Original subtitles

- Shawn Michaels and Triple H.

- You make your rules,

and we will break 'em.

Yeah.

- Shawn Michaels and Triple H are-are best of friends.

They're closer than a lot of brothers.

- He was my buddy, and he hung with me every step of the way.

- When that best friendship turned into a rivalry,

it felt personal,

even for those of us watching at home.

- You can go to hell for all I care.

- I'm in the hallway, and he goes off on me in the hallway.

In front of everybody in that locker room,

we went at it.

- All this stuff becomes real.

- When they were on TV, you were like,

"Oh, okay this is dangerous.

This is must see TV."

- Putting his life on the line

- Oh.

- God the carnage.

- Some of the bloodiest battles are against people

that are former friends.

- I don't know how much more personal it can get.

- You're outta line.

- I don't know how much more personal it can get.

- When two legends collide,

their rivalries stays pinned in our minds forever.

This is where we break down the legendary stories

behind the greatest rivalries of all-time.

I'm Gabriel Iglesias and this is "WWE Rivals."

- Two men who are at one time best friends.

Shawn Michaels left the game due to a broken back

but this is about pride and passion, about evilness and ego.

- Triple H, the Cerebral Assassin.

The Game versus Shawn Michaels The Heartbreak Kid aka

Mr. WrestleMania.

Hall of Fame legends,

and uh, it's awesome to be talking about 'em.

- They both, from as young as they could remember,

wanted to be wrestlers.

They wanted to wrestle.

That's what they wanted to do.

- The commonality that they had is that they both loved

this business so much.

They have a deep, deep passion for it and a deep understanding.

- You know, Shawn Michaels just he walked out there,

the place just went ballistic and it was like

a live wire that wasn't grounded

Triple H was very calculated.

- They were so comparable in a lot of ways.

They were absolutely night and day in others.

- Hunter Hearst Helmsley is a guy that says he's going

to bring class and civility to the WWE.

- Hunter Hearst Helmsley was sort of built on the

northeastern Connecticut snob, the very proper, you know,

American former Englishman.

That was Hunter's character to get in the door,

but that kind of had a ceiling on it,

and he offered so much more.

- Michaels isn't calling for it.

- Hunter

- That Sweet Chin Music

- Hunter, you gotta get out of there.

Mr. Perfect do something.

- Can Shawn Michaels connect on the chin

of Hunter Hearst Helmsley?

Yeah.

- No.

- Cover.

One.

Two.

- No.

- Yes.

- In the mid 90s, there was no comparison

to Shawn Michaels and Triple H.

Shawn Michaels was the top of the industry.

He showed everybody he belongs on top.

No one could compete with him,

storytelling, in-ring wise or charisma wise,

so it was night and day.

- Shawn was the greatest workers ever put on a pair of boots.

- The showstopper.

The headliner.

The main event.

- A big reason why I love Shawn Michaels

was just the presentation of it all.

He's out there wearing these ludicrous clothes,

and yet he's the coolest man I've ever seen.

- You will not ever see a man more charismatic or more

talented than The Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels.

- But also,

- I don't give a damn what anybody thinks of me.

- You know, Shawn had an attitude,

and Shawn could be difficult to deal with at times.

- I'm getting sick and tired of people like you,

always coming down on me.

I've been here longer than anybody.

Any superstar the World Wrestling -- has to offer.

Nobody's been here longer than me.

And still, I can't make any of you bastards happy.

- But I think that Shawn's talent,

and at the end of the day,

always doing what was right for business.

Shawn's talent outweighed his attitude.

- Shawn was a prick.

Like, straight up prick to most people.

He just had a chip on his shoulder and an attitude,

and I think at that point, Shawn was in a place in the business

where he was doing things nobody else was,

and working on a level from a in-ring performer standpoint,

but wasn't getting the accolade of it and was just

he was angry and bitter about it.

Drugs and alcohol didn't help that.

- The anger is what allowed me to be uninhibited.

But that's what set HBK apart from everybody else.

Is there-there just,

at that time there wasn't anything and that's- I don't

people don't grasp that there wasn't anything

that I wouldn't do.

- That same level of performance was something that he expected

out of the rest of us, you know?

One of us didn't live up to it.

I remember getting my ass chewed by Shawn a couple times.

- Shawn putting the bad mouth on the 1-2-3 Kid.

- He had so many personal demons

that he was fighting and battling with.

Um, his ego was out of control.

Talked to very few people.

Exception to Hunter.

- We both had a mutual friend that helped us out a bunch early

on in the business, and that was Terry Taylor.

- You can tell when some guys think they know everything.

And then you can tell when somebody genuinely wants

to learn to make the business better.

You could tell those guys had it.

- In many ways, we are very similar,

not athletically, I wish,

similar mindsets and similar ways of thinking

of things and our sense of humor in a lot of ways.

But it wasn't always easy being Shawn's friend,

wasn't always easy just being around him all the time.

Shawn had a lot of substance issues at the time,

and a lot of things going on that I helped him through,

I guess.

- It could have cost him his career.

He never- and he could have.

He could have thrown me under the bus.

He never wavered in his friendship of me.

He took a lot of [bleep].

He took a lot of heat at times when

no one knew what I was going to do.

He was a saint in that respect.

- People smelled blood in the water.

It's easy to go there,

but Shawn and I had each other's backs on everything.

- Triple H did a real good job on, uh, curtailing that,

- Reining that in.

- Yes.

Being a being-a being a very good friend for-for Shawn.

- Triple H has this incredible fast sense of humor.

We're seeing this guy who's limited very much by his gimmick

that he's in with the aristocrat,

and you're thinking,

"If he could ever get that out there,

he is really entertaining."

Fortunately, DX came along and he got it out there.

- We are D-Generation X.

You make the rules and we will break 'em.

Yeah.

- Shawn saw a huge future in Hunter.

Wanted him to be part of this thing.

It was a unique configuration of individuals

and it really worked.

It just didn't emerge, it exploded

- As we sort of were moving into more of the DX.

He was allowed to now have much more of an attitude,

a lot more personality, again, have more humor, intensity,

anger, all of those things.

- There's one piece of artillery I'm not going to use.

I'm going to save that for your old lady.

And it's the big bazooka.

[laughing]

- You don't know what is going on behind the curtain.

So for a lot of the people who got to watch

this whole thing go down, they were wondering like

"Why was Shawn Michaels teaming with Triple H?"

But behind the scenes they're thick as thieves.

- Creating D-Generation X and being, um, crass and abrasive.

When they were on TV, you were like, "Okay, this is dangerous."

This is must see TV.

They were the Attitude Era.

Shawn Michaels and D-Generation X, want you to suck it.

- Disgusting.

And you got a smile on your face.

- Ready to go, kids?

Here you go.

- By 1998, DX was the hottest thing in wrestling.

But one unfortunate event would put all of it in jeopardy.

Welcome to the 11th Annual Royal Rumble.

- The edge of that casket,

right on the lower back of Shawn Micheals

- I think Shawn is hurt.

I think he's hurt bad.

- At the 1998 Rumble, Shawn was having a casket match

with The Undertaker and

he sustained a terrible back injury.

- This whole match is a testament to Michaels'

intestinal fortitude.

- So, I basically crushed several discs in my back

and I had to get my lower back fused.

- When Shawn got hurt,

he was at the top of his game.

And for him at that point, you know, to be pulled out.

And not only that, but to leave Hunter by himself.

It was a huge crossroads for Shawn.

- At the time, as far as anyone knew,

the majority of people that got that done

were older people that then began to live

a very limited quality of life after that.

They said I'd never wrestle again.

I was incredibly angry.

Everything's over.

- We have one of the greatest and most controversial champions

of all time here tonight.

Shawn Michaels will join us later on tonight.

- HBK in the house in just a little bit.

- So at this time, Shawn is hurt.

He's away from the limelight,

but he's still behind the scenes.

Uh, very much involved in what's going on.

- And you better believe Shawn was still under contract

if he was in a hospital bed, he'd still be under contract.

- Once Shawn Michaels left, this could have been a bit of a

career disaster for Triple H, because the leader of DX

was no longer around to lead the pack.

- You dropped the ball.

But don't worry,

HBK, because Triple H picked it up

and now the ball is in my court.

There were conversations with me about going forward

with DX from there,

there was also conversations that I knew that

were happening of like, "Can he do that on his own?"

I'll take care of the worries.

I'll take care of the problems,

and I'll make the decisions.

And at that point, I'm still seen as secondary to Shawn.

And can I handle that?

Can I-can I make that happen?

Am I a main event player?

This is the genesis of D-Generation X.

- He had such confidence and he was just so-

It was so clear.

Like Shawn's gone, yes,

but we're just going to get bigger.

- Now, Triple H was the leader and X-Pac

was brought in at a certain point.

I got two words for ya-

- Suck it.

- Yeah.

- You cannot replace a Shawn Michaels and I didn't.

I was just me and I was having a great time and,

yeah, people got with it.

- Let's get ready to, suck it.

And who rules the world in professional wrestling?

[crowd chants "DX"]

- If you would have told me we are going to lose

the best wrestler in the business,

and within a month this group

that he founded but is no longer a part of it,

is going to be hotter than ever.

I would have thought you were crazy.

- This is my DX

My army.

- It's a real testament to Hunter to figure out

how to reinvent DX without Shawn,

which I don't think anybody could have

imagined DX without Shawn.

- And then to watch everybody else as the industry at this hot

point keeps on rising, and you had so much to do

with getting it to this point.

- Yes.

He did it, he did it.

- You're where I'm supposed to be,

that belongs to me.

There's going to be a little bit of animosity there, right?

- Yeah.

- You better remember I've had chunks of guys

bigger than you in my stool.

- The next segment with him,

he just buried the [bleep] out of me.

- Always remember I was DX before DX was cool.

- I just didn't think it was cool to do.

Like, I'm the one that's there helping draw money

and you're at home and you come in here, everyone, you know,

that's kinda selfish [bleep] thing to do.

- Shawn, um, he's got a kid and he's married, but he's still,

he's-he's got his issues,

and we were nowhere near as close as we were

before because of it.

- This is a job where if you're not having fun,

holy [bleep], does it make it so much more difficult.

- And how's the back feeling?

- Hurts.

- Bad?

- Bad.

- His drug use was out of control.

- The thing is, I can't keep coming out here

week after week after week,

going back and forth with all this,

I've got to get busy with my rehab,

my physical therapy, my physical therapy for my back.

- There was a moment where it's me, Taker's there,

I think it's Austin, Rock,

in walks Shawn,

who is just a mess,

taking a bunch of pills.

He's drooling.

He's like, can barely stay awake.

He's stumbling around the room.

He's like making inappropriate comments.

He's half in, half out.

Everybody else goes to Vince.

"It's [bleep] embarrassing.

He shouldn't be here."

What's going, you know, blah, blah, blah.

So next morning, Vince calls me in and goes,

"Hey, I just wanty ou to know I'm going to have a conversation

with Shawn and I'm going to send him home."

He goes in and has a conversation with Shawn.

Shawn comes out of that conversation.

I'm in the hallway and he goes off on me in the hallway.

And everybody's there looking, and I'm fine with it.

And I let him-

let him vent and go through all his [bleep].

And then he got done, and he stormed off to the locker room,

and I sat there stewing in it for a minute, and then I said,

"You know what? [bleep] this [bleep]"

And I went down the hallway, went in the locker room

and in front of everybody in that locker room.

We went at it, not physically, but close.

- You can go to hell for all I care.

- Man, get out of here,

- I blister him and, you know,

you know, say [bleep] stuff, that stuff.

stuff that-I said hurtful stuff and-and, uh, and left.

- Then basically.

[bleep] you, [bleep] you.

We're done.

- Hunter had everything you need,

really smart guy and a terrific wrestler,

but he knew he had to transform himself.

- You guys talk about

being students of the game.

I am The [bleep] Game, JR.

There is nobody that eats, sleeps or breathes

this business more than me.

- He's as deadly as they come.

The Cerebral Assassin.

- Just a few years earlier,

Triple H had been the number two guy in DX.

By 2002, he's a top guy,

main eventing, multiple huge shows

and holding World Championships.

- The Game has done it.

- Hunter being the responsible one, there was still a guy that

felt like he deserved his shot, believed that

he could attain anything, and he didn't want anybody

holding him back from that.

- I think that at that point Hunter had kind of taken

that top spot,

and, uh, there was some friction

between Triple H and Shawn during the time

that they weren't on the road together.

And I guess I kind of was, uh, was trying to mend, you know,

some fences of some old friends of mine that, you know,

and get kind of get us all in the same page.

- Kevin Nash called me and said,

"Hey, you know, Shawn's trying to clean up.

And he feels really bad,

like he started to see things clearly and all that and.

You know he wants to call you, but he's afraid,

and if he calls, will you answer the phone?"

And I said,"Of course. I'll answer the phone."

- Turning my life around with my wife and our children

and my faith,

and knowing he's the first guy I got a call, you know, and

that you know and beg him to forgive me and to say I'm sorry.

- Uh, Shawn called me, and, um, you know,

he had reached a different point in his life.

He had realized the issue, sort of,

I think, you know, one day he woke up and looked at his son

and "Oh, what am I doing?"

Found God and cleaned himself up and

was just in a completely different place.

And-and we spoke and sort of

buried the hatchet.

Somewhere there he mentions about wanting to-

to have one more match.

- By 2002, Shawn had patched things up not only with

Triple H, but with WWE as a whole.

And despite the discouraging prognosis

he had gotten four years earlier,

Shawn Michaels seemed determined to have one more match.

- He came back here and there like as a on air figure.

He was a commissioner, I think, for a while,

and, you know, beyond a superkick here and there,

you never saw him do anything physical.

- All of a sudden all these

ideas start going through your head.

And now you're standing there ringside and I'm thinking

to myself, physically, I can still do all of that again,

maybe not to the degree that I once did it,

but certainly what I'm seeing now I could do in a-

in a limited fashion.

- But his issue is he doesn't know if his back can hold up.

He doesn't know anything, and he only feels confident

if he does it with me.

He only feels, like, his words,

"The only person I can do that with is you if you say no,

I understand."

- He had gone and created The Game and who he was

and it wouldn't have wouldn't have bothered me.

And I get practically misty eyed and crying.

It wouldn't have bothered me one bit if he-

had he felt he was bigger than that, you know.

But, uh, sorry.

[laughing]

Um, but he didn't.

And so it was very cool.

It's good to see ya.

- Group hug.

How you doing, man?

You all right?

- So it's now been four years, and the WWE is trying to figure

out a way to get him back into the storyline,

how to bring him back into the mix.

- Times change and the Triple H was no longer the apprentice and

Triple H, as this [bleep] character doesn't see his friend

returning as a positive,

ultimately, he sees it as a threat.

- Look out.

Look out.

The hell happened?

- The hell happened?

- Oh, wow.

Oh, wow.

- Shawn, I swear to you,

and I swear in front of all these people,

I'm going to find out who did this to you.

- The police in Greensboro sent me some surveillance footage.

It was you, Hunter.

- Shawn had done so much

to help elevate Triple H,

and Shawn was heartbroken by the fact that his friend,

his guy he'd been riding with,

his guy that he'd set up DX with,

had now stabbed him in the back.

- You damn right it was me, Shawn.

- Four and a half years seems like "Oh, that's a lifetime.

He's- Surely he can't wrestle anymore.

His back, all this stuff.

You hear why he retired."

- They say I'll be 100%.

100% by say, uh.

Summerslam.

[crowd cheers]

- Once we made the decision

to go with Hunter and I at SummerSlam,

I got more anxious.

- The match was made a street fight, which meant that Triple H

and Shawn Michaels could use objects that they would find

at ringside and break all the rules,

which would alleviate any potential ring rust

that Shawn Michaels could have.

- The quick movements of my body are the things that I wasn't

sure I could adjust to, um, which I would need in a-

in a classic wrestling match.

So this match, uh, being a street fight,

works more for what I think I'm capable of doing now.

I hadn't been in the ring in four years.

One time I was considered a pretty decent performer,

to say the least.

And you worry about living up to that, that stature again.

Also, besides injuries for years, I mean, I'm 30-

I am older now.

- And the idea that, oh my God, Shawn Michaels

could come back and could wrestle again was, uh,

astonishing in itself.

- I don't even think he had gotten in the ring to train.

He just got himself a little bit of physically good shape and

knew that his back felt better to some degree, but hadn't

hadn't taken a bump, hadn't hit the ropes, hadn't done anything.

You know, that was probably one of the hardest for me going into

it because I'm like, "Man, if just if he can't do this,

like Holy [bleep], what are we going to do?"

I remember having the conversation with his mom

walking up to me with tears in her eyes, and me telling her

"I won't let anything happen to your boy."

- I had no barometer.

I didn't know what I could do and what I couldn't do.

And so,

and then to have to do it your first time on a pay per view

in front of a gazillion people is, you know, again,

it's a bit- a bit of an anxious moment.

- Are you ready for this, JR?

- I'm ready, but is HBK ready?

- We didn't know if this thing was going to be eight minutes

long or 30 minutes long, or that he might take two bumps and say,

never mind, and this is a terrible idea and end it.

- There he is.

- We just really didn't know.

- Are you ready for this, JR?

- I'm ready, but is HBK ready?

- I was excited, but also, of course a bit nervous because

I hadn't been in the ring in four years.

- There he is.

[Shawn Michaels' music]

[fireworks]

- He is a show stopper.

What an amazing, amazing athlete.

His last match,

March 29th, 1998 at Wrestlemania.

- They did everything they could to get me and help me

to be comfortable.

And honestly, the biggest comfort was being in there with

my best friend.

Given, you know, his talent and everything that he he could do,

I figured he'd be able to work

around me if I was really limited.

- Well, we are witnessing something that we quite frankly,

thought we'd never see.

- I was already a wrestler and I had to show that day,

so I made the promoter put me first.

So I drove home right after the show and made it in time

to see Shawn's comeback.

- This match about passion and pride.

- Oh, here we go.

- Shawn Michaels throwing that shirt right in the face.

- I could see from his attitude.

The right side of Shawn was there, needed to be there.

- Michaels off the top rope.

- Wow.

- And there's a shot.

And The Game.

- Oh look out.

- Oh, The Game, my God.

My God, what a backbreaker.

- We walked up did like 2 or 3 things and I remember going

like, "Buddy, you are [bleep] fine, let's go."

- Oh my God.

No no.

- Michaels helpless, hanging upside down.

- I remember being very concerned for Shawn,

and they, uh, they told that story

really, really, really well.

- Oh.

- He's bleeding, he's knocked down and-

- Oh God.

- Look at this.

- Oh God, Shawn Michaels kipped up.

Where in God's name did he get that?

- Don't do it.

Don't do it.

- Michaels with a superplex.

Shawn Michaels is off the page.

- Oh

- The Game a high knee to Shawn Michaels.

- Everybody else comes back and they're older,

they got injuries.

Shawn came back and was better every single time.

- Like "Are you sure you were hurt?"

- Right?

Yeah.

- Shawn has always been a man

that loves to give the people what they want.

- Shawn Michaels putting his life on the line.

Oh God, the carnage.

- Thinking like,"What he's been training the whole time?"

- Shawn Michaels,

for the love of God the elbow.

- I don't understand how he can be this good, and

me just constantly asking him, too, "Are you okay?

Are you okay?"

"Yeah, good."

You know.

"Good."

- Bang no.

It's blocked.

I thought he had it, it was blocked.

- Oh no.

- Pedigree.

My God, it's happening.

Michaels roll up.

Will it be, can it be?

[bell rings]

- Yes, HBK.

My God HBK

[laughing]

- That's when I knew he was the most physically gifted,

wrestling performer-

- Ever.

- Yeah.

- I thought, this is the comeback match.

Shawn puts a final exclamation point on one of the great

careers in WWE history.

I did not know it was just going to be the beginning.

- Oh, oh, oh my God.

- God Almighty

- Hit him in the back with a sledge hammer.

- God Almighty not the hammer.

Right in the back.

Triple H hit Shawn Michaels.

- Get that away from him.

- Get that hammer away.

- No, no.

- No.

- No, don't fight.

No.

- In theory, I'm such a Shawn Michaels fan,

I should have been irate at what Triple H did to him after

with the sledgehammer, but I knew it meant,

oh, there's going to be more,

so I was so happy.

- That was the most courageous victory

that many of us have ever seen.

That son of a bitch used that hammer.

He's going to rot in hell for what he did here tonight.

- Can it be?

Yes.

HBK.

My God, HBK.

- None of us had any inkling that Shawn would be

continuing this after this match.

- It went from "Hey you did the one match to what do you think

If you did it, you know, another 1 or 2 or a couple of these

to you know what, if you came back in a limited capacity?"

- I want to say it was just a few weeks later,

he called me and mentioned what they wanted to do

with the Elimination Chamber.

This Sunday at Survivor Series, I will be one of six men

to compete in the first ever Elimination Chamber match.

- You don't know if any match could be his last match

because he did have a serious back injury.

- It was only a career ending back injury.

It was only partial paralysis.

- But as long as he's cleared and healthy and raring to go

and wants to go, we're certainly going to take advantage of that.

- With back with spine, it's tricky because you don't always

know if you can come back.

Uncertainty is just it can really eat at you.

- Everything's going wonderfully and you're like,

"You know, a shoe's got to drop here, right?

I mean, it can't be, you know, things can't be going this well.

It's been four years since

HBK has been in Madison Square Garden.

I can assure you.

I'm walking out of the garden, walking out of that

Chamber Match the new

World Heavyweight Champion.

- After his unbelievable comeback match with Triple H

at SummerSlam,

Shawn Michaels was thrown right back

into the fire because the Elimination Chamber certainly

wasn't designed to go easy on a surgically repaired back.

- Yeah, you'd hear, oh, now we're building it,

the whole thing.

And the next time I saw it was Madison Square Garden,

where I walked out and was like, "Holy [bleep]."

- For this?

Yeah, we're all [bleep].

Can you put that in the show?

[laughing]

- Yes.

What's that?

Big.

Big.

Pretty-pretty cool looking, though.

Very cool looking actually.

- Well, you never get a second chance to make

a first impression.

- Right.

- Shawn Michaels only his second match in four years

after sustaining what we thought

was a career ending back injury.

What a kick.

Sweet Chin Music.

Michaels eliminates Jericho

and we're down to two.

Shawn Michaels and Triple H.

- Uh oh.

- My God what is Shawn Michaels doing now?

What a Shawn Michaels thinking?

- Oh,

- Oh the elbow.

Shawn Michaels and the elbow.

- From the top of the Chamber

- That kick was blocked.

- Didn't I tell ya?

- Pedigree, it's over.

Is this how it's going to-

no, it's not how it's going to end.

It's not going to end that way.

- What?

Look out.

- He just-he just back body dropped The Game.

He came out of it.

Sweet Chin

- Oh he got him.

- Sweet Chin Music

The cover.

The cover.

He's got-

- What?

- Shawn Michaels.

Shawn Michaels,

is the world champion.

- The winner of this bout and

new World Heavyweight Champion

HBK, Shawn Michaels.

- Elimination Chamber, when Shawn wins the title,

a couple of months before that, you thought he was done forever.

Now we're in November 2002, he's a champion.

As a Shawn Michaels fan,

doesn't get better than that, you know?

- He and I now in this storyline with each other that again,

that leads to another match.

I was still very skittish at that time.

I, you know, I was trying to be very conservative

in my aspirations and hopes.

I didn't want to get anything too far down the line

because I didn't know physically where I was at.

I was a husband, I was a dad.

I had sort of gotten used to a different life.

Eventually you find out, like, I guess I'm back.

Since the last two performances I've had,

I think have been pretty gosh darn okay,

I figure we see how much more this old body

has got left in her.

- He comes back in 2002, and he picks up

where left off and was as good as he ever was.

- Then it was back on the road and just working again.

It was great.

He got a whole second run of a career.

- I remember becoming a fan again, watching, you know,

the Triple H-Shawn Michaels feud and watching it progress.

And it brought me back to the feelings when I was a kid of,

"Oh my goodness, I can't wait to see what happens next."

- The Cerebral Assassin

is a calculating career killer, and tonight The Game

wants to win the world title.

And he'd love to end Shawn Michaels career.

It is Michael's and-and The Game.

It is a true gut check.

- No.

- Oh my God.

Oh, good God Almighty.

Shawn Michaels has crashed and burned thanks to The Game.

- He's the World Heavyweight Champion JR.

- It is-what an amazing performance by both men.

- Hunter and Shawn had remarkable chemistry.

Especially to me when Hunter was the bad guy.

- I think it only made sense that Hunter was usually a bit

more of the aggressor and the- the bad guy in the story,

because he just played that bad guy

so so so so well.

- What the hell is going on here?

- Triple H slammed the table.

- He's going to try to incapacitate Michaels

once and for all.

- With the relationship between Triple H and Shawn Michaels,

they were so close together as friends

that Triple H wanted to make sure

Michaels look as good as he could.

Shawn wanted to make Triple H

look as good as he possibly could and

together they made magic.

- We're having these matches that are a bit physical,

you know?

- This match has taken its physical toll.

Neither man could get up before the ten count.

-The battles were bloody, they were gory,

they were personal.

Some of the bloodiest battles are against people

that are former friends.

- Squeeze my hand, sir.

Good.

- My left hand feels like, ah.

- This one?

- Yeah, it feels like it-

it's broken, my hand is killing me.

- When you get to the point of hatred,

that just fuels the fire.

- I don't know how much more any of us could have asked from

these two men physically, than they gave us here tonight.

- Shawn and Hunter's rivalry would continue

over the next couple of years.

They always seemed to find their way back to each other

and the matches always delivered.

- One match that sticks out in my mind,

Shawn had a torn hamstring

that happened just a week before.

The match they had,

and the guts that Shawn showed throughout,

90% of the match might have been him hamming it up big time.

But that's just part of the art of the story.

And it made for such a special match,

such a different kind of match too.

- Michael's hits the elbow.

- Michaels trying to will himself back into it.

- It's not enough just to be a good wrestler.

You have to be able to put all the pieces of the puzzle

together, and he was able to bring the emotions and the drama

and the energy they knew how to bring you in emotionally,

connect with the audience on a different emotional level

that was unparalleled.

- Shawn Michaels with as much heart and passion as anybody

that I've ever laid eyes on in my 30 years in this business.

- Despite going to war with each other, there was always an

underlying bond between the two,

and no matter how much they battered each other,

there was always that chance

that we would see them together again.

- DX was big and we were the original guys,

that was something we had teased here and there.

- There you see the old DX chop there.

- I mean, they had that magical chemistry,

whether they were squaring off against each other in the ring

or as a tag team, I think it was inevitable.

- And there's a nice "Suck it" for good measure.

- Two guys who their histories were so interwoven that

you understand it doesn't take much for these guys

to be bonded back together again.

They had a very special ability to go whichever way they wanted

at any point and still make it compelling.

- It appears that we have just seen

the reuniting of DX.

- There's so much of a story as far as the arc of injuries

and this and that, and then finally for them to come back

and full circle and pull it off and it not feel stale.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- There was an opportunity for us to have sort of a really fun

run without the the youth inspired angriness or bitterness

or drive or desire, like we're all very comfortable

at that point of our placements, and this is like a bonus run.

[crowd chants "DX"]

- We are back, baby.

- I think what made the reunion of DX work,

to the extent that it did, was the self-awareness

of Triple H and Shawn.

- We're not the same guys.

You can't be hip and cool like you were at 29 or 30

when you're 40.

And so we put a different spin on it.

- Isn't that Mr. Fuji over there?

- I love Mr. Fuji.

- When you see Triple H and Shawn Michaels out there,

like together as friends, you know what I mean?

Like literally having all the fun, like, that's that's why

it's so entertaining because it's real.

- Right.

- The second coming of DX, the biggest thing for me

is the reach that they had.

I didn't spend a day at school without someone

crotch chopping me.

- I'll tell you what was not a feel good moment was getting

the phone call from um, my son's school to let me know

that we needed to come down and talk to, uh, his teacher,

because apparently, uh, my son was being very expressive

to his classmates about what they could do.

- You can't even explain it.

- You can't even explain it without looking like,

like more of the problem.

- We all got two words for ya,

[crowd "Suck it."]

- The stuff was good, them as rivals,

but I honestly think they're better as friends.

[laughing]

- This job, and especially in this place and with some

of us that have been here through it all,

all this stuff becomes real.

The brotherhood that we've shared,

I've spent more time with Paul Levesque in my adult life,

than I have anybody else on the face of God's green Earth.

You are my best friend.

You know, I would go to the ends of the Earth for you.

And now we find ourselves where we're at now,

doing and creating something else with each other.

- It's really remarkable to me that these two guys who and,

you know, like 96 or 97 wanted to take over the business,

have, in fact, taken over the business.

- Shawn Michaels and Triple H are still together.

Triple H is the head of creative for WWE.

- But when the lightning bolt hits, I want a pyro boom.

I want everybody in here to go.

"What the [bleep], right?"

- Yeah.

- And Shawn Michaels is molding the future of WWE

at the Performance Center.

- I can't say enough positive things about Shawn Michaels

and how much he helped my career.

I always say that time was like getting my PhD and he just

thinks at a different level.

- A lot of people believe that

Shawn is the greatest performer in this business.

Not-

But it's not because of the spots that he did,

you know, it's not the moonsaults.

It's not the elbow off the top of the ladder.

It's not any of that stuff.

It's the emotion, which with the way that he did things with.

- I've been so impressed with Hunter since

he's been in that role, you know.

- It's the ability to watch, to adapt.

But to more than anything, just be aware.

They're so aware of what's going on.

- Oh, my God, that was freaking great.

- Sometimes it's mind blowing to us.

- DX was looking ahead the Elimination Chamber match

in 2002 that was looking ahead and NXT is looking ahead

and the two of them have their fingerprints on everything.

- Being able to live vicariously with these kids and help them

and give back and just reignite that passion.

It's-it's awesome.

- When everything is said and done.

Hunter and I are still wrestling fans,

and that's where all of this started.

Whether it was DX, whether it was the friendship,

whether it's how we do our jobs here,

it all originates from that.

- It's a small little thing.

- It's fun.

And that's all I can say.

We've come a long way.

We've come a long way.