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

by Shawn Michaels

“I think they’re great,” he answered. “But there are some countries where we air that we have to digitally alter the overt Jesus stuff. I’m not asking you to change what you’re doing; I’m asking what we can do.”

  Vince offered to have WWE create and merchandise shirts that would be able to be aired unaltered in those places while still getting out the message I wanted to send. He said it would be cheaper for WWE to make the shirts for me than to continue digitally altering them for certain locations.

  I thought about it and agreed. That put the creative gurus at WWE in charge of my shirts, and they started designing me shirts with crosses on them and “HBK” (for Heartbreak Kid) inside an Ichthys, the Christian fish symbol.

  Spending fifteen seconds in the ring before a match with a message on a T-shirt might not seem like having much impact until you realize that we were watched by four to five million people per week in just the United States. That was a big audience!

  As for what those people were watching in the ring, I believe a strong case can be made that despite the physical issues, I was a better wrestler — and certainly a better storyteller — in the second part of my career than in the first. Not bad for a dude who not only hadn’t planned on ever wrestling again, but also had struggled with the decision as to whether he should even rejoin WWE.

  I learned a valuable spiritual lesson in my return to wrestling: God does not give us gifts that He does not intend for us to use.

  Even in the days when my life was out of control, I considered my wrestling abilities a gift from God. I say it humbly when I say that I could wrestle really well. It always came naturally to me. There was nothing about the job of wrestling itself that I did not like or would define as work. To me, digging a six-foot ditch is work. Hard work! But wrestling wasn’t.

  Being good at wrestling was never difficult for me. Someone once told me that God isn’t a bait-and-switch kind of God, and I don’t believe that God would have given me the gift of being a good wrestler and then not want me to wrestle.

  The Lord built me to be a pro wrestler, and I did the best with what I had and tried to make the most use of my platform when I could. I would say that before my salvation, I wrestled because I had a God-given ability. Afterward, I wrestled because God had a purpose for me.

  CHAPTER 4

  GRATEFUL FOR SCARS

  “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, . . . will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (1 Peter 5:10).

  I was having a conversation with a WWE camera guy named Stu early in 2009 when he asked how old my son was.

  “Nine,” I said.

  “He’s halfway gone,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He is halfway to eighteen, man,” Stu said, “and then he’s gone.”

  Holy cow, I said to myself, time is flying!

  Then I thought back to the times when I had said I didn’t want to miss seeing Cameron and Cheyenne grow up and wanted to maintain an active presence in their lives. And it hit me that Cameron was halfway gone. Stu’s words made me want to be home even more.

  That also happened to be during the toughest time we had gone through as a family.

  A few years earlier someone had approached me with the idea of starting a business in San Antonio that would be one of those fun places for kids to have birthday parties and the like. I mentioned it to Rebecca, and she hadn’t thought it a good idea. I did not give it another thought. Rebecca, however, did. She prayed about it for a while and began to feel that it was something we should do.

  Blessed to be in a position where we could start and operate a business that kids could enjoy, including our own, we bought land, built a 20,000-square-foot building, and invested money in getting the business up and running. Our place did well for a couple of years, but with me still traveling on a regular basis, managing the business proved to be too much of a load for Rebecca with everything else she had going on, including homeschooling our children.

  Rebecca is a strong, independent woman. When we met, she was supporting herself with her job as a Nitro Girl, and when we married, I wanted to take care of her in a way where she would not have to work. Rebecca pushed back at first, saying, “I don’t need you taking care of me.”

  I told her it wasn’t that I thought she needed me to take care of her; it was that I wanted to take care of her. Rebecca had a three-year contract with Nitro, and it took some work to get her out of the contract because Nitro suspected she was trying to join me at WWE. We had no such plans. After negotiations by lawyers, Nitro released Rebecca with the stipulation that she could not go to work for WWE for the duration of her contract.

  As a sidebar, we once had to answer some background questions to work with a ministry for children. The guy helping us through the forms asked Rebecca what her job was and then made the mistake of adding, “If you’re just a homemaker, you can put ‘Homemaker’ there.” Rebecca didn’t say anything but wrote down her job as “Homemaker, homeschool two children, handle taxes, pay bills, and take care of the enterprise that is Shawn Michaels.” She definitely was not “just” a homemaker! Even as much as I already appreciated Rebecca, seeing that list on paper gave me more of a sense of what all she did for our family.

  Running our business with my irregular help required more time and energy than she (or anyone in her situation) could afford, and although the business was doing well, maintaining it developed into a sour experience for the whole family. We closed the business in 2009 and put the building up for sale. Shortly after, we decided we wanted to move.

  I had always wanted to own a ranch, and Rebecca and I had talked for several years about one day living on one. I would spend downtime looking on the Internet at ranches for sale, and one place that intrigued me kept popping up. But after the match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania 25 and at the same time as our business closing made it possible for us to move from San Antonio, the place disappeared from among the ranches for sale.

  We made the decision that I would retire the following year, and we put the house up for sale. We found another ranch we thought would be suitable, and then one day while I was looking through the real estate sites again, my dream ranch appeared back on the market. We visited our second choice and thought it was okay, but when we stepped onto the property of the one I had wanted all along, it was exactly what we were praying for.

  Like Abraham, I packed up my tent and moved the family.

  A funny thing about Christianity is you can make what someone else would call a dumb move, yet to a Christian it is considered a step of faith. Faith involves risk, and there was risk involved in our moving while having a home and the building from our business both up for sale. Plus, I knew retirement was coming and had no idea if I would have any income after that. Yes, I had made good money during my career, but even if you have had seven-figure contracts during your career, it is still scary to think about not having any contract. Hickenbottom men tend to worry over finances, and unfortunately for Rebecca, that family trait did not skip over me.

  When I became a Christian, I learned that Christians are supposed to tithe — give 10 percent of their income to God as recognition that all we have comes from Him, and I wondered if it would be okay if we started out giving just 5 percent to see how it went. I completely understood that 10 percent is 10 percent no matter how much money you have. Despite that, my 10 percent looked pretty big to me. God asks for 10 percent, though, and between Rebecca’s persuasion and the Holy Spirit’s conviction, God won out. He got His 10 percent. We trusted God and regularly gave the full tithe because, if you think about it, giving back 10 percent is a good deal in light of the fact that everything we have comes from God.

  There was another time when Rebecca felt led to give a large amount of money beyond our tithe. A guest minister was speaking at Cornerstone. Our church was raising funds at the time to pay off debt, and this minister talked about how his church had done the same thing and, as a
sign of his faith that God would meet our church’s needs, announced that he was going to give a certain amount to our church.

  I saw Rebecca reach for her checkbook. I leaned over to her and softly asked, “What makes me think you are going to match his check and we’re going to give that much to the church?”

  She turned to look me in the eyes and said, “Oh, we are going to beat him.”

  My first thought was, Oh my goodness!

  “Is it okay?” she asked.

  I hadn’t seen one of my paychecks in a gazillion years. I’m not good with numbers, and my dad used to handle all my finances for me. Then when I got married, Rebecca took care of our money and has been an excellent manager of our finances.

  I trusted her and nodded for her to go ahead.

  Rebecca wrote out the check and handed it to me. I looked at the amount, and let’s just say we weren’t only beating this minister’s amount, but were lapping him two or three times!

  Rebecca and I don’t give money in church to make more money, as the “prosperity gospel” pattern of giving teaches. We tithe out of obedience to what God’s Word instructs us. We give additional offerings, such as the one to help the church with its debt, when we feel that the Holy Spirit wants us to allow others to be blessed out of the blessings we receive. Not one cent we possess will leave this earth. We won’t be able to take any of it with us when we die, but we do have the ability now to help serve God’s purpose here through giving to missions and other causes.

  So Rebecca and I determined to be faithful and obedient with our finances even when circumstances didn’t make sense to us. We’ve learned through experience to trust God with our finances. He may not always give us what we want, but He always makes sure we have what we need, and that is plenty good for us.

  It took two years for our home to sell, and we took a financial beating on that. As of this writing, the building from our business still has not sold, and that has been more than four years now. All that time it has been just sitting there, unused, and siphoning five figures a month out of our bank account.

  That being said, I don’t want to sound as though we were destitute. We bought a ranch, our home took two years to sell, and we have had a building for sale for four years and counting. That is a pretty good drain on one’s money. But I also had done well financially during my career and, with my dad’s help and Rebecca’s, managed not to blow everything I made despite the lifestyle I had led.

  I know that many people — especially men, based on the conversations I’ve had — have made decisions with business or money that they later regretted or became burdened with. But this is not a story about my finances. It is actually a story about God’s faithfulness, because although I have stressed while watching money flow out in a steady stream, I also have been mindful of how God has provided for us. I learned a big lesson about trusting God and remaining obedient to Him.

  The temptation for me was to keep wrestling to continue earning income. I am like most men in that the default solution in a difficult time, especially if it pertains to finances, is to work my way out of it. I could have worked out any deal I wanted with WWE. They would have paid me good money to wrestle only a few times a year.

  Although I have been dropped on my head more than a few times in my life, even I could see that it would make sense to keep wrestling so I could make more money than we were losing. However, I didn’t feel that was what God wanted me to do. He wanted me to be at home, so I stayed with the plan to retire and told God that I would trust Him on the finances.

  I did not know what would happen when I retired, but before I was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in April 2011, Vince signed me to a ten-year contract to make television appearances as I saw fit with my schedule. I also landed an outdoors television show that will have completed its fourth season by the time this book releases. My son races Legends cars, which are five-eighths scale versions of NASCAR-type cars and race on shorter tracks. His sole sponsor is a company called “Dad.” Anyone who has been a part of racing can attest that it is an obscenely expensive sport. Cheyenne, who wants to become a veterinarian, has been a key player in our acquiring more than twenty animals that we feed and take care of. The anticipated addition of horses and 4H goats won’t be easy on the wallet either.

  I have yet to have to go back into the ring to earn more money. (But if that building doesn’t sell . . . just kidding, I think.) That’s because God has provided for us through the family’s extremely stressful time waiting on the building to sell.

  The situation involving the business has been a good test of my faith, because Rebecca and I felt all along that opening it had been God-ordained. We still believe that. We prayed over the land, we prayed over the entire situation, and we dedicated the business to Him. We were obedient with our finances. I’m not by any stretch the greatest guy in the world, but I have made it a habit to wake up in the morning and spend quiet time with the Lord. I have been a faithful servant. I have studied God’s Word and know that “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”2

  That was the first time in my life that I had dotted every i and crossed every t and still got kicked in the gut. I went through a range of emotions, including anger and bitterness. I must admit that I had been under the impression that for every bad deed there was a negative consequence and for every act of obedience there was a blessing. However, I surely had a lot of acts of obedience that seemed to result in negative consequences.

  The blessings did come, however. They just didn’t come where I was looking for them or when I thought they should come. They came in God’s timing and in places in which He chose to reveal them to me.

  While continuing to pray, “Lord, it would be awesome if that building would sell,” I remain convinced that God will keep providing for us until the market gets back into good shape and we can unload the building.

  This has been an unbelievably huge growth moment for me. I would prefer not to go through another trial like this again, but I am glad I have been through it. I have confidence that by being dependent on God, I can get through a similar situation if another should come my way. I am certainly better equipped for life’s trials now than I was before.

  When I wrote my first book, I had been a Christian for a couple of years. Sometimes that’s referred to as the honeymoon stage of Christianity. I like to say that during that season everything was rainbows and unicorns for me. My prayer back then — and I prayed this almost every day — was, “Don’t ever let me stop feeling like this.”

  “This” was that spiritual high I was on, being on fire for the Lord. Everything was wonderful.

  I was blessed to have mature Christians around me when I became a believer. New Christians need to get involved rather than sitting back to see what unfolds. I joined a good Bible study in my church that was under a great leader and consisted of really good people. That lasted for two or three years until Keith Parker and his wife, Priscilla, moved from San Antonio back to their home state of Alabama. Then Cameron and I began attending a Bible Study Fellowship through BSF International, and later I began leading a Bible study for young men from single-parent homes.

  The point is that I made a conscious effort to get involved, and that placed me within a network of caring people who were more experienced at this Christian thing than I was and helped guide me through the early steps of my new walk with Christ. I do not want to say that I couldn’t have made it without the help of those people, because God could have just as easily created another route for me to follow, but I surely am grateful I had that group of Christians around me.

  There were several who told me early on that I was in a honeymoon period and things wouldn’t feel forever exactly as they did as a new Christian. They made sure I understood that tough times would hit and my faith would be tested. Thanks to them, I didn’t expect becoming a Christian to make life a breeze. Good thing, too, because anyone who tells you that when you become a Christian life gets easy and stays eas
y is flat-out wrong.

  Tough times did come, just like they do with a typical marriage: financial strains, raising children in a world that tells them anything that is godly is not cool, the natural ups and downs of a marital relationship. And while I would not say that the high I wanted to keep experiencing left, I will say that it took on a different form.

  I can compare it to my marriage. I still love Rebecca, but our relationship is not what it was like at the beginning. We have gone through tough times, working through them together. In the process of life’s battles, we’ve grown closer to each other because we have learned more about each other. We’ve each been wounded, and although those wounds have healed, they have left scars. Rebecca and I each have scars from the closing of our business, but they give us an appreciation for having gone through the trial together and remind us of how God remained faithful to us throughout.

  It is the same with my wrestling injuries. Because of what I feel when I get out of bed each morning, I will never forget what I did for a living. I have two knees and a shoulder that need to be replaced. I need a heating pad to loosen up my back in the morning. My knees make it hard to get moving on cold mornings. My physical pains go well beyond “discomfort,” but I don’t complain about any of that, except to Rebecca. I joke that she signed up for this, so she has to listen to me!

  My body paid a price for being a wrestler, but the injuries were part of the process that made it possible for my family to be where we are now. The injuries are my battle scars, and they help me appreciate what I have today.

  I think our relationship with God is similar to our relationships with other people. At the beginning, everything is new and nifty and cool, but there comes a time when the dynamics of the relationship begin to change and a Christian becomes more centered, more rational, and more aware that the walk with God is not a cakewalk. As that relationship deepens, as we mature more as Christians, we experience a different, deeper level of faith.