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Shawn Michaels Offers an Update on One More Match in WWe
Shawn Michaels seemingly closed the door on stepping back in the ring this week during an interview with Culture Slate. While Michaels’ initial retirement after WrestleMania XXVI was viewed as one of the greatest in the history of the business, he dipped his toe back inside the ring in 2018 for a tag team match with Triple H, The Undertaker and Kane at WWE‘s Crown Jewel pay-per-view in 2018 (resulting in a match many considered to be the worst of the year in WWE). It was then reported earlier this month that Kevin Owens recently pitched a match idea for Michaels, one “The Heartbreak Kid” considered after seeing Owens work with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin back at WrestleMania.
However, Michaels wasted no time in making it clear he won’t wrestle again — “Yeah, I’ve had that final match. No, father time waits on no man. I’m good, I’m unbelievably happy with my career, and it is now time to watch the next generation flourish.”
Michaels has openly admitted in interviews since that tag bout in Saudi Arabia that he regrets coming out of retirement. But he has also stated he doesn’t view that match as him truly coming back.
“… It’s not a WrestleMania, it’s not a this, it’s not a… to me it wasn’t coming back as the Heartbreak Kid. It was a tag [team match]. I know that’s not the same, and I know nobody will understand it, but in my mind, it was like a glorified house show, a live event… I don’t mean that to be intellectually insulting to the wrestling fan, but in my mind, it was just so not the same,” Michaels said in 2019.
“I got asked. It was almost like, as a favor [laughs]. And it was totally just, Hunter and I [did] the DX thing, a tag match,” Michaels elaborated. “None of that felt like — it felt like a totally separate entity to me than the other. And that’s why I felt okay doing it. And the thing is, it was done with the intent of again, being a nice little fun thing to do. And I can’t say that it turned out to be all that fun. It was okay, and it was great being out there with those guys. But again, it was just one of those things that you sorta do because you’re a company dude and you go, ‘Oh alright, you know, I’ll do this’ and it’s separate and all that. To me it just sort of lives out there on its own.”
