‘we’re going to do everything we can to make this your NXT again, it’s just we’re having to do it all over and different.’And look I will say, I have to be honest. I think a lot of the blowback is because I feel like people are angry, {laughs}, people are angry at us sometimes and there’s not much we can do about that. I understand that. It’s a very emotional type business and we have that sincerity with our fanbase. There is a closeness there and you get comfortable with things the way they are and then going about a change that you’re not prepared for and you don’t know if you like it, I think they took it out, they don’t mean to, but I think they took it out on the brand, and then of course the new and young talent. They are just sitting there going like ‘hey we just want to be in this line of work too, is that so bad?’ {laughs}. That was the hardest thing, is having to help everybody through that. I’ve had a lot of people say a lot of bad stuff about me for a long time {laughs} but for this brand to have to go through that was new and I think that was the one thing that at least having me steering the boat in the respect is something I can help everybody understand, not take it personally…. I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of this fanbase for a long time and they just want to know that they can count on you and that once again you will try to take pride in the product, go out there and give them the best. That’s what these young men and women are doing, as you’ve seen, 10-12 weeks in they are starting to embrace these young men and women…. That abrupt change was a little rough at first but it’s settling in now and it really is, at the heart, it’s still the same people behind the scenes, that care about giving our fanbase the best that we can give them.”
