Eric Young
NXT’s Eric Young recently wrote a new editorial for ESPN.com talking about how Shawn Michaels has inspired his career; you can read a few excerpts below:
I was kind of this shorter, chubbier version of him. I’m not classically good looking or anything like that, but very early on in my career, my kind of side moniker was “Showtime” Eric Young, a play on the “Showstopper.” I wasn’t trying to be Shawn Michaels, per se — I’m trying to do my own thing — but there was no bigger influence in my career. That was the case when I started my career, and even now, he’s a guy that I still watch religiously, trying to pick up little things that he did.
Certain things I do, like the whip into the corner where I flip up the turn buckle and land on the apron, are things that he did. I remember one of the first times I was in a wrestling ring training, and the second they let us work on with open ring time, it was one of the first things that I started practicing, because I wanted to be able to do it. Because he did it. I still do it to this day, and very few people do it all the way through.
It was mostly just little things, things he did that I tried to add to my repertoire. It’s like this weird lineage — first it was Ric Flair, whom Shawn idolized and borrowed from and made them his own thing. I think the evolution of wrestling is that everyone steals or gets inspiration from everyone before them, and that’s just how it is. If something is working, you try to take whatever is working and make it your own.
I think a lot of guys could be accused of taking from Shawn. There are so many people in pro wrestling now that were influenced primarily by him. It’s weird — having met him now and knowing him, he’s obviously well aware that he was good at wrestling, but I don’t know if he fully grasps the overall effect that he has had on performers today. You see it everywhere.
Kurt Angle
The following video features Kurt Angle sharing his thoughts on his WWE Hall of Fame induction as he arrives in Orlando:
