Wrestling for My Life: The Legend, the Reality, and the Faith of a WWE Superstar

by Shawn Michaels

  I was good with everything until Pat Peterson stepped in and said that Tyson should follow his knockout punch by draping one of Steve’s “Austin 3:16” T-shirts over me. That was too much for me. I felt I was really taking one for the team by wrestling when I shouldn’t be, and I was fine with the match setup and dropping the belt to Steve. But I thought the shirt bit was insulting to my career, and I threatened to walk out until Pat relented and agreed to drop the shirt from the plan.

  My back was killing me, and I struggled to do anything well in the ring, but Steve got me through the match and everything went as planned up through the Tyson punch. However, while I was KOed on the mat, Tyson laid an Austin 3:16 shirt over me. That wasn’t supposed to happen!

  Now I can look back and see how Pat wasn’t being mean-spirited. He was simply looking to end the show by crowning Steve as the new guy for a new era of WWE. It was the right move for WWE to do, but I was too angry and bitter back then to want that to happen. I was only concerned about me. I felt insulted, and I made a bigger deal out of it than I should have — trying to save some face, I guess.

  With Hunter alongside me, I stormed toward the post-match news conference of Steve and Tyson. I intended to kick open the door to interrupt and raise a big stink in front of the media, but Shane McMahon, Vince’s son, met me at the door and calmed me down to the point that, although I was still upset, I at least walked away.

  It was bad enough that doctors were the ones telling me I had to stop wrestling, but then the big switch pulled off on me really made me feel as if I was being forced out by more than my physical problems.

  The aftermath of The Undertaker match, however, was a perfect way for me to go into retirement for good. Following the Tombstone Piledriver, I remained “out” on the mat for probably three minutes while Taker gradually made his way to his feet and gathered enough strength to walk around the ring again. Then Taker came over to me, helped me to my feet, and leaned me against the ropes.

  Mark then said something to me that I have never disclosed publicly although I have been asked many times. Wrestling is a make-believe business, but there are times when we wrestlers get to have real moments inside the ring. We often keep those to ourselves, partly because wrestling’s loyal fans can have a difficult time separating what is real from what isn’t. But more so because those moments — and they are infrequent moments — create a special bond between guys who often spend more time with each other than with their families and, literally, trust each other with their lives inside the ring. So I have chosen to keep that quick exchange private.

  Taker reached out his hand to shake mine. We embraced as the fans roared, then Taker left the ring to leave me there alone to accept the cheers of the 70,000-plus fans. I blew a kiss to the fans, waved, and dropped to my knees and raised my hands toward heaven.

  I appreciated Mark and everyone involved at WWE for allowing me that moment, especially in light of what had taken place with my first retirement.

  A little later in a private room inside the stadium, still sweaty and in my wrestling gear, I was sitting at a table with Mark and Michael. The three of us had had the same meeting a year earlier after my first WrestleMania match with The Undertaker.

  Small smiles were on all three of our faces as we soaked in what had taken place in the ring, discussing how the ending could not have gone better. I still look back fondly on that conversation, because it was special for Mark and me to be able to share that final match. Also, Michael loved being a part of it due to all the contributions he had made to WWE.

  For the first time it started to settle into my mind that, Wow, that really was the last one! I was done with chasing the dragon.

  Michael’s smile gave way to an all-business look.

  “Let me ask you something,” he said to me.

  “Okay.”

  “What do you think about that retirement tour?”

  I leaned back in my chair, soaking in the question for just an extra second before saying, “I’m not feeling it.”

  I paused before explaining, “How do you come back after that? I just don’t see it. I’m done.”

  Michael processed my answer, then responded, “I’m not feeling it, either.”

  That was the end. They knew it, and I knew it. And never in wrestling had I experienced such a deep-reaching peace.

  The following night on Raw, I was given the opportunity to make a farewell address to the fans.

  “Take as long as you want,” I was told. Fortunately for the producers, I’m not one for long goodbyes.

  Before I started speaking from the center of the ring, the bell gonged from the opening of The Undertaker’s theme song. Mark stepped out onto the stage, tipped his black hat to me, then turned and walked back into the darkness.

  As I began to speak, the fans started chanting, “Please don’t go! Please don’t go!” Nice touch, but they were not talking me out of this decision.

  I thanked the fans and told them they probably were unaware that there was a time when all I had in my life were the fans and how the ring was the only place where I felt good about myself. I was afraid to start thanking people because I knew I would leave out someone important, but there were a few names I had to mention. Feeling tears in my eyes, I thanked Hunter for being a friend when others in the business didn’t want to be my friend — and rightfully so because of my attitude, I added. I thanked the production people behind the scenes at WWE; my one-time rival, Bret Hart; and Vince McMahon.

  As I began to conclude, I thanked my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. “I thank you, my King, for saving me.”

  My last round of thanks went to Rebecca, Cheyenne, and Cameron.

  “Babies,” I told them, “Daddy’s coming home.”

  CHAPTER 2

  FROM BOTTOM UP

  “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (John 3:3).

  The rock-bottom moment in my life began on the living room couch.

  Cameron was barely two, and it was our weekly pizza-and-cookies night. Every Friday, we would pig out on pizza — pepperoni and jalapeno for me, cheese for him — and chocolate chip cookies. Cameron loved our Friday nights. I did too.

  But on this Friday night, I was in another one of my pill-induced fogs, stretched out on the couch, only half aware of what was going on around me. In the middle of eating cookies, Cameron crawled up on me, pretended to be asleep, and then said, “Daddy’s tired.”

  I hear his words today more crisply than I did that night, because that was the moment I can look back to and realize that, unbeknownst to me, Cameron had figured out what I was.

  It was close to Cameron’s bedtime, and Rebecca offered to take him to his room and read him a bedtime story.

  “No, I’ll do it,” I adamantly countered.

  I read to my son almost every night because I so wanted to be a good dad. Even if I wasn’t one.

  I followed Cameron off to his bedroom and read to him. There’s no chance of my remembering the name of the book because, in the state I was in, it was all I could do to slur my way through the story. When I finished reading, I went back to the couch and fell asleep.

  Rebecca later helped me to bed, and during the night I woke up and shook her.

  “Who ate the cookies?” I asked, unable to recall what had happened during the night.

  “You did,” she answered.

  I couldn’t remember eating the pizza and cookies, but that was the answer I expected.

  Angry at myself, I stormed to the bathroom and flipped on the light.

  “I ate them?” I asked Rebecca again.

  “Yeah, you ate them,” she repeated.

  Sobbing almost uncontrollably, I stared at the man in the mirror directly into his eyes and told him that he was a piece of trash.

  Disgusted with what I was seeing — who I was seeing — I returned to bed. For the first time, reality had set in: My son was beginning to notice who I truly was, and that was going to affect
him. I was in the process of ruining not only my life, but also my son’s.

  “Lord,” I said. “Please change me.”

  The Lord and I didn’t exactly have a history of open communication. In fact, I think that night was the first time I ever cried out to Him. I had grown up attending church and knew who God is, but I didn’t know Him. I did, however, know enough about God to recognize that I was not living the way I was supposed to be living.

  The next day, Kevin Nash called me.

  Kevin and I had been close friends since 1993, when he left World Championship Wrestling to join WWE as my bodyguard and best friend.

  We had talked the night before, and he called me again because he was concerned about how I had sounded. He asked if I was still doing pills. “Every once in a while,” I answered.

  At one point, I had been popping thirty to thirty-five pills a day, mostly muscle relaxers, to help deal with the pain resulting from more than fifteen years of wrestling. I had cut back to only on the weekends and, by comparison, that did seem like “every once in a while” to me. I had convinced myself that not taking pills every day was a major accomplishment.

  But Kevin read me the riot act over the phone. To him, even every once in a while was way too often if it happened in front of my family.

  “Dude, you have a wife and a son. You can’t be doing this anymore.”

  The conversation with Kevin replayed in my mind throughout the day. The next morning, I rolled over in bed and told Rebecca that I was done with the drugs for good.

  “That’s great,” she replied, though sounding unconvinced.

  She had heard me say that before.

  The first time I had sworn off drugs and alcohol was when we had learned that Rebecca was pregnant with Cameron.

  You’re going to be having a child, I told myself. You have to get yourself together.

  I didn’t.

  When I look back, I honestly don’t believe or know that I was an addict. I say that because I think I could have stopped popping the pills and getting drunk. It was just that I didn’t want to. So after vowing to stop, I granted myself a waiver. It wasn’t really necessary to stop at that point, I convinced myself, when I could wait until our child actually arrived.

  Of course, when Cameron was born, I didn’t stop.

  He’s just a baby, I reasoned. He isn’t old enough to know what you’re doing.

  In my mind, though, desperate to acknowledge anything good about myself, I thought it was commendable that I had reduced my drug use to only on weekends.

  But I was still doing them. And that night after what happened on the couch, I realized that for almost three years I had kept fooling myself to the point that my son had become old enough to know that there were times when Daddy would be “tired.”

  The notion that at least cutting back on my drug use made me worthy of a pat on my back was a direct product of how I had grown up.

  I was a pretty good kid who didn’t get into a lot of trouble. I listened to my parents, although since I was the son of an Air Force officer, there were times when it seemed I didn’t have any options other than to do as told. We were widely regarded as a good family.

  I was the last of four children, with two brothers and a sister. My second-to-oldest brother and my sister found a little bit of trouble growing up, but my oldest brother and I avoided serious trouble. Our brother and sister were the ones who established the negative bar, so to speak, so my big brother and I were pretty much viewed as good boys by comparison.

  When I reached my teenage years, for example, I don’t remember my parents ever telling me I couldn’t drink alcohol. I guess it was a given to them that I was going to go out with friends after football games and on weekends and have a couple of beers. But my parents did make it known that I was never to drink and drive. It was as though they had conceded that I was going to drink, so the best thing they could do for me was to put some regulations in place that would keep me safe.

  My mind-set was that as long as I did good things — and “good things” sometimes meant nothing more than not doing some of the bad things that I knew others were doing — I was in good shape.

  Our family went to a Catholic church every Sunday. There was never any question about whether we would attend Mass. My parents said we were going, and I did what I was told because I was an obedient kid, although I now realize that going to Mass was merely something I did because my parents went. For me, there never was any kind of sincere consideration of spirituality or a relationship with God.

  We ate dinner together as a family and said our Catholic blessings over the food. As long as I did the good things associated with religion, I thought I was in good shape spiritually too. I thought doing the sacraments made me a Christian. I was an altar boy, went to my First Confession, and made First Communion. I even attended Catholic school through fifth grade.

  Obedience to authority was probably the main motivator of behavior in our home. With my dad’s military background, he was accustomed to giving orders and having them followed. He expected obedience out of us, and we had grown up watching others — adults — obey his orders. More than that, we watched our dad obey the orders of his superiors. We saw obedience modeled every day.

  When one of our parents became upset, hearing a curse word or two wasn’t a surprise. They didn’t cuss like sailors, as the saying goes, but there was never any talk afterward on their parts to steer us away from using such language. “Sin” wasn’t a word used around our house. The Lord wasn’t referenced as a way of letting one of us know that we had done something wrong. In our home, wrong was wrong, not because it was sin, but only because it was disobedience to our parents.

  Never in the church, at Catholic school, or at home did I hear that I needed to become saved and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Perhaps it was said somewhere along the way and I had missed it. I had heard of people becoming “born again,” but I didn’t know what it meant and only thought about it in terms of some type of strange, almost fanatic religious-cult type of experience. I never cracked open a Bible and read where Jesus clearly said, “you must be born again” to enter the kingdom of God.1 I was in Mass every Sunday, I was doing everything I was supposed to at church, and outside of church I was getting into less trouble than a lot of my peers. So as far as I knew, I was good.

  Well, I eventually found trouble. And lots of it.

  My parents may not have had many rules for us, but they did have some in place. Once I moved out on my own for college and it was up to me to set the limits, there were even fewer rules, and I began getting into things I shouldn’t have.

  I was bitten by the wrestling bug at age twelve. During my senior year in high school, my dad made a connection and set up a meeting with Fred Behrend, who promoted matches for World Class Championship Wrestling. Fred informed me that I would need to be at least nineteen years old to obtain a wrestling license in Texas and said he would keep me in mind and give me a tryout after I finished college.

  College wasn’t my thing. I attended Southwest Texas State (now Texas State) for two semesters, but all I wanted to be was a wrestler. I took a speech communications class with the express purpose of learning speaking skills that would help me cut wrestling promos.

  I had a 1.4 GPA my first semester, and when I told my dad that my only interest was in becoming a wrestler, he struck a deal with me: If I made a 2.5 my second semester, he would arrange another meeting with Fred Behrend. I made my 2.5, but only by a technicality. I officially pulled another 1.4, but if you erased the “F” for a class I thought I had dropped, my GPA came out to 2.5. Fortunately, that was enough for Dad to take me back to Mr. Behrend.

  With Dad taking out a three-thousand-dollar loan to pay for my training, Mr. Behrend set me up to work with veteran wrestler Jose Lothario. In addition to teaching me the back flip, Jose proposed my ring name: Shawn Michaels. At first, I wasn’t crazy about it. My real name is Michael Shawn Hickenbottom, and I had always gone by Shawn becau
se I didn’t like the name Michael. I was about to enter what I considered a bigger-than-life business, and I couldn’t see “Shawn Michaels” generating any excitement. Since I had been called Shawn all my life, it seemed very normal, just a basic name. But I went along with Jose’s idea because I wasn’t able to come up with a better name.

  I trained about three months with Jose before he arranged for my chance to break into the business, wrestling my first match for “Cowboy” Bill Watts’s Mid-South Wrestling. I quickly discovered the demands of the wrestling schedule, as I took part in seven-to-nine shows a week, including doubles on weekends.

  From Mid-South, I moved on to Central States Wrestling in Kansas City. It was there that I discovered the wrestler’s lifestyle. Even though I was only nineteen, I began going out drinking with other wrestlers after matches. That was the beginning of a long slide into losing control of my life.

  I am condensing here what is detailed in my first book, but as I began to grow in fame and stature, and as the aches and pains of our sport began to take over my body, I began to drink more and started taking drugs and pills and chasing women.

  You name it, I tried it. And most of what I tried I kept doing.

  The worse my lifestyle became, the more difficult I became to work with. It’s fair to say that I was a jerk to many people in the business. But one thing I will say: All the partying never affected my ability to put on a good show in the ring.

  Shawn Michaels — a fun-loving guy beginning to buy in to the rock-star attitude — became a shooting star, but Shawn Hickenbottom — once a pretty decent guy raised to be incredibly boring by comparison — was gradually fizzling out.