WWE’s Shawn Michaels has addressed the dream match that never came to be between himself and The Rock, as well as rumors regarding backstage issues between them.
When looking at potential dream matches that never came to be in WWE, The Rock vs. Shawn Michaels stands out as perhaps the most glaring omission from the company’s record books.
During an appearance on 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony, HBK was asked why the match never happened, to which he answered:
“He didn’t like me (laughs).
“I will say this, there’s a big kerfuffle in the wrestling business about me and Hunter doing stuff to him and being mean and stuff like that. All of it way blown out of proportion, none of it even accurate. But those things when he was younger were fed a lot. But again, later on, and to this day we get along and we talk about stuff.”
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Admitting that the match is also at the top of his dream match wish list, Michaels said:
“That’s one I think everybody would have liked to have seen. By the time I came back, he was well off into his Hollywood career and stuff like that. Even when it comes to me, I’d pick him.
“I remember seeing him on Saturday Night Live the first time and just thinking to myself, ‘Holy cow this guy’s gonna be a huge star.’ What he’s done has been pretty damn impressive.”
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Shawn Michaels Recalls The Transformation Of Rocky Maivia To The Rock
While the pair never met, Shawn Michaels got to witness The Rock’s emergence in WWE first hand when he debuted in the company at Survivor Series 1996.
First arriving as the blue chip prospect Rocky Maivia, it wouldn’t be long before fans soured on the third-generation star, which eventually led to the birth of The Rock.
When asked how The Rock was received backstage in WWE when he first came in, Michaels said:
“When he first came in he was just Rocky Johnson’s son. When he first went out there he was getting a lot of the ‘Rocky sucks’ chants and stuff like that, so there’s always ribbing and stuff like that in the locker room.
“I want to say he might have had an injury that he took some time off and that’s when he really just thought about how his career was going and wanting to change things up.
“He came back just as The Rock and no longer being the son of Rocky Johnson and I think that was a lot of what it was at that time, with that attitude change and stuff like that, he was kind of as one of the first legacies and people were just rebelling against that kind of stuff.
“I think he recognised that and felt like he’s got to come back with something a little bit harder, a little bit more aggressive. He changed that up and they put him with The Nation, he really began to take off from there.”
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