Shawn Michaels sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Las Vegas, Nevada to discuss the transition from wrestler to running NXT, what looks for in a young Superstar, the 2 defining eras of his in-ring career, his epic matches with the likes of The Undertaker, Ric Flair and Kurt Angle, whether he views himself as the greatest wrestler of all time, his thoughts on his return match at Crown Jewel, his mindset to become Mr. WrestleMania and more!

On what he is looking for in a pro wrestler:

“I think when we talk about feel, and timing. Timing and feel are probably, in my opinion, the two most important things in this business. You can get by with so much more if you have those two aspects. You can be a little short in athleticism, you can be a little short in psychology, you can be a little short in, I don’t know, overall knowledge of the game, so to speak. If you have timing and a real feel, because those are things that, I guess charisma plays a part in that. But if you have timing and feel, I feel like the charisma and all the other is going to sort of match that timing and feel, if that makes sense. I know sometimes when I talk about this, I know I don’t always make sense to a lot of people, but that’s the level that I’m at.”

On there being 2 eras of Shawn Michaels:

“Well, sure, before and after [1998]. One from a personal standpoint, obviously, we see that we knew the difference, and we know whatever it is you want to call it, before the back injury, after the back injury. Before saved, after saved, whichever way, troublemaker, much easier to deal with. Honored to have had both and both serve their purposes, certainly in my life. I always tell people, of course, I would love to go back and have had the opportunity to do the first part different. However, I’d be lying, I guess, if I didn’t say that I don’t know where I’d be at today if I didn’t go through that. And I don’t know how successful I’d have become had I not been that way. So yes, a lot of it, people look at as very negative, but I didn’t think I had any other chance if I didn’t push that way. Probably overly paranoid, I don’t know, whatever it is you want to call it. I just didn’t think I had the luxury of what everybody else did. And I don’t know that’s fair. So don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to justify it. Everything stems from an insecurity within myself about who I was. None of it had to do with the ability. Because look, a lot of times in this job, especially when you’re young, you say, I’m good enough. We make applications to this line of work like you do in football or basketball. ‘If I can do A, B, C and D, I ought to be the highest paid. I ought to be able to do this. I ought to be able to do that.’ Our job isn’t like that, because it’s not what those are, and it was very hard to get that through my incredibly thick skull at that time in my life. I think on paper, I was better than 99.9% of the people that were in the wrestling ring. That’s irrelevant. It’s not totally irrelevant, not like it doesn’t mean anything, but again, whatever it is you want to say.”

On whether he considers himself as the greatest of all time:

“But again, there’s all sorts of caveats. And that’s one of those things, again, in that book, greatness is very kind of the times. You know, fads, trends, different times. Who’s the best basketball player of all time? Is it LeBron James, or is it Michael Jordan? If I ask somebody that’s under 30, they’re going to tell me LeBron James. You ask me, and I’m going to tell you that it is Michael Jordan, and nobody will ever convince me differently. But it’s never going to get proven and same with mine, it’s never going to get proven. I don’t know how much Michael Jordan or LeBron James cares about that. I know Shawn Michaels doesn’t. I’m honored to be in the conversation. Who cares after that? But if you’d have asked me that at 28, the answer would be totally different. It would mean a lot to me, and that was the biggest difference. Again, it was more about perspective and getting my priorities straight and understanding that there are things that are bigger than this line of work, and how can I be great at all of them, or at least have the mindset of being great at all of them, but doing them in a way that I can also be proud of doing them, and I think that was the biggest part of the change.”

On which match he considers to be his last:

“It’s that one with Undertaker [at WrestleMania 26]. Because the other one, it was a tag match, it was DX, and I feel kind of bad, because I don’t mean it in a negative way, but that was just sort of like, I don’t know. It was like Kiss going out, and not even with the original members or whatever, and playing a concert at The Troubadour or something. It was like, Oh, but they’re not really retired, and I know Kiss never retired, just felt like a special, separate one-off. HBK and Mr. Wrestlemania, The Showstopper, whatever, that ended with Taker at WrestleMania, because I still came back and refereed the match between Hunter and Taker and again, and will always play a role in the WWE. Would it count if I went into the Rumble this year or something? Don’t get me wrong.”

Are you going to?

“Oh, heavens no! [Laughs] Probably shouldn’t have said that. I was just using that as an example. But no, I don’t consider those a match. A single performance by me, by HBK, by that guy. That’s not who that was. That was a dude hanging out with his buddies and having a match. So one was the artist, the other one is was a dude, like I said, hanging out with his buddies.”