10 Things We Learned From Shawn Michaels On Vince Russo's Podcast
Does Shawn Michaels have one more match left in him?
If you're a prominent performer from wrestling's past, the chances are you've got yourself a podcast these days.
Vince Russo, the man responsible for a lot of WWE's creative direction during the Attitude Era, is no different in this regard, and he recently moved his show 'The Brand' to Podcast One, home to pretty much every mainstream wrestling podcast worth its salt.
Russo being Russo, his main interview show is called 'The Swerve', and he dearly wanted to bring a high profile guest onto the show for his inaugural Podcast One broadcast.
As the man himself says, he knew exactly where to look, and the guest secured over WrestleMania weekend was none other than 'Mr. WrestleMania' himself, Shawn Michaels.
Split over two episodes, the two-hour conversations covers a whole lot of ground, equally split between wrestling chat and goings on outside the ring. Russo's style is difficult to truly get into, with his forced tone and insistence on constantly saying 'bro' likely to rile and irritate in equal measure.
Michaels comes across as quite the opposite throughout, clearly a man at peace with who he is and no longer interested in 'getting himself over', for want of a better term.
Talk of chewing tobacco aside, the podcast threw up a whole host of interesting tidbits. Here's what we learned from Shawn Michaels' appearance on Vince Russo's podcast, bro.
10. It Took Shawn Six Weeks To Get Into Shape For 'Mania
At WrestleMania 32 Shawn Michaels made a surprise appearance, joining fellow legends Steve Austin and Mick Foley to head out and lay a beating on the poor League of Nations.
Michaels served up a healthy dose of Sweet Chin Music to King Barrett, and the general consensus was that he looked awesome. Austin and Foley didn't look any different to normal, but many were claiming that Shawn looked in the best shape of his life.
When Vince McMahon called Michaels to lay out his idea for WrestleMania, things weren't quite as rosy for HBK. The call came six weeks prior to the event, and all was fine until Vince told Michaels that he wanted all three men to be in their gear for the beatdown. Shawn was reluctant, but Vince insisted that it was needed.
Shawn had six weeks to get into shape. He was eating 2500-3000 calories a day at the time, and with the help of his wife he managed to get this down to 1400 by the time of the show. He started the Daniel Plan, a Christian-centric exercise program that is as much about what you eat as it is about giving thanks to the big man upstairs for producing it.
I'm not a man of faith, but he's obviously onto something with this plan. Shawn tells Russo that he feels like he could go out and wrestle for 45 minutes, that he knew he was in phenomenal shape and the fact that Foley and Austin weren't in their gear was no longer an issue at this point. It's pretty hard to disagree with that sentiment.