Shawn Michaels said the reason The Rock vs. HBK never happened at WrestleMania was because “he didn’t like me,” though he added that the two get along now, speaking on 7pm in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony.
When asked why the dream match never took place, Michaels was blunt. “He didn’t like me,” Michaels said. “I think in years he got, 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 were things that when he was younger, he was fed a lot. But later on, and to this day, we get along and we talk about stuff.”
Michaels said by the time he returned from his back injury in the 2000s, Rock was already deep into his Hollywood career, and the window had closed. “That’s what I think everybody would have liked to have seen. But by the time I came back, he was well off into his Hollywood career and stuff like that,” Michaels said.
Despite the match never happening, Michaels said he would pick The Rock over himself. “What are you gonna say? I mean, the guy came in, and I can 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,” Michaels said.
Michaels also recalled The Rock’s early days in WWE when he was getting “Rocky sucks” chants as the son of Rocky Johnson. “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,” Michaels said.
Michaels said Rock recognized the backlash and reinvented himself. “He recognized that and felt like you got to come back with something a little bit harder, a little more aggressive. And then he changed that up. And after he did that, and they put him with the Nation, he really began to take off from there,” Michaels said.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit 7pm in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
