Being called 'The Heartbreak Kid', 'Mr. Wrestlemania,' and all those other names doesn't even begin to compare to what it feels like to know that the Almighty God who created the universe calls me His child.
— Shawn Michaels
'WrestleMania' is pressure-filled anyway, and more so when you're going for the first time in what might be the main event. If you are being dubbed, or people seeing you as the next guy, those things mount up.
I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing Howard Finkel does not get a lot of chicks!
The life of a WWE superstar is awesome, but I want my kids to have a life balanced by more traditional ideas about what our life and our country used to be. And still can be if we want it to be.
I suppose a lot of people don't understand that one of the things that drew me to hunting was the peace and the solitude, the mushy spiritual stuff, strangely enough. The quiet away from 75,000 roaring fans. The fans, that's very wonderful - I get a great charge from that.
We are a family that lives probably 90 percent on wild game. We're certainly working our way toward 100 percent self-sufficient. Looking to raise chickens for eggs, things of that nature, start a garden. We enjoy the simple life.
You see the standard hunting show; it's an outdoor television show. A lot of times, it's just a guy sitting in a tree, waiting on an animal. I don't think it does it justice, and I don't think it captures the enjoyment and the splendor of the incredible outdoors and the feeling of being out there.
As long as I did the good things associated with religion, I thought I was in good shape spiritually, too.
When I started, you didn't focus so much on production, certainly not - gosh - down to the finest little detail of how you shifted your eyes or how you turned to somebody. A lot of the shots were far away from a still camera. There weren't as many close-ups and intimacy.
When you're just in there with the same guys on a regular basis, I think there's a chance to become a little - I don't want to say lazy, but I'll say complacent. So to get a chance to go in there and mix it up with these other guys is exciting.
My years in the WWE, a lot of stuff came out that you're not even aware of because they come out with it so fast, and there's so much of it. It's tough, certainly, to have any hands-on association with it, so I was happy to be able to have some input into the 'Deuce Brand' watch.
The entrance is important, but it's the in-ring performance that fans truly remember. My zipline entrance has become so much bigger over time, but I still think fans remember the match more than anything.
The whole thing about me being The Showstopper - and Mr. WrestleMania - is that it was something I said once, and it took on a life of its own from there. Truthfully, I think the idea of going out and stealing the show is something you ought to do every time you wrestle. But if you focus only on that element, you end up doing almost too much.
I love wrestling, and I think there was something in me that needed to come out, and I was very fortunate to allow it to come out in the WWE and make a living doing that, and I enjoyed every second of that.
Confidence is one of those things that no one ever wants to talk about in this industry because confidence and ego run neck and neck. But you have to understand, those are things that you have to have in order to make it to where Edge has made it. You've got to have a certain amount of ego and confidence in yourself to get there.
I've always wanted to be a rebel. I've never wanted to do what everybody else is doing. Man, I've got news for you, that is what I am really doing now, and it's the coolest thing ever. I got to know the person of Christ. I see him as one of the greatest rebels of all time. That's what really appeals to me. It's hope. It's victory.
If you're desperate enough for attention, any attention will make you feel better.
When I returned to wrestling, I went back a changed man. I had adopted a new way of thinking. All I wanted was for God to help me be a good witness on the platform He had brought me back to.
I'll go out there and give you a show like you've never seen. Why... Because I can!
I'm the 'Showstoppa', the Main Event, the icon!
It's fascinating to go somewhere where you're away from everything. There are no houses, no buildings, no roads, no people. And for a little less extreme hunting, any place in the West - Colorado, Utah, Montana - that's just beautiful country.
As badly as everybody feels like I'm a sellout for one thing or another, I guess, ultimately, when it came to wrestling, I just wanted to wrestle where I want to wrestle. And something had to be bigger and more important than the money, and for me, it was the time inside that ring.
If you have 100 acres worth of food, and you've got 500 animals out there, the young ones and the old ones are going to starve to death because they can't compete. When they starve, they start to eat things they shouldn't be eating and spread disease not only to them but to us.
I found you can believe the man in history that is Jesus who walked the earth. It's a whole different thing altogether to know Him as the Son of God - to have reconciled yourself to Almighty God.
You have to continue to hone your craft.
I think people would like to see Kurt Angle and myself get in there and perform with one another. I think he's an amazing athlete, a talented wrestler, and it's a match people probably don't think that they're going to see.
For those of us who are on the Raw brand, to hook up with the guys from the Smackdown brand is our chance to go in there and get a hold of guys that you normally don't get a chance to work with.
It's one of the things, certainly for me, anyway: I'm learning to take a bigger role in the things that I'm associated with.
Years ago, I was always serious, and now I chuckle and make jokes to create a calm environment because 'WrestleMania' can be a high-pressure atmosphere.
I like learning new stuff, also, and I can sit there and watch shows on National Geographic and the Discovery Channel or stuff like that and learn something new. I think once you've gone through such a long stage of learning one thing, you're not as well-rounded as you'd like to be.
I enjoyed the theatrics and the physical demands of everything that went on in the ring. But I was, initially, a relatively shy kid. I think that's probably what attracted me to hunting is that it was such a polar opposite of the other, and it was that opportunity for peace and quiet and to decompress.
Tully was the first young, handsome, cocky, well-dressed bad guy. He was our version of Ric Flair before I knew who Ric Flair was. This was before cable TV or any of that, and Tully was our Ric Flair.
If I truly believe everything that's in that book, God is in control. He is in control. He's working for my good. Doesn't mean everything's going to be smooth, but that's all I needed to know. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
No, I don't want to go back and wrestle again... But some big bubble could break, and I might need money like everybody else.
Our line of work is very cynical, and a lot of it is driven by cynicism, cruelty, and meanness. It's easier to believe the negative stuff than the positive stuff. The feel-good stories don't usually spend a lot of time on the front pages.
I am to wrestling what Elvis was to rock n' roll!
If we're not a good steward of what God gives us, he takes it away. I think that's what happened. I wasn't a good steward of the gift that he gave me in this line of work. I abused it, so he took it away.
Over the years, with hunting, I think what's become my favorite part of hunting is how self-sufficient I'm becoming.
The part inside the ropes, the part where people decide if it's a good match or a bad match, that's the part that I take very, very, very, very, very seriously and that I respect the most.
In every aspect of my life, I live under the protection of and in accordance to the laws of this nation. At the end of the day, it's a wildlife biological fact and a conservation fact that the game must be managed. There's only so much habitat, i.e. food, out there.
I was raised Catholic, and I knew of Him and certainly what He did, but I never truly experienced knowing Him.
We can bring it all down to the subtleties of the shifting of an eye because we know the camera will catch it. That has been a great thing to learn, and it makes it interesting for a guy who has been in it as long as I have.
'Wrestlemania' is the time of the year where careers are made or broken.
To WWE and to everyone who owns WWE, it's a business, and if you become something to the people, you're going to become something to the company. It's just that simple now.
In all the years with WWE, I never really got to really establish the branding of The Showstopper as well as I would have liked to.
I talked a bunch of crap for years and then went out and worked hard. That's the extent of it. There's no magical genius to it, as much as I'd like to think there is. I'm just a guy who works hard - and I hope guys are challenged by that.
For me, being in retirement, it was just having the opportunity to watch other stuff and do different things.
Even though I wrestled Ric Flair very early on in my career, it was a short match, so getting to wrestle him later on in my career was a benchmark. Wrestling Hulk Hogan was a benchmark for me.
As a wrestling fan, I can remember years ago seeing my first Street Fight between Wahoo McDaniel and Tully Blanchard, and I remember thinking to myself that I will really think I've made it when I can come to the ring in jeans and cowboy boots with my hands taped and stuff like that.
You've got to be able to go 100 miles per hour in the ring, out of the ring, partying, and you've still got to make all your commitments.
