Shawn Michaels Speaks About Jacy Jayne & Kendal Grey’s Respective Ascensions, Finding Balance Of Not Giving Them Everything Too Soon

Shawn Michaels speaks about the women’s division.

Peter Rosenberg recorded a live edition of Cheap Heat, and one of his guests was NXT overseer Shawn Michaels.

Rosenberg introduced a conversation about former WWE EVOLVE Women’s Champion Kendal Grey, and there was a line about how to go about not giving talents too much too soon. Michaels then spoke on that:

“There’s two different aspects of it is… in today’s environment, in about two or three weeks, they’re putting you in the Hall of Fame. You have to be careful with that, and what it does to the superstars themselves. You never know, on a personal level, are they starting to believe their own hype or are they not thankful? Kendal’s obviously not one of those individuals at all. That’s part of the writing and the producing of shows. Doing your best to try to guide the ship as best as you can. It’s always kind of easy to go for the instant gratification. Sometimes, that will work and be a positive thing. But, my feeling is in today’s environment, they move on pretty quick, so you have to be kind of very careful about when and where you do things.”

As an example, former NXT Women’s Champion Jacy Jayne was brought up. Michaels dove into her acension.

“It just happened,” Michaels said about Jacy Jayne’s NXT Women’s Title loss. “I was the worst dude in the world when Jacy Jayne beat Stephanie Vaquer for the title. ‘Worst decision in the world. Dumbest thing I’d ever seen,’ and then, 280-something-odd days later, she is a complete superstar — Jacy Jayne — and she got to that level that I know she aspired to but I think in the eyes of the people, she did as well, and I would argue that a lot of people, when it came to Toxic Attraction, she was number three, and that is not the case these years later and I have no doubt — and I’m sure Jacy would say the same — is at some point, many of those years earlier, she thought she was ready then. She’s a more complete individual now. We have to balance that… Yes, it’s NXT and it’s a television show. But we also have to balance the development of these individuals and what’s best for them from a career standpoint and sometimes the two don’t always jive, and it’s tough. You can’t have it happen too soon with them if they’re not ready to handle it and honestly, if we’re not ready creatively to get there.”

New NXT Women’s Champion Lola Vice and Jacy Jayne headlined week one of NXT Revenge in a title rematch, and Vice emerged victorious to retain.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Cheap Heat with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.