Hi guys I am the greatest sports entertainer of all times,
Tommaso Ciampa and joining in me today is quite possibly,
whom am I getting he the greatest he is the greatest.
>> Second [LAUGH].
>> Professional wrestler of all time.
Shawn Michaels, the heartbreak kid.
[MUSIC]
We are going to be doing a very special edition of WWE playback as we
watch a classic WWE world title match between Shawn Michaels,
the Heartbreak Kid and Triple H?
>> Just so you know a little background on this, this match.
I wasn't sure which one it was.
And now I see that it's like, I think it's that RAW we did in San Antonio.
Prior to this, this was another opportunity for
us to sorta go back in looks like flair and
steamboat did on many occasions and of course, Tommaso Johnny [LAUGH].
We were sort of a storyline hundred, HBK that was always sort of there and this
was a sort of an opportunity that we were gonna have some time to go back to it, but
again it turned out to be really, really good.
>> Now, where are you at as far as?
Hometown crowd.
Obviously, they're gonna give you a different type of energy.
You know that going out for the match?
Is there a different type of preparation for you?
>> No, I'll say it.
So obviously it's been many years.
I've been in San Antonio numerous times, but look, there's a comfort level.
It's almost, again, where you feel like I can sorta get away with anything.
I could really, [LAUGH] I could really.
>> Yeah. >> Screw up badly, and
they'd very forgiving and understanding.
But as you know,
look, anytime you're working with that kind of NXT, so to speak.
It's hard to beat and
obviously you're a ton more relaxed, open to anything and again,
clearly in a good mood because there's no question about whether you've got her.
>> Yep and now I've cheated.
I've watched this match ahead, just to kinda refresh my memory and based on what
you said, there's so much you can get away with in front of your hometown crowd.
Because it just doesn't matter what you do, they're gonna eat it up,
they're gonna love it.
Yeah, very forgiving, I've always enjoyed when I get to come home to Milwaukee and
be around Turner Hall and stuff with NXT.
It's always a very, very receptive crowd and
it just is, as a performer it kinda puts you at ease.
>> Well, so and obviously cause you and I are,
honestly you're more of a Hunter type good guy than certainly I would be,
but to your point, I can still sort of I can go ultimate.
Cheesy, good guy and they won't boo you out of the building.
>> Right, yeah.
>> So, to your point when it is, when it's your hometown,
though just about let you do whatever you want and again, that is as you know,
it's great to not even have to have that in your head anyway and just go.
This is such a subtle thing that I love watching it back is
Hunter's entrance and how Ric is just five beats behind them.
And it's just I don't know something about it to be as
one of the greatest that ever laced up a pair of boots
gives the spotlight the Hunter's who's the champ right now.
But his presence, is just something about that,
like him being in the shadow there, he's up to no good, he's who he is.
>> Ric was still spot on money, at this time.
>> Yeah. >> He would,
he could, he was fantastic out there, he would hustle out there.
He was working full time just again walking back five steps and
that's a lyric I mean, they get Ric looks like a million bucks [LAUGH].
>> He gets active in this one too.
>> Yeah, he does.
>> Do you have any backstory to how the water became a thing for 100 veterans?
You have any idea?
>> No, I don't.
Like I said that was something he, started after I had left.
I will say this too Tommaso,
there are things that I look at now again that we have talked about in class.
That because the business has changed and
advanced so much, that I see myself not doing
things that I asked you guys to do because you have taken it so far.
And now we felt we were detailed then and now we're even into more detail.
Because the fans has gotten a heck a lot smarter and a lot more sophisticated.
It progressively made our jobs harder for us.
>> [LAUGH] >> More and more difficult.
>> Well, that's on you guys, again, cuz you guys have taken it to another level,
which hey, it's a good thing.
The wrestling fan, I believe, is happy about that.
>> I love so much about this opening sequence,
all the way to the strap from the headlock hold on,
when Hunter gives you the back elbow, it just looks so spot on right on the nose.
The simplicity of you can do the struck then play on there and
it's going to get such a great reaction, you know.
>> Almost went into the first row.
>> You didn't go with the moonsault Kurt Angle style.
>> No, [LAUGH] great to have two guys that know no matter how far you're going
they're gonna get out there catches well.
>> Earl one of your favorite guys to work with.
>> For sure, yeah, I mean look there was a time when.
I wouldn't go out there without him.
[LAUGH] >> Really?
>> Plain and simple, yes, yeah.
He worked so hard.
Look, he was one of those very first guys,
I get that I ever really encountered that I understood, my goodness,
if I make it a point to really make use of him and his energy.
Feel his count sequence everything that he was doing.
That would help me.
>> My first official that was like that was Todd Sinclair, who I had on
independence, but I always remembered, he give me a lot of feedback after events.
And it was one of those things where I was like, man, he's in the ring.
>> For three, four, five matches a night, where I'm only doing one.
And he was in the ring at the time with Samoa Joe and CM Punk, and so many others.
So it's amazing the experience and
the stuff that they pick up that you could just, if your ears are open,
eyes are open, you just listen and you can pick up a lot of tips from those guys.
>> Yeah, as you know, Tommaso,
once you find another element that you can sort of exploit or use to your advantage.
>> Right. [LAUGH]
>> In a match, man, you're all over it.
Makes your job easier.
[LAUGH] >> Tricks, man,
the more tricks, the better.
>> When you having a referee that isn't a hustler, so to speak,
that stands out more than anything, I mean, now.
>> Right. >> Everybody sort of has understood that.
Referee is unbelievably valuable if you want them to be.
And so, I think there aren't
many referees that are bonafide athletes, you know what I mean?
And folks that have been in the ring, most of it more often than not.
So they really have a better understanding,
I think that certainly than they once did.
Unreal, the crowd just responding to every strike thrown.
>> Well, to your point, this whole match again, as you look at it,
I don't know that you'd have been able to do that say in the garden if I wasn't in
front of my hometown crowd to where even sort of the basics.
It's satisfying to them, they're enjoying it cuz again it's, because you're out
there again, two guys who got a decent amount on TV time, always a story there,
and again it's a match that in this particular instance they wanna see.
You don't have to do everything, under the sun.
>> Talk about an old trick that always, always works.
>> The strecth [LAUGH].
>> You get that guy on the outside, whether he's gonna pull the ropes so
you can't reach him, he's gonna grab onto his hand either way.
Works everytime.
>> Yep.
And once again I'm gonna go out on a lead and say.
Where do we get to take advantage of our well being out there [LAUGH] so awesome.
I just love that H, Flair is so awesome, but I'll tell you that's the look.
This is also so and I don't know,
what the number was on hunters reigns at this time.
But again, I go back it's so funny because I can,
I look at the guy who went out there that European match
with where he was running across [LAUGH] the ring.
And we were just having so much fun when we started out and
then the growth of him when he took over DX.
Then going into the game.
And again, I don't know, just sort of evolving,
honestly not blowing smoke, not because he's my buddy.
Sincerely, one of the absolute best that has ever done the stunt.
And again, this isn't even, he still has farther to go.
He was, I feel like this point just sort of.
Peeking and riding out a guy that was everything that is a Ring General.
>> What I like a lot about his evolution of his character too
is that at the core always the same guy.
A little bit of a difference obviously between The Hunter Hearst Helmsey.
But once he got out of that role and started moving in towards the stuff
with the DX whether it was that or evolution or doing his own stuff.
He could do a little comedy, he could be super ruthless, but
always the same person you just see in different layers of the character which,
today is so important that you have that human element to you.
>> Yeah, well, as you know, we've talked about it a lot of times.
Look, there was a time where you could do the same thing all
the time and they almost got to where, that's what they wanted to see.
Now that attention span is very different there's gotta be an evolution.
[INAUDIBLE] You have to evolve, emotion.
All of those types of things have to change in you.
You can still stay to your point, at your core the same guy, but
theres gotta be just small tweaks here and there of growth and he has and he did it.
He did it fantastic.
And again, it's like it doesn't last 25 years.
Let's put it that way doesn't last that long.
If you're not doing it correctly, because it'll run its course.
>> I feel like television had a big effect on that aspect of wrestling.
Like cuz somewhere over the last decade or so,
like the TV drama series have become so different.
Where characters are so layered and there's like as a fan,
you start to have these forums and
websites where you're talking about the storylines of the characters.
And I think that then infiltrated wrestling where, it wasn't okay anymore to
just have the one tagline, go out there, do the same thing every night.
>> Right.
>> Kinda required more from you for that.
>> Yeah, well, and also, again, didn't think about it, they were simple and
easy works every time.
>> I also love the nuance of.
Him hurting his own knee by doing the jumping at you.
And then you immediately capitalizing with the figure four which with Ric there just
means even more.
And then Rick is the one who helps him escape his own hole.
>> Yeah.
>> There's just so many nuances layered into that little change.
>> Yeah you mentioned it earlier.
Look, you have to evolve, you have to change, you don't, you're not out there
every three weeks now, they're seeing you darn near every week.
And that is something again, Ric didn't have to wrestle every week.
[LAUGH] Hogan didn't have to wrestle.
>> Not in front of a national audience, yeah.
>> You're right, exactly.
>> Yeah, this is,I love it.
[INAUDIBLE] >> [LAUGH]
>> Man, that hometown crowd.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah, and I will say,
even me from fire set, that's lazy fire ladies and gentlemen.
But it's because.
>> Your hometown man.
[LAUGH] >> They'll let me get away with it, yeah.
>> They're okay with it.
>> Yeah.
>> I love about this era and all the times before it.
Just, I like crowd noise as opposed to the constant need to chant something now.
>> Yeah.
>> Something feels so
much more organic about the crowd noise in something like this.
>> Well, because it is organic.
>> World. >> And it is real, yeah.
I will say that's not to slight the fans now but
they've become a part of the show, they've got a role.
I think they feel and that's again that's quite all right, but
it was very different.
>> Man, just everybody on their feet, I love that.
>> Yeah.
>> Funny to think this is Monday Night Raw Main Event too.
>> Yeah.
It's about a 30 minute main event and you just don't see it often nowadays.
I feel like I don't know if you remember this Bischoff is clearly,
not on your side, correct at this time?
>> Yeah, but I think he get it [INAUDIBLE].
>> You kind of wants you gone.
>> Yeah, it was a little bit, he couldn't overtly come out and say it so
to speak, but yeah.
>> Right.
>> Yeah.
>> Almost needs a reason to fire you type of scenario?
>> Correct. >> Something to that [INAUDIBLE]
>> Well, look,
I'm not trying to be an outwardly biased.
General managers lack, you know what I mean?
>> Right, right.
>> [NOISE] >> And
that's what sorta worked about the end of this.
Again, he was able to lean on
the technicality but [LAUGH] >> [APPLAUSE]
>> Well, like any good villain,
there has to be a little bit of truth to what he says.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> And what he does, yeah.
>> That's what makes it work, for sure.
>> All right.
>> Yeah, well, look and I can remember and I know there's probably a lot of
people at home that'll listen to this and go I can't believe he said that.
[LAUGH] but it was Vince McMahon that said, look,
wrestling fans are, they're getting smarter, they're more sophisticated now,
we can't just do a lot of simplistic things anymore.
And again, I get a look,
I'll say that's what I think everybody enjoyed about Johnny and Tommaso.
But you guys.
Made that last, what almost three years, I mean two years easy and
that's almost impossible to do nowadays.
>> I did look it up.
This was listed as the fourth best Shawn Michaels vs Triple H match
of all time and the Internet knows so.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, I wonder when other ones say I bet you I bet you that's the best
regular match one.
I mean, because I'm an American imagine there's probably like a last man
standing around so like the one where I came back or something like that.
Because, [CROSSTALK].
>> I remember one that was thrown in there too.
>> Yeah. >> Think.
>> Well that's what I'm saying.
I mean, to me that was one of my all time favorite just,
at it's core, wrestling match.
And again, that's always fun to know that one of your best ones you had.
You just sort of went up there and flew by the seat of your pants.
>> Yeah, I will say this man, as much as I've gone into work with you and
Hunter over the last what five years or so.
It's never lost on me that you are still Shawn Michaels and
it's so surreal to watch, you were my favorite since a kid.
I think at this point I'm a sophomore, or junior high school in this matcha
happening and to watch this back now with you, we're commentating on it, it's
gonna be seen by that same WWE audience that I was apart of my entire life.
And it's just two of my favorites going at it and
pretty cool to me to pick your brain a little bit and
just to be able to shot with you now as a co-worker in some degree.
So, yeah, [INAUDIBLE]. >> Yeah, that's fun to me.
I wanna wish Helmsley Hunter happy 25 anniversary.
He's absolutely my best friend, one of the most important people in the world
to me and it is for me, too, Tommaso, and I won't get too lovey dovey on you.
But you know how special you guys are to me, and obviously he is, too.
And for me now to have those two worlds coming together,
my job, I am the happiest dude in the world doing my job.
Because it is you guys, mean the world to me,
NXT needs the word name Hunter and obviously this company always has.
And so like I said it to me it is always a joy to go to work every day, and
I appreciate you guys making it easy on an old man like me
to get to go out like this is pretty freaking phenomenal.
>> Well, I appreciate it man and thank you for letting me be a part of this with you.
So Hunter happy 25th.
Amazing career that is just continuing.
>> [LAUGH]. >> And I look forward
to the next 25 years man.
>> Here we go, thank you man.