Shawn Michaels and The Rock never worked a singles bout together and were only linked when Michaels was a special guest referee for two of The Rock’s contests. According to sources and hearsay, Michaels’ attitude toward The Rock in the 1990s drove Rock to refuse to work with him. In 2017, Rocky Johnson stated that he heard Rock was unhappy because Michaels caught him too hard with the Sweet Chin Music, which resulted in a fight between the two.
Michaels retired in 1998 but continued to make irregular appearances in the years that followed, notably as a special guest referee in events involving The Rock. In 2002, he made his full-time return against Triple H at WWE SummerSlam. The event was headlined by The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar.
The Rock and Shawn Michaels never had the opportunity to share the ring on a one-on-one basis. While there could be many reasons behind it as Vince was calling the shots and he may not have found interest in this feud, but one can only imagine the amount of spark this feud would have created. Speaking to Logan Paul on ImPAULsive, Michaels was asked where things stood with The Rock.
I’ve never worked with him. His daughter [Simon Johnson] is here [in NXT]. The times I’ve seen him, we’ve always gotten along okay. I don’t think it was as bad as everyone made it out to be. I know that I gave everybody a hard time back when I was younger. When I came back, I made sure I went up to everybody and was at least like, ‘Sorry.’ That’s the best that I could do. When I came back in 2002, and I knew there was going to be, ‘We’ll see.’ It was important to me to go around and make amends and at least tell everyone, ‘Sorry about the way I was. I have no excuse, I’m willing to earn back whatever. If you never talk to me again, I’m cool with that too.
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