Photo credit: WWE
After the huge Wrestlecon event in London, Shawn Michaels and Jim Ross made their way to the Comedy Store in Manchester for “An Evening With…”, a Q&A driven session with the two Hall of Famers.
After being in the queue as the stars of the show made their way into the venue (skillfully blanking the eBay guys outside, trying to get for free what those of us had paid for so they could make an online profit), the evening started proper with a pre-show Meet ‘n’ Greet with good old JR. Obviously the way these things go on a busy evening means that you get little chance to do anything than shake the man’s hand, pass over your item to be signed and pose for your picture but it was clear even from these brief moments that Ross was here to have fun.
Once the preliminaries had been taken care of with that, it was eventually time for the show itself. There was obviously no script and no running order as the whole session was taken up by the fans questions and the stars responses. Thankfully for the most part the questions were sensible and interesting, with the only real problem being a few shrieking fans intent on yelling things out at improper times. Later in the evening Shawn even had to utter those immortal lines “are you telling the story or me?” to one particularly vocal fan.
The more avid fans, the kind who follow JR’s podcast or have read Shawn Michaels books/seen his DVD’s, won’t have learned much new from either man during the evening but it was certainly interesting and entertaining to hear their tales and stories first hand.
Ross talked about how he was there for Shawn’s first ever televised match in Mid-South Wrestling and also for his last WrestleMania bout and put him over as the best he’s ever seen in his 40 years in the business. Michaels revealed that Sycho Sid was his most challenging opponent, but not quite the way you might have imagined. Despite the “rep” that Sid has in terms of, shall we say, his less than stellar ring work, Michaels said that the problem he had with him was that Sid refused to be pigeonholed into simply working the “big man vs little man” match and wanted to do more when the two got into the ring.
The two men shared their thoughts on Dusty Rhodes, with Ross revealing the darkly ironic fact that he learned the news of Dusty’s death whilst filming an interview for the upcoming Owen Hart DVD. After a young lad of 8 or 9 asked Shawn how he felt to have been the one to end Ric Flair’s career Shawn said that whilst it was an honour to do so it was also a sad moment and he again shared how the idea for the match layout had come to him in the early hours of the morning and how he had to tell Flair to let him lead the way in the match.
The two shared stories about “Sensational” Sherri Martel, with Shawn admitting that he thought it was wrong to pair him with her initially but that it was definitely right. Shawn said that for what it was worth he didn’t like the “Heartbreak Kid” nickname or his theme music when he first heard it but admitted he was wrong on all counts.
Both men tackled the “dangers” of social media and the internet, with Shawn saying that if he was an active performer today he would not have his Twitter account. He asked the very reasonable question of whether fans had always been as “angry” in the past as they seemed now, whist Ross tackled the stereotypical “fourteen year old kid in his dad’s basement” internet character who knows nothing about the way the business works. Shawn said that his barometer of success was always the reaction in the arena and that he felt that the sheer volume of “opinion” on social media would just overwhelm him. His routine was to watch his big matches back once, see what worked and what didn’t, and then move on.
Inevitably the question of a return to the ring for Shawn came up and he confirmed that as far as he was concerned he was done. He admitted that the office had asked the question about him coming back for next year’s WrestleMania in Texas and he said that for the first time in five years he had seriously considered it. In the end though, he said the desire is simply not there to do it anymore, even though he knew he still had it in him. He also said that he didn’t want to turn up and have a match simply for a pay day.
When asked about how he felt his career would have gone if he hadn’t suffered the back injury in 1998, Shawn said that he feels that he might well have become “one of those guys they found dead in a hotel room” and said that he had no regrets about missing out on the “Attitude Era” because money means nothing if you’re in the cemetery. Things took a lighter turn as Shawn admitted that he always “gets heat” when he shows up in the WWE these days, not least for his Hall of Fame induction speech for Kevin Nash this year. Both JR and HBK put over the importance of the Hall of Fame and how much it mean to them. Ignoring the fact that the question was asked about “Mark Calloway”, both said that they felt that it was wrong to end The Streak, with Shawn revealing that he was supposed to be introduced at ringside for the subsequent Daniel Bryan match but that he picked up his bags and walked out of the building to show his dislike of that particular booking decision. Both men stressed that even Brock Lesnar thought it was a bad idea and did not want to do it. But as Shawn says, in the end the boss’ decision is final.
Post-show it was the Shawn Michaels Meet ‘n’ Greet and credit must go to the organisers’ for making it run so smoothly. Again it was a brief moment with HBK but he had a warm handshake and nice greeting for all.
Astonishing revelations were few on the night, but as said before it was a very entertaining evening. Jim Ross in particular was a far cry from the dour straight-laced personality that some of his critics would label him with and both men answered the fans questions candidly and honestly and it made for two hours of wrestling chat that just flew by.
And hey, there wasn’t even one mention of Montréal!