Shawn Michaels opens up about his alleged backstage heat with The Rock.
Appearing on the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast, WWE Senior Vice President of Talent Development and Creative, Shawn Michaels, reflected on his complex history with Dwayne Johnson.
“Thinking about it, the guy didn’t like me. He didn’t like me,” Michaels joked, noting that backstage politicking rumors involving himself and Paul Levesque (aka Triple H) against The Rock have been exaggerated.
“No, I’ll say this again. I think, over the years, there’s been a big kerfuffle in the wrestling business about me and Hunter doing things to him and being mean and stuff like that. All of it is way blown out of proportion. None of it is even accurate. But when he was younger, he was fed a lot of things.”
Shawn Michaels says he and The Rock get along
“But, again, later on, and to this day, like, we get along and we talk about stuff. That’s one I think everybody would have liked to have seen.
“But by the time I came back, he was well off into his Hollywood career and stuff like that. So, look, even when it comes to me, I’d pick him because, again, what are you gonna say? I mean, the guy came in, and I can remember seeing him on Saturday Night Live the first time.
“And just thinking to myself, ‘Holy cow.’ When he did — I can’t remember the bit that it was, but it was when he was with the other little guy that was the caveman. He could laugh at himself and everything else. And you could see right there that, I mean, ‘Holy cow, this guy is gonna be a huge star.'”
From Rocky Maivia to The Rock
Shawn Michaels recalled that the crowd wasn’t exactly welcoming to Dwayne Johnson when he first arrived in WWE, which naturally led to some locker room teasing.
“When he first went out there, he was getting a lot of the ‘Rocky sucks’ chants and stuff like that. So there’s always ribbing like that in the locker room.”
According to Michaels, the then–Rocky Maivia reassessed his direction after taking time off due to injury.
“And then he came back as ‘The Rock,’ no longer being seen as just the son of Rocky Johnson. I think that was a big part of it at the time because, with that attitude change, he was coming back as one of the first legacy stars, and people were rebelling against that.
“I think he recognized that and felt like he had to come back with something harder and more aggressive. He made that change, and once he was paired with the Nation of Domination, he really began to take off from there.”
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