News On When Shawn Michaels First Realized His Potential, R-Truth Reveals How His WWE Return Was Kept Secret, Triple H Praises CM Punk, & More News
— During a recent appearance on the “Insight” podcast, Shawn Michaels revealed that he first recognized his potential at WrestleMania 10.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On when he realised his potential: “That’s something that, again, you’ll regurgitate out of your mouth. But it wasn’t for me until, I think, 1995 that I felt like I had a real chance to be a main event type of individual. It wasn’t until 1995 that and I guess that was at a decade in.”
On WrestleMania 10?: “Honestly, that was the first time. That was the first time that I really felt like I can do this stuff. And there’s a landscape now in the WWE that I can see the possibility of that happening.”
On there being two eras of Shawn Michaels: “Well, sure, before and after. One from a personal standpoint, obviously, we see that we knew the difference, and we know whatever it is you want to call it before the back injury, after the back injury. Before saved, after saved, whichever way, troublemaker, much easier to deal with. Honored to have had both and both serve their purposes, certainly in my life. I always tell people, of course, I would love to go back and have had the opportunity to do the first part different. However, I’d be lying, I guess, if I didn’t say that I don’t know where I’d be at today if I didn’t go through that. And I don’t know how successful I’d have become had I not been that way. So yes, a lot of it, people look at as very negative, but I didn’t think I had any other chance if I didn’t push that way. Probably overly paranoid, I don’t know, whatever it is you want to call it. I just didn’t think I had the luxury of what everybody else did. And I don’t know that’s fair.
“So don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to justify it. Everything stems from an insecurity within myself about who I was. None of it had to do with the ability. Because look, a lot of times in this job, especially when you’re young, you say, I’m good enough. We make applications to this line of work like you do in football or basketball. If I can do A, B, C and D, I ought to be the highest paid. I ought to be able to do this. I ought to be able to do that. Our job isn’t like that, because it’s not what those are, and it was very hard to get that through my incredibly thick skull at that time in my life. I think on paper, I was better than 99.9% of the people that were in the wrestling ring. That’s irrelevant. It’s not totally irrelevant, not like it doesn’t mean anything, but again, whatever it is you want to say. There are a lot of people that get a kick out of saying, ‘You didn’t draw money, you didn’t do this, you didn’t do that.’ I can’t argue with that.”
— R-Truth returned to WWE at Money In The Bank 2025 after just a week away from the company.
During a recent interview with “Undisputed,” R-Truth discussed how his return was kept secret.
At the pay-per-view event, R-Truth attacked John Cena after his contract had not been renewed the previous Sunday, which caused him to switch to his temporary Ron Killings character.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On being snuck into the venue for his return: “I came in like I was entering Fort Knox. I went to Money in the Bank feeling like I was David Copperfield. Poof, I was there, and it was kept undercover.”
On being able to switch between the comedic and serious versions of his character now: “People have said they love the scale and magnitude of my career. You could see it that night during the [WWE Raw] promo and feel it that night. People reacted all over social media.”
— Speaking at TEDSports Indianapolis, Triple H commented on CM Punk’s unique connection with fans and why he remains such a compelling figure for the company. He said,
“Then there are characters — and I’ll just use this as an example — like CM Punk, who’s a massive character for us. But with CM Punk, CM Punk is Phil Brooks, his real name. Phil Brooks is CM Punk, and it’s really difficult — if you went down the character of CM Punk, it’s really hard to delineate that from Phil Brooks. Almost the same person, and Phil Brooks’ attitude and his excitement or his displeasure with things comes out in his character. It’s on his sleeve, right?”
He continued, “But, that’s a great character for us because you never know the blend of is that real? Is that not real? Are they taking a real situation and ramping it up, turning the volume on it to make it worthwhile?”
— IShowSpeed took an insane spear from Bron Breakker at this year’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view event, and Triple H praised the streamer for handling it like a pro. The moment, which went viral from the February 1st pay-per-view event, had Triple H sharing his thoughts during an appearance on the “Club 520” podcast.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On IShowSpeed taking the spear: “I don’t think anyone wants to get speared like Speed. Out of his shoes.”
On if the shoes aspect was part of the plan: “Yeah, that was definitely part of it. He had no complaints. It was a lot harder than he thought it was going to be, but he had no complaints. My hats off to him for that. A lot of guys come in with that mentality, ‘Hey, I want to get put through a table. I want to get speared.’ Right up until it happens, then they think, ‘Maybe I should have rethought that.’”
(h/t – Fightful)
