Major WWE Star Credits Shawn Michaels For Inspiring Career
Shawn Michaels inspired one of WWE’s biggest superstars to become a professional wrestler.
In his current role as WWE’s Senior Vice President of Talent Development – Creative, two-time WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels significantly influences many current NXT brand wrestlers because he’s in charge of booking the show.
Many current WWE stars might refer to him as “Coach Michaels” or their boss in NXT, but Michaels was also one of the greatest in-ring performers during his career.
Shawn Michaels’s WWE career started in the late 1980s and ended in 1998. He returned in 2002 after a serious back injury and went on to have eight more great years before retiring in 2010.
When he retired, many people spoke about him as not just one of the best performers in WWE history but one of the best performers in pro wrestling ever. Regarding match quality, there might be nobody greater than Michaels, who was also great as a character, whether he was a face or a heel.
Unfortunately, Seth Rollins started on the WWE main roster two years after Michaels retired, so they never wrestled, but many people think of Rollins as the Michaels of this era since he’s known for being one of the best all-around performers in the company.
Shawn Michaels Was The Inspiration For Seth Rollins To Become A Wrestler
During an appearance on the Chicago Bears’ podcast, Rollins spoke about how Hulk Hogan helped make Rollins a wrestling fan, but Shawn Michaels truly inspired Rollins to get into the business.
“I’ve been a huge wrestling fan for as long as I’ve been a Bears fan, the two things were, number one and number two in my life, pretty much as long as I can remember. When I grew up, my first guy was Hulk Hogan. He got me into it. The guy that really kind of let me know that this was something I could do or something that I was interested in doing is Shawn Michaels.
Shawn and Bret, kind of came up in the mid-90s. Wrestling was getting a little bit faster. The guys with the stars were getting a little bit smaller. It was the first time that I saw someone who could draw a house, who could fill a stadium or an arena, who was a regular-sized person.
In the 80s, it was the land of giants. It was Andre. It was Hogan. It was Savage. It was Warrior. These were the guys that brought the money in and put people in the seats, and Shawn and Bret were the first guys who were around six foot and moderate build that I was like, ‘oh, wait, I’m not going to be Hulk Hogan size, but I certainly could be Shawn Michaels size.’
I certainly could be Bret Hart size. I might be able to do this. I love Shawn. So Shawn’s been my favorite wrestler probably since I was about 10, 11 years old. He’s a guy who’s inspired me and a lot of my generation, where you look at the business now, the industry now, it’s so fast paced. It’s unreal what the next generation of people are doing.
I’m almost 40 years old. So I’m like an old hat in this thing now, which is crazy to say, because I feel like I’m just hitting my prime. But yeah, I mean, Shawn’s the guy. He’s the guy that really inspired me to want to do this thing.”
Seth Rollins recently revealed that he has about five years left on his current WWE contract, which will take him to his mid-40s. He’ll then evaluate how long he wants to wrestle.