WWE.com has a great interview and story with Tripple H and Shawn Michaels.
As you may be aware, Michaels and HHH have returned to their old days of DX, but Michaels of course has found faith in Jesus since the DX of 1997, when anything and everything was cool.
While a lot has changed since the origins of DX, one of the key factors in the evolution of DX is Michaels’ personal faith. HBK is now a born-again Christian, and his faith has changed him in every facet of life. He’ll even be the first to tell you that the Shawn Michaels you see in 2006 is a much different man than Shawn Michaels was in 1997.
“Well, everybody knows, obviously my faith and becoming born again was the one and only impact on my life,†Michaels said. “A lot of other things changed as a result of that, and I knew there were a lot of questions coming to do with the DX thing. They obviously asked me beforehand what I’d be comfortable with and what I wasn’t comfortable with and I knew this going in.â€
When Shawn Michaels steps through that curtain every night, he becomes the Showstopper. Shawn is an icon in the industry, but these days his reputation with God is much more important to him than anything else. There’s a lot of give and take in sports-entertainment, and while Michaels realizes this, he does the best he can to stay true to himself.
“I’ve done my best to stand strong, but I set out some guidelines of things I wasn’t going to do,†Michaels said candidly. “They slowly try to creep them in and I slowly do my best to fight them off, and they say OK and they back off for a week and then they try to creep back up again. It’s a non-stop struggle, and everybody’s trying to…â€
Shawn took a moment to compose his thoughts before continuing.
“You know, this company has a product to put out, obviously DX has sort of an image to uphold. Really, I’ve tried to do my best to do that and still stay true to my beliefs and it’s been difficult. I know that there have been a lot of people who have come down on me and I’ve taken a lot of heat for it; I’m used to that. Thank goodness me getting heat on myself for various reasons is no different now than it was 10 years ago, although it may just come from a different sect or a different group of folks. There are two roads: a road to righteousness and a road to destruction, and as I’ve always said, I try not to beat anybody over the head with it. But I like to think I’m staying true to my faith.â€
Shawn Michaels just may create a strong Christian base that will throw McMahn (?) off balance. I appreciate the fact that he is putting himself in the middle of a ring of mucky-muck and fighting a good fight. (please pardon the puns) Kudos to you, Shawn Michaels, kudos to you.