Professional wrestler and San Antonio native Shawn Michaels, who recently announced his retirement from wrestling following back surgery, has a message for his fans: thank you.
Michaels, 33, wanted to tell wrestling fans who've followed his career that he appreciates their support and that he's "going to miss performing for them."
Years of back problems, exacerbated by a brutal fall through a table during a match with The Undertaker, forced "The Heartbreak Kid" out of action on to the operating table Jan. 12, where San Antonio orthopedic surgeon Pablo Vasquez removed a herniated disk and performed a bone graft to repair the wrestler's back.
"He's doing very well, it's been a week or so since the surgery, and he's ahead of the game compared to many other patients," said Vasquez. "He's doing terrific, I'm very pleased. He's still recovering, there's no therapy or any other exercise program for at least a few weeks. He still needs to heal, bones need to set."
Michaels, who appeared a little stiff but was able to walk and sit without obvious discomfort, said he's taking his doctor's advice to relax and let the healing process take place.
He also admitted that he's not always wanted to do that in the past, doing what professional athletes from all sports are prone to do - start execising too soon, pushing the recovery. But seeing the latest set of X-rays and hearing Vasquez describe the operation changed that.
"When you see an X-ray with four bolts in your back, and a titanium plate, and after going through the surgery and how long that took, it makes it easier to listen," Michaels said. "(Vazquez) says 'Sit and lay down', I sit and lay down."
The first time they met, Michaels was laying down flat on his back in an emergency room, days after the match with The Undertaker. Michaels said he woke up one morning and couldn't move. After years of chiropractic adjustments, therapy and pain, Michaels decided it was time to hang up the boots and tights.
It was a decision he was close to making anyway; the back problems had gotten progressively worse, and Michaels a three-time WWF champion who's also held several other titles was satified with his achievements as a wrestler.
"I'm very lucky to have accomplished all the things I wanted to accomplish, there was nothing out there to make me second guess" the decision to retire, Michaels said.
"The circumstances were, if you get back back in the ring you could really do significant damage to yourself and affect the rest of your life, so in that instant it was an easy decision to make."
Michaels' immediate plans include weekly visits to see Vasquez and normal, daily activities usually denied high-profile, frequent-traveling pro wrestlers.
"I plan to watch Spurs games, come back here every week, go the mall, go the movies, go out to eat. Those are the types of things I've missed the past 14 years anyway."
In a forum and via e-mail, fans from around the country and across the globe wrote expressnews.com to offer their support for Michaels and inquire about his future plans.
Michaels and Vasquez sat down with expressnews.com Wednesday at Vasquez's office to talk about Michaels' recent back surgery and recovery, his plans for the future, and the wrestling profession as a whole. As a special treat, we've provided the full audio of the interview in RealAudio format. Click here to listen; if you need the free RealPlayer, click here to download.
Highlights of the interview:
•Contrary to what some fans have thought, or would like to think, Michaels is indeed fully and completely retired from wrestling. Doctors have told him he may never walk again if he decides to get back in the ring, and his quality of life is more important to him than his desire to compete. So again, Michaels will not bewrestling ever in the future.
•There is no firm timetable for when Michaels will return to TV in his role as commissioner. For at least the next few months, he will be relaxing and recuperating in San Antonio, so don't expect him back on "Monday Night RAW" for quite some time.
•Michaels is hard at work firming up the site and other plans for his local wrestling school, which he will operate with wrestling legend and personal mentor Jose Lothario. He says the school, which will train not only wrestlers but also managers, will open sometime around the beginning of April.
•Though he hasn't spoken to his former "Rockers" tag-team partner Marty Jannety in more than a year, Michaels said the two, despite a somewhat rocky parting, have mended fences and may keep in touch.
•Acting could certainly be in Michaels' future; he received script offers before his surgery and may yet end up in Hollywood.
When asked if he had anything he wanted to say to his fans in San Antonio and around the world, Michaels said:
"It's been very, very nice that so many people have written in, have sent stuff to WWF, have sent stuff to (expressnews.com), have sent stuff to my parents' house. It's nice to know that everything I did in the past 14 years 10 years in the WWF didn't fall on deaf ears or blind eyes as far as the fans were concerned.
"Within the inside of the wrestling business, the insiders can be a little cruel sometimes. But I always was concerned with what the wrestling fan thought. It's been very, very nice knowing that I was able to step out of this business, say goodbye to it, and know that people appreciate what I did and are really honestly going to miss me.
"I think it's important that they know I'm really going to miss performing for them because that's what drove me to get started in this business, that's what drove me to keep going when people told me I couldn't do things or shouldn't do things.
"And when people attacked me within the wrestling business, the wrestling fans were always there to support me, and that's nice. Because as long as I'm understood, and accepted, and cared for and loved and missed by them, that's more than enough for me.
"I just wanted to say say thanks to them, because it's been a wonderful career, I'm very, very happy for everything I've done, I'm very happy that people watched me and didn't care whether I was playing a good guy or a bad guy, or whatever personal decision they heard I made, or that I might not have made or that I made, that they stuck by me and supported me.
"That they're honestly and truly going to miss me, that's nice."