Shawn Michaels fala do wrestling aos seus filhos e de voltar aos ringues

O WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels deu uma entrevista ao USA Today's For The Win. Eis os highlights:

Do you ever sit and think about where you might be now if you hadn’t become a Christian?: I don’t like to be an alarmist or over-dramatize too much, but certainly a number of the guys I used to run around with are dead, and I don’t think it’s a huge leap that I was very close to winding up the same way. Even if had I not gone that far, it’s a very easy jump to be what’s termed as a wrestling tragedy. Being divorced from my wife, alienated from my children, and living alone… the only time you hear from me is when my mugshot pops up on TMZ. Both of those are very realistic possibilities, and I don’t think it’s overstating. My life was literally saved, as far as I’m concerned.

Whenever I think of Shawn Michaels, I think of Vince McMahon’s famous call from WrestleMania XII when you beat Bret Hart, “the boyhood dream has come true.” In the book you actually note that when you were a kid, you had no bigger dream that to win the Southwest Championship Wrestling title, meaning Vince’s call was a bit of a fabrication. When did you begin to believe ‘I can win the WWF title and be the best in the world?’ As a kid, I didn’t have the ability to dream as big as what was to happen. So I didn’t dream of it in the AWA — you always sort of say ‘I want to be the world champion.’ I can remember [the wife of Michaels’ original trainer José Lothario] saying ‘this boy’s going to be a world champion someday.’ And that’s very nice of her, that’s why you say. You don’t say ‘he’s going to be mediocre.’ It wasn’t until I got into the WWE, WWF at the time, and really started my singles career. The dream grew as I was in wrestling… and even now I sit back and I’m amazed at what I’ve accomplished. And I mean that I’m humbly amazed. I surpassed anything that I thought was possible, and I’m incredibly thankful for that.

How do you explain pro wrestling to your children? It’s tough to explain to kids, especially when you’re the guy doing it. Our kids didn’t watch it for the longest time until we felt that they were at an age appropriate time where you could sort of explain it. It’s a confusing line of work. There’s pieces of the real you that are there, and there’s pieces that are not. You’re beating the living daylights out of yourself and other people, but at the same time you get along with all these people. And then in your home life you’re living a life to where ultimately it’d be great if everything didn’t wind up in a fight. It’s a little bit of a tightrope and you do your best to walk it.:

When he decided to do another book and give it the direction it has in talking about his faith: "It was a couple years ago. The first one was when the WWE was still etched in the book-making business so to speak. I knew it was going to be based solely on my career and more of the wrestling aspect of my career. My faith and my family have made the biggest and best impact on my life. Everything that I love and enjoy and I'm so thankful for my career in the WWE, it's secondary, really, at best when it comes to my life and the impact that my faith and my family have had on my life. So, you want to do something that brings justice to that and give that the glory it deserves. And it's hard to do that when you're in the WWE. The WWE is so big and grandiose and always takes the forefront of the attention of one's life. Being removed from it for several years, I felt like this was a good opportunity to have a chance to really honor what my faith and my family have meant to me and wanted to be open and honest about that. It's still a great deal based on my career because my wrestling career in the WWE was such a big part of my life. It's more a look through the lens of my faith."

Whether or not he still gets approached by fans that think he's going to do another match: "Oh yeah. All the time. All the time. If they don't believe, they request that I do. There isn't a time that, every once in a while I will receive a text or someone will make the comment of 'hey, we got this'. Put it this way: it's always there for me if I want it. There's only been probably, I don't know, maybe one time where where you go that's actually a pretty good idea. (laughs) But you have to be careful even about saying that, even to acknowledge that is, in fact, a good idea. You have to be quick to follow up with don't get me wrong, I'm not doing it. I have to give you props on a good idea."

If there was any possible thought of facing Daniel Bryan when they had their interaction in October 2013: "Yeah, I realize that a lot of people certainly got that. I guess from my perspective it certainly is a good idea but it's one of those ones, I guess from my standpoint, a good idea is one that would really intrigue me. That's not one of those of those ones where you go 'wow, what are the chances of someone coming up with that?' That's teacher - student, that's been done, and again I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying that is not some kind of new, innovative idea. It's just two other guys doing a very rehashed idea but we think they can do it well so it will be fun for us to watch. Certainly at its core it's not a new and fresh idea."

What was the one idea that he thought was pretty good: "Well, I don't even want to go down that road because then, of course, people will run with it. I at least try to do my best to throw my hat in the ring around WrestleMania so people can talk about it and I can get free press. It's irrelevant then. Like I said, most people wouldn't find it interesting anyway. My tastes I guess are not like theirs. When you've done a lot of stuff it's sometimes those out of the box, strange ones that really peak your interest. For me, I give it about two minutes thought and then I move on because I'm very happy with what I'm doing and where my life's at right now."