Shawn Michaels

I learned very early that you don't get time back. I'd miss my children growing up, so that's the reason I retired.

It's one of the things, certainly for me, anyway: I'm learning to take a bigger role in the things that I'm associated with.

I like learning new stuff, also, and I can sit there and watch shows on National Geographic and the Discovery Channel or stuff like that and learn something new. I think once you've gone through such a long stage of learning one thing, you're not as well-rounded as you'd like to be.

People will constantly bring up my past and throw it in my face, but the Creator of the Universe doesn't. If you ask forgiveness from Him, then it's gone forever. The past is never brought up to shame you or degrade you.

If I'm appearing on 'Raw,' then I'm usually there to help sell tickets to something, and that's when you see the 'HBK' Shawn Michaels come out. At panels, I can be more open and honest and show some more humility. They don't want me talking about my family on TV, but I can in a panel setting.

Even though I wrestled Ric Flair very early on in my career, it was a short match, so getting to wrestle him later on in my career was a benchmark. Wrestling Hulk Hogan was a benchmark for me.

It's fascinating to go somewhere where you're away from everything. There are no houses, no buildings, no roads, no people. And for a little less extreme hunting, any place in the West - Colorado, Utah, Montana - that's just beautiful country.

You see the standard hunting show; it's an outdoor television show. A lot of times, it's just a guy sitting in a tree, waiting on an animal. I don't think it does it justice, and I don't think it captures the enjoyment and the splendor of the incredible outdoors and the feeling of being out there.

I think I was given a gift to wrestle. And I think when I came back, I had a much better appreciation of that. And I believe the way I went about doing it made me better at it. I didn't identify myself with the job as I did so much in the '90s. In the '90s, I didn't know who I was other than 'the wrestler.'

No, I don't want to go back and wrestle again... But some big bubble could break, and I might need money like everybody else.

When I returned to wrestling, I went back a changed man. I had adopted a new way of thinking. All I wanted was for God to help me be a good witness on the platform He had brought me back to.

There were times that we'd be in the locker room there before everyone else, and a guy would walk in, say, 'Is this the Kliq locker room?' So we'd draw with a sharpie on the back of a program and write 'Kliq locker room'. I can promise you that none of those signs were ever on WWE letterhead.