He was one of World Wrestling Entertainent's greatest Superstars ever. He was also one of it's most notorious. Shawn Michaels has been known to generate a lot of mixed feelings within the industry, despite the unwavering fan following he's maintained outside of it. With his recent Summer Slam comeback in the history books, he's enjoyed a higher profile this year than he has since his heyday nded in 1998. In addition, Michaels recently began a whole new chapter in his life, one that was previously inconceivable to those who knew him: he found God. All in all, the timing seemed perfect to sit down with this modern-day legend and learn where he now stands on a cariety of issues in his life.

RAW MAGAZINE: First of all, what was it like to be in the ring again at Summer Slam?
SHAWN MICHAELS: I was very happy with how it turned out. I came out healthy, the people seemed to like it, and everybody in the back was pleased. I'm no longer the guy who comes out of the ring and says 'I could do better'. I think it was just fine. I'm happy with it.

RAW: Just about everybody wants to know if it was really the last time you'll ever wrestle.
HBK: I'm pretty confident that it was my last singles match. If I were able to do something else, I don't think I'd be able to do anything more than maybe a tag. It's as close to the end as I can predict.

RAW: You've said before that "The Heartbreak Kid is Dead." Why is that, and how did it happen?
HBK: Wrestling fans take things literally, and that's perfectly okay. [The Heartbreak Kid] was more of a way of life, a lifestyle that I lived. It wasn't a character; it wasn't just something I did on the road. It was 24 huors a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I'm no longer that person. That's what I meant. It was more figurative than literal.

RAW: It's widely known that one of the reasons you chose to retire, aside from your injury was the chance to spend more time with your wife and son. What has it been like being on the road again?
HBK: Right now, I'm omly doing one show a week, so compared to 289 days a year - which is what I used to do - one show a week is a piece of cake. Don't get me worng, I still miss my family when I'm away, ut it's a lot easier knowing I'm gonna see them in a day.

RAW: What kind of difference has your son made in your life?
HBK: That's a question I could spend the next 50 years answering. He's the most wonderful, beautiful gift I've ever seen. He's a magnificent boy with a great little personality. He's got a lot of joy; he's never in a bad mood. He brings nothing but joy and pleasure to both his mother's and my life. Everyone says that children do that, but you can never possibly fathom what they bring to your life until you actually have one. They say when they're teenagers it gets a little tough, but that's a long way off.

RAW: Your previous returns to WWE television over the past few years have been short-lived and not nearly as big a deal as this one. What makes this time different?
HBK: Mostly because I'm different. In the past, I wasn't emotionally and spiritually ready to come back. I wasn't the person I am now. From a business standpoint, you could say that I wasn't reliable enough. This time is just so very different. I'm different, and people can see it. This time it's fun for everybody. I like to think that a lot of that comes from the Lord being in my life and making me a different person.

RAW: How and why has religion come to play such a big part in your life recently?
HBK: A lot of it comes from having a praying wife and a praying mother. My wife's a very spiritual person. She was that way before we met, but when we got married and had a baby, our family became more the focus of her life and she drifted from the Lord a bit. The one day she came to me and said, "You've given me everyting i want for my life, and I sort of kicked Him to the curb. I just can't do that. I want to put the Lord back into my life." And she did that, and I watched her blossom into an even more amazing woman than she already was. I watched her strength grow by leaps and bounds. She was a witness by example.
One day, I just cracked open a bible and started reading it, and it progressed from there. The more I read, the more i realized it was the word of God. It was telling me how to live my life, and letting me know the way I was living my life was not the way He wanted me to. I wasn't being the spiritual leader of my family that I'm supposed to be. I always wanted to bring that to my family, to be the person that they could count on to always be there.
We had already been going to church, but now I started to really pay attention. Then I started going to bible study. I got saved at my first bible study on April 24 of this year, and was baptized a week later.
It makes all the difference in the world. You start to realize that what man thinks is very unimportant, and the pressures of society no longer affect you. And they always affected me before. Now, I only worry about what God thinks of me, if I'm righteous in His eyes.

RAW: So would you say that you're happy now? Because through much of your career, it was well publicized how unhappy you were.
HBK: So many people were saying I was missing something, and I was. I was missing Jesus Christ in my life.

RAW: Do you think the wrestling life-style was keeping you from that?
HBK: That's our excuse. But there are guys who don't live that lifestyle. That's how we rationalize it. We say, "We're a different brees." But the Bible says we're all created the same. So, we're not a different breed. We each get different gifts and different blessings, but basically we're the same.

RAW: Has it been difficult adhering to your convictions now that you're back on the road, albeit in a limited capacity?
HBK: No. He is so strong in me. There's nothing - not even a waver. I have people saying, "Oh, don't say stuff like that, you might jinx yourself." But they don't understand. There are other guys who have had similar problems and went to 12-step programs, and they still struggle with it every day. I took one step, and he took it off me. The urges aren't there; there's nothing to fight. I have no urge to do anything but go praise His name, go back to my [hotel] room, call my wife and son, and get up the next day and do the same thing. RAW: How did everything fall apart for you back then, when it seemed like you had the world at your feet? The whole 'losing your smile' saying has been beaten to death by now, but how did it exactly happen?
HBK: I guess if I knew the answer, I would've solved the problem a long time ago. I think it's one of those things where you have this idea od what's going to make you happy, as so many people do. Fame, fortune, etc. All those things are very shallow. They give you nothing spiritually. I lived in a big house and had money, but I was lonely. Because I didn'thave the one thing i needed in my life - the Lord. Even when I met my wife, she brought tremendous joy to my life, but then when I brought the Lord into my life, both she and my son meant so much more.It was just His path for me to take.
I guess you have to go down that road before you realize you're missing something. It's amazing the comfort that He brings. And I know in this line of work, I sound like a holy roller, but it's something I fel every single day.

RAW: At the time that your career was at it's peak, the company as a whole was struggling. Did that take something away from your success? Did you ever get the impression that you were almost carrying the company?
HBK: You get told that a lot, that that's what you're doing. There is a certain amount of pressure that you feel, but even when the company is doing well - as Steve Austin can attest - it's difficult.
Obviously, it's really hard when we're not doing well. When we're not doing well, it's all your fault. When we're doing well, it's you and the company. But you manifest a lot of that in your own mind as well. Steve's run may have been even tougher, because when you're riding high, there's only one place for it to go. At least when we were down, we knew the only place we could go was up!
At the time, people said, "He's the reason we're not doing well." But now that I'm back, I'm described as theguy that carried everyone on his shoulders. That's very flattering, and I like that analogy better [laughs]. That's a lot easier to live with.

RAW: What's the exact nature of your back injury? Fans have seen guys come back from devastating injuries before, like Austin with his broken neck. What is different about yours that it put you on the shelf for good?
HBK: Well, for one thing, Austin didn't actually have a broken neck. You get a broken neck, you die. He had a herniated disk inhis neck. I also have a herniated disk, only it's in my lower back. The difference is, the only thing your neck has to support is your head. Your lower back supports your entire upper body.
I had fusion surgery with two plates and four screws, but the problem is they only did one level. The one that was done was the L4/L5 [vertebrae]. They are now fused. L5/S1 is also damaged, and needed to be done, but because I'm young, they didn't want to do more than one level. When I'm older, I'll probably need to get the other fused, because it's severly damaged.
A dramatic way of describing it is it's a kind of paralysis. You have numbness in your leg, because when the disk gets crushed, it presses up against nerves, and when the nerves can't fire, you lose feeling in your leg. They put bone in there, so there's nothing pressing up against the nerve. The problem with my injury since surgery is that the disks are also damaged. If something were to happen, I could easily have four levels fused, which means that a large section of my spine would be all bone. I'd lose range of motion, plus if someting were to spur and go into nerves, I'd lose feeling in my legs.

RAW: You've been referred to by many as the greates in-ring worker of the modern era. How do you feel about that kind of praise?
HBK: Flattered. It's a great compliment. Up until last August it was fantastic. Then, in the time leading up to my match with Triple H, everyone somehow came to the conclusion that I would be the same! At first, everyone's expectations were not all that much. But then, everyone convinced themselve, "He's back!" How come a guy can be out for four months, and people say "It's gonna take him some time to come back...",but I'm out for four years, and they say, "He's bacl!" But it could be worse, and I appreciate that the history I've built causes people to believe so strongly in me. You always hope that you can leave something behind, and from a ring standpoint, I feel like I did.

RAW: Did you have doubts going into Summer Slam?
HBK: I didn't have serious doubts. I had qustions of what my body was capable of doing. Instincticely, I guess it was all still there, but four years is four years. That's a long time. I was excited, and I honestly believed it was a testimony to Jesus Christ being in my life. I'm physically incapable of doing a lot of things, and I hadn't been in the ring in so long, so the fact that it was so god and so special was because of Him. Either it's God, or I am the single greatest wrestler who ever lived - and that simply isn't true.
And that was the only reason I did this. Thoughts came into my head about coming back when I was in serious prayer sessions after Kevin [Nash] got hurt. I opened up the bible to the book of Joshua. The passage was Joshua 1:1. Moses had just died, and Joshua was taking over th echildren of Israel, and th eLord said, "Be strong and courageous, for I am with you, and I will lead you into the land that will be yours." And I thought, "Wow, I can do this." I was strong and courageous, because I believed He was with me, and He got me through it.

RAW: Was it something that was unthinkable to you four years ago?
HBK: When you've done this your whole life, you always think, "I wonder if I could do one more..." I've always thought about it, but over the last year, I was sure I was done. I wasn't gonna do it because of the way I feel about my family, and the risk of not being able to play with my son. To limit my quality of life in any way wasn't worth it. Nothing I do is worth losing my fanily. That's why I wasn't really sure if it was His will. But when I mentioned it to my wife, she said, "I have peace with it. Every time you've ever talked about it before, I haven't liked it. But I have peace with this." And so did I. It was just a matter of understanding the vision He gave me. And I believe I did.

RAW: Are there any old friends of yours from inside the business who are put off by the "new" Shawn Michaels?
HBK: Most of my friends wer very supportive and happy. Kevin Nash walked up to me when I first came back, and said, "You came out of that water a different man. I can see it!" Sean Waltman [X-Pac] said the same thing.
No one has said anything [negative], but you hear things. I'm sure there are still people saying, "We'll see the old Shawn. Something will happen." And I earned that. I don't judge anybody for saying that, because I was a son of a gun to deal with before. So any skepticism people might have is warranted. I think that's fine. I worry only about proving myself to one man, and the rest will take care of itself.

RAW: So you would so that you earned the reputation for being difficult that you got from those days?
HBK: Oh yeah, I have to. I really did. I don't deny it at all. I suppose I can make excuses. I was a son of a gun, and that works two ways. On one hand, a lot of the things that the guys enjoy now are around because I was difficult. But at the same time, there were ways I culd have accomplished the same things without being so difficult. But I do accept it, it's true. For any positives that there were - and I believe there were some - there were at least twice as many negatives.

RAW: How would you describe your current relationship with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon?
HBK: It's tremendous. Even in all those difficult times, it was. He always says, "I don't know why I never fired you." But I think it was because even with all the difficulties, he knew my heart. He knew that despite everything that was going on, there was always this persont hat he has now.
That's what makes this so enjoyable. And I think it's as fun for him as it is for me, and I know this is how he would have preferred it. He had to deal with me then because of the way I was. But he always stood by me, because I think he always thought I'd come around. The man never forsook me. You'd have to ask him why. I think maybe the Lord softened his heart - just towards me [laughs].

RAW: What was it like to finally be a part of the nWo, after all the years of you and Kevin Nash being in seperate companies?
HBK: It was a lot of fun. It's my understanding that the fans didn't get a kick out of it that much. But at this point in my carerr, I'm more concerned about the fulfillment I got from it. Maybe it's a little selfish. I wished the fans had enjoyed it.
It was fun for me to be back with my buddies. I missed Kevin, because all we used to do was sit around and laugh. From that perspective, it was very fun.

RAW: Triple H was also another one of your old friends. His rise can be traced - at least in part - to the rub that you gave him in D-Generation X. What's it like to see him come so far in the years since?
HBK: It's expected. I didn't think anything else would happen other than what has happened to his career. I knew he was gonna be successful. He was good then, and I knew he was only gonna get better. None of it's surprising to me.

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