Jim Ross recently interviewed WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels for The Ross Report podcast. Here are the highlights.
On watching NXT and 205 Live more when he watches wrestling: “I watch a little bit. I mean, the majority of it is to… honestly, I watch more NXT and the 205 Live more than anything else, to be perfectly honest.” Michaels continued, “I do that because, I mean, that’s something that I’m interested in. I think in terms of, again, being here and being able to contribute and see what I can do, if anything, to help the younger wrestlers. That’s the part that I enjoy, so, clearly, if you’re going to do that, you’ve got to know about the product, and you’ve got to watch it, and you’ve got to be informed with the talent and the people that are there.”
On not working a formal deal as a coach for developmental talent: “We’ll sort of discuss it, but for the most part, it’s something that I’m going to be doing. I just don’t know that we’ve… you know me, Jim. I mean, I sort of fly in and fly out and stuff like that and I know that’s often times that’s confusing to everybody. And, honestly, it’s more of a situation where I think I probably Hunter and I need to sit and need to sort of decide that I want to go ahead and have a schedule and do that schedule. And, honestly, as you know, I don’t know that I’ve ever done a schedule. I haven’t had a schedule or a job since I was 16 [years old] for heaven’s sakes.”
On NXT and developmental: “Well, I think the thing you definitely see is the excitement and passion, which is phenomenal, and innovation, I mean, guys, they’re just coming up with new stuff, and they hustle. And we all have to go through it, but as everyone says, and again, I know that the NXT brand is great, there [are] still a ton of fundamentals that sort of get jumbled up, things move a little too fast, things don’t get sold, things of that nature. But again all of those things come with time and experience, and some of it, with age and wisdom.”
On how Randy Savage once told him to slow down: “I tell everybody the story about Savage telling me to slow down and me saying, ‘no way – it isn’t going to happen; it’s the only way that I can compete with you guys; the fact that you guys don’t hustle and I do is going to make the difference’ and of course, once I got there, what you do is you slow down and you learn how to tell a story and learn about psychology and things of that nature. That’s a part of youth. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.”
