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

by Shawn Michaels

  We throw the words forgiveness and grace around so much that I am concerned they could lose their meaning, as has happened with the words love and great. If you examine forgiveness and grace in the life of Jesus, it becomes clear that it takes a man of vast integrity and character.

  Unfortunately, that is the type of man our society has come to mock. That man doesn’t come across as cool according to the world’s standards. Society likes to change its perception of what is cool and what isn’t. What’s cool today wasn’t cool a few years ago, and it won’t be cool a few years from now. I experienced that in my wrestling career. Back in the 1990s, everybody thought my character was incredibly cool. In the next decade, it was still considered okay, but it wasn’t as cool as it had been in the ’90s. My character hadn’t changed, but society’s perspective on what’s nifty and cool had.

  As Christian men, we can’t be swayed by society’s changing perspectives. If we do, we will have to change our beliefs to keep up with what’s currently perceived as correct. But even that will change, too, with time. The Bible hasn’t changed and will not change. God’s Word is for all time, and I’m much more interested in God, not society, thinking I am cool.

  I desire to be a man with integrity and character, because those are the traits of a real man.

  The biggest challenge men face is to be the kind of man who operates in contrast to the world’s definition of man. There is intense conflict between the two, and what our society desperately needs is for more men to step up and become warriors of strength and grace.

  I have a warrior mentality, and one of my favorite Old Testament warriors is Joshua.

  When I returned to WWE from retirement, I was made a member of the New World Order (nWo) stable of wrestlers, joining Kevin Nash, Sean Waltman (X-Pac), Big Show, and Booker T. But there were no plans for me to wrestle. Then Kevin got hurt during a match, and I came up with a storyline in which I would take up for my friend and challenge Vince to a Street Fight. Vince had abused Kevin to the point that he got hurt, the angle would go, just as Vince had pushed me to where I had gotten hurt and had to retire.

  It would be a one-match-only storyline, and when I called and pitched the idea to Vince, he said he would get back with me.

  That’s when I began wondering if I was doing the right thing. There had been no mention of me wrestling again until I suggested it to Vince.

  I had just reached the book of Joshua in my Bible-reading schedule. Moses had died, and Joshua was taking over leadership of the people of Israel. Joshua was a dude I easily connected with because he had been Moses’ right-hand man, an underling who was promoted to lead the entire nation.

  The secondary role was one I knew well. Although I often had worked as the main guy in the groups I wrestled with, in real life I wasn’t the leader. When I was part of the Rockers tag-team with Marty, I followed his lead because he was a little older than I was and because I thought he had more of a business mind. When Kevin came to WWF as my bodyguard, he was older and wiser than I was, so he led the way. With DX, Hunter was younger, but he was a little more centered than I was.

  With my lack of experience being out front, I could sense how intimidating Joshua’s assignment might have seemed to him. Three times in the first half of chapter 1 of the book of Joshua, God told him to be strong and courageous. The third time, in verse 9, God added, “for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

  Be strong and courageous. The Lord your God will be with you.

  Those words leaped off the page and slapped me across the cheek! Holy cow! I said to myself.

  I had heard of people saying they felt that they had received a word from the Lord, and this was the first time I had ever experienced that. I don’t think I’ve felt a moment that strong since.

  The message through those words was clear: You need to go back and wrestle.

  For that reason, the story of Joshua still carries special meaning for me. I also take note of how Joshua stepped up and became an outstanding leader. The dude was a true warrior.

  We need more Christian men to step up today and take on that warrior mentality.

  A common picture of Jesus portrays Him as solemn and peaceful, with hands open in a non-threatening manner. But I like to picture the tough-as-nails Jesus who marched into the temple and started turning over the money-changers’ tables.5

  Christian men are portrayed far too often as weak, and I am tired of seeing us presented that way. We need more men who are tough mentally and emotionally. That’s what warriors are.

  I’ve described my physical toughness as a wrestler, and I can tell you from experience that wrestling injured and not quitting is a piece of cake compared with not quitting mentally and emotionally.

  It wasn’t easy to walk away from a well-paying job to come home and help raise my kids, because I worried about the finances. It wasn’t easy to go back to wrestling after the lifestyle I had previously led and say that I had become a Christian and that no matter what anyone thought, the new me was there to stay. It wasn’t easy to get on the Internet and read people saying I had done horrible things after becoming a believer and know that even though what they were saying was untrue, I couldn’t do anything to stop them. It wasn’t easy to be made fun of for trying to live like a Christian. And it certainly wasn’t easy to be hurt — sometimes repeatedly — by people I loved and cared for.

  It is extremely difficult not to quit when you believe you are doing everything you are supposed to be doing, when you’re doing things the right way, and you still get the shaft. So it encourages me to know that Jesus broke down when He was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane the night before His crucifixion. Matthew describes Jesus as “sorrowful and troubled.” Mark says He was “deeply distressed and troubled.” Luke says He was “in anguish” and “his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”6

  It wasn’t easy for Jesus to fulfill His purpose, but He did, and I have salvation because of it.

  Jesus didn’t quit.

  Warriors don’t quit.

  Real men don’t quit.

  The theme running throughout the Old Testament that stands out most to me is obedience. The warrior mentality of a real man finds its expression in obedience to God.

  That can be a stumbling block for some, I suspect, because it is easy to think that being obedient makes you like a child. I’ve seen it in my own life. I’m a grown man, closing in on fifty. I hadn’t realized it until my wife said it, but through my wrestling career I created an enterprise built on my name, so I can’t remember the last time someone told me I needed to be obedient to someone else. I could argue that I’ve earned the right to do what I want. Yet I gladly do what I can to walk in obedience to God.

  If someone wants to tell me that such obedience makes me like a child, then I’ll agree and tell him I am a child — a child of God!

  Being obedient and being submissive doesn’t make me any less of a man. It makes me a real man.

  Becoming a real man changed me in both my professional and personal lives.

  I went back to wrestling able to talk about anything. I could have conversations with other wrestlers in which I could admit I was afraid of failure. I wouldn’t have been able to do that before. And I stopped defining my manhood by how many beers I could drink and pills I could take and still remain standing. Instead of waking up in the morning and wondering what had happened the night before, I got out of bed and ate breakfast with my wife and kids.

  I allowed myself to dress up and act silly while taking my daughter out for a date every Valentine’s Day, because it meant a lot to her. I might have taken her out for a Valentine’s meal before, but I don’t think you would have caught me all dressed up and acting silly.

  My badge of honor used to come from my ability to deliver a one-hour match that thrilled fans. Now I wrestle my son for thirty minutes and have trouble winning, and that is far more satisfying.

  I reflect back to when Rebecca and I closed our business
and put our home and building up for sale. That entire situation required mental and emotional toughness for sure. And you know what? I didn’t buckle, I didn’t run, and my family was all the better for it.

  Rebecca led our family when my life was out of control. Yet through the stress of our home and building not selling and facing debt, I took the lead with my family. That was one of those very tough times that most, if not all, of us encounter at some point that causes stress on a marriage, and then the stress on the marriage puts a strain on the entire family.

  It was one of those times when the option enters your mind that maybe the best thing would be to pack up the tent and leave. Before I came to Christ, that is probably what I would have decided to do. It would have been easy to rationalize that my leaving would have provided both Rebecca and me the opportunity to make fresh starts on our own. But that thinking would have been flawed. I knew that the best option for our family — for us as a whole and all of us individually — was for me to lead us through the struggle. That started with me, for the first time, truly putting our family’s financial security in the Lord’s hands and trusting that He would provide for us. Because I made that decision, I was able to lead my family in a way that I like to think would have made Joshua smile. I didn’t know it until then, but God had been equipping me to be a man — a warrior — in tough times.

  Before I was a Christian, my behavior was cocky and arrogant. It was all a show to hide my deep insecurities. Becoming a Christian made me confident in a way I had never been and made it possible for me to handle being made fun of for my faith. It made it possible for me to walk into Bible studies where everybody knew I was “the Shawn Michaels” and express my desire to live a life of total submission.

  I’m okay with not being the focus. I’m okay with not being relevant. I’m okay with not being anything except a husband to Rebecca and a father to Cameron and Cheyenne, and to do a good job in those roles.

  I pray that I live long enough to see my son become a father and to walk my daughter down the aisle. I want to play with my grandchildren and see them become decent, God-fearing people. That would be an accomplishment in itself in the world we live in now.

  I am only interested in being looked at as “the man” if it means I’m being the man God wants me to be.

  5 Accounts are included in all four Gospels. See Matthew 21:12 – 16, Mark 11:15 – 18, Luke 19:45 – 46, and John 2:13 – 16.

  6 Read the full accounts in Matthew 26:36 – 46, Mark 14:32 – 42, and Luke 22:39 – 53.

  CHAPTER 11

  POWER IN PARTNERSHIP

  “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor” (Ecclesiastes 4:9).

  I am a whole lot tougher to beat when I have a great partner, whether in wrestling or in life.

  In wrestling, sometimes you get to choose your partners, and sometimes they’re chosen for you by promoters. Either way, the hope is to create a partnership that finds the chemistry like that of two actors in an unforgettable movie performance.

  When two wrestlers find that chemistry, matches take on a natural flow. One will start to sling an opponent against the ropes across the ring, and his partner will know he’s about to get tagged into the ring for a combo move on the opponent. Good tag-team partners don’t have to look for each other, because they can sense where the other is. It’s like a marriage when a spouse can complete the other’s sentences. And when you find that kind of partner in wrestling, it’s magic.

  Much of my success in wrestling came from my early partnership with Marty Jannetty. I met Marty during my short stint in Kansas City. Bill Watts sent me from Mid-South to Central States Wrestling, and Marty was one of the first wrestlers I met there. Marty was two-and-a-half years older than me and had made his wrestling debut a few months ahead of mine. He had already established himself as a baby-face — one of the good guys — at CSW. Marty and Dave Peterson invited me to ride to shows with them, saying they saw potential in me as a wrestler and wanted to help me out.

  Being friends outside of the ring is no guarantee of a tag team’s potential inside the ring, and when Marty and I were paired together before a match, there was nothing to suggest that we could be onto something big.

  But once inside the ring, we instantly clicked. We seemed to know what each other’s next move was going to be, and from a timing standpoint it felt as if we had been working together for months. We both recognized that we had that sought-after chemistry, but I was on my way out of CSW.

  I was making only $250 – $350 per week in Kansas City, and after a couple of months there, Jose Lothario called and asked if I would like to come back to San Antonio to wrestle. Jose and Fred Behrend had taken over Southwest Championship Wrestling and renamed it Texas All-Star Wrestling. When Jose offered me $500 per week guaranteed, I was headed back to San Antonio only nine months into my career to be promoted as the hometown boy made good.

  In Texas I was paired with Paul Diamond as the American Force. Paul and I proved to be a good match, and we had a good run going when Jose, who was always looking out for me, told me I needed to go bigger and suggested I send out tapes of my wrestling to a couple of larger organizations.

  I was in San Antonio for less than a year when the American Wrestling Alliance, which had its matches broadcast on ESPN, offered me a job. AWA had also hired Marty. After I wrestled twice as a single, AWA co-founder Verne Gagne told Marty and me that he wanted us to become a tag team. The Midnight Rockers were born.

  As a Christian, I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe that, unbeknownst to me at the time, God’s hand was in that pairing.

  Marty and I had no idea what lay ahead of us as a tag team, but we were pumped about working together and jumped into the assignment with all four of our feet. We decided we wanted to bring a new brand of excitement to wrestling. We talked about other tag teams we had watched and felt that too many of them failed to operate as a team. They looked like two different styles of wrestlers who just tagged each other into the ring. We wanted to place more emphasis on the team aspect of a tag team. We wanted to maintain an up-tempo style in the ring and complement each other by doing a lot of double moves.

  We tried that, and it worked really well. We grew big in a hurry, and Marty and I were hired away by Vince McMahon and his then-WWF. We got fired after a few weeks there and went to wrestle out of Birmingham, Alabama. From there, we moved on to Memphis, Tennessee, and wound up wrestling in that territory and also for the American Wrestling Association for a while.

  Eventually we received a second chance with Vince’s company. I learned years later that after we had left WWF, Pat Patterson would ask Vince almost every month if Marty and I could be brought back. Each time, Vince would say no. Finally, after about a year of Pat asking, Vince relented, but warned Pat, “It’s all on you. They are your responsibility. They’re on probation here.”

  Vince had us drop “Midnight” from our name so we would have a different name than when we were with the AWA, and the Rockers had a highly successful run until we split up in late 1991.

  I am of the opinion that events look different through the lens of history than they do at the time they occur. Marty and I received a lot of praise when we were together, but history is telling us that we were even better than the credit we were given. We were innovative and had a major role in changing the style of tag-team wrestling.

  We also had a strong partnership outside of matches. A bit older than I was, Marty had a better ability to adjust to changes and sort out the business issues of our sport. He took the lead on the business side of our partnership. We made good decisions along the way, but we also made bad decisions. Because Marty took the lead does not mean our mistakes were more his fault than mine. We were in things together.

  Marty and I brought out the best in each other inside the ring, and we brought out the worst in each other outside the ring. That followed us for many years — long after we stopped wrestling as tag-team partners — and precipitated my
slow spiral into a world I never knew about and was quite curious about. I was enjoying my first taste of success.

  Back then, that way of living seemed like the thing to do. I know better now, of course. Obviously, things have changed in my life, and I can look back now and see how both of us were young and dumb.

  I took on the nickname “The Heartbreak Kid” when I launched a career separate from Marty. Vince and Pat chose to make “Sensational Sherri” (Sherri Martel) my manager, although I wasn’t big on having one. I had just come from a long run in a tag team, and having a manager seemed to me like it would be more of the same.

  Pat Patterson explained that Sherri had worked with “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Ted DiBiase, and others who routinely wrestled in main events.

  “She is going to elevate you,” Pat told me.

  That stung a little bit, because I was thinking that I had become pretty big and would do well on my own. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work with Sherri; it was that bringing someone on to partner with me didn’t seem like the big break I was anticipating. I didn’t make a big stink about it, but I did put up a little resistance.

  Sherri and I talked, and she was unbelievably wonderful and supportive from the start. It turned out to be a great decision to pair me with her, because Sherri provided a big boost to what had started from my teaming with Marty.

  My next partner was Kevin Nash. Kevin was the first partner that I had chosen. I had watched Kevin in WCW, where he had wrestled under the names Steel, Oz, and Vinnie Vegas. As Vinnie Vegas he had an Andrew Dice Clay swagger about him that cracked me up. I thought Kevin was a riot. He was huge, too — 6-foot-10, close to 300 pounds — and I thought it would be smart to bring him aboard as a ringside bodyguard character for me.

  I was Intercontinental Champion at the time, and we had fallen into the rut of having matches ended by disqualifications. They wanted me to keep the belt, but because I was a young, cocky, smaller, bad guy, I was the type of wrestler who would best be used to make the good guys look good. The only way we could fulfill both needs was to have the good guy do something dastardly to get disqualified and lose the match — and then beat me up to leave the fans happy. The matches grew redundant. I needed someone with me who could help me get an out, who could help me cheat to win and keep the title. If I could win by cheating, I could cause more people to dislike me and get more heat on me.