Shawn Michaels Talks Calling His Match With Ric Flair, Being Honored to Share the Ring With him

Shawn Michaels discussed his WrestleMania 24 match with Ric Flair in an interview with CBS Sports. Highlights are below:

On calling his match at WrestleMania 24 with Ric Flair himself: “Truth be told, when it came to that kind of stuff, I’m a bit of a control freak. But just from the standpoint emotionally, I just knew where I wanted it. That match was — quite honestly, as cheesy as it sounds — it was my sort of love letter to Ric Flair and my way of trying to show him the friendship that we had and the impact that he had on the 15-year-old me and trying to convey that to him through a wrestling match. It was knowing that I couldn’t be the only guy that he had that effect on. You hope that the other 80,000 fans out there get that and clearly everyone did and the millions watching at home did. But it really is, it’s sort of just making that decision as a performer where it’s, ‘This is something I want to do. Please let me do it.’”

On being honored to share the ring with Flair for the latter’s retirement match: “I know the feeling and I know the emotion. It’s not just you don’t want someone to do it because they will mess it up, it’s your feeling and it’s your emotions so you have to be the one who is sort of driving that, if that makes any sense. That’s why I was so sort of adamant about that. Honestly, most of my matches were like that. As I always told people, I probably wrestled way too much from my heart than from my head. I think honestly, for me, that is what made the difference in those matches by doing it more from the 15-year-old wrestling fan in me.”

On WWE beating WCW in Monday Night Wars: “I’ve always known the guy I work for, and the dude works 24/7, and that’s why it was always easy never to leave. There was absolutely no way that guy was going to give up. You didn’t know when, you didn’t know how long, or whatever. But there was absolutely no way he was not going to continue standing and continue fighting. So, really once you really know that, it’s just are you willing to wait it out. Of course, I was doing what I loved to do, and so I certainly didn’t mind. [There was] a lot of nerves, lot of concern, lot of worry, and stuff like that, I’m sure all those years from the higher-ups, but those of us who were the workhorses, so to speak, our job was to go out there and do the best we could, and quite honestly, let them worry about the more important stuff.”