Wrestling for a live TV audience was new for Shawn Michaels, but the journey since then has been amazing.
In an interview with The Mirror, Shawn Michaels opened up about his thoughts on the first ever edition of Monday Night Raw back on January 11, 1993:
Oh my goodness. I was talking about that the other day. It's something, gosh, I can remember thinking about this whole Monday night thing and it being live and being prime time. It was just so very different at the time and such a big risk to all of us. Most of us had all been a part of the Saturday morning or late Saturday night wrestling shows for as long as we could remember. And this was a really big jump to prime time and live television.
I can remember there being so many unanswered questions going into it and wondering 'gosh, will this work?" and "how long is it going to last?" There were so many unknowns. It's amazing now to realise, 25 years later, it's now three hours long and heck, it's practically done - I don't want to say in our sleep, so to speak - but it's become our normal. It's been an amazing journey to be a part of it all these years.
On that night, HBK faced off against Max Moon, also known as Paul Diamond. Sporting a number of gimmicks in the promotion, Moon being the last, Diamond never had a real prominent role in the promotion. Michaels chalks it up to people trying to find their way in a promotion like WWE. But he did feel more comfortable being in the ring with someone who he knew well.
Yeah, you couldn't beat the fact of going into your first show or live event and having the opportunity to be out there with someone who I was already so comfortable with. That was obviously a huge help because as many folks know, he and I had been in the ring quite a bit beforehand. Certainly going into such a big event, to have the opportunity to be out there with somebody you were so comfortable with, was a huge advantage, for sure.
Sure. And look, that was a very different time, a lot of things were going on in the wrestling business, for all of us. We were all very young and all trying to kind of find our way as well as find out who we were. When you do that, you stumble through it a lot. Hopefully, when all is said and done, everybody is better for it. It really was, I look back on it and I think to myself 'gosh, it couldn't have been more advantageous to be out there with a guy who knew what he was doing'. And again, somebody I felt like I could have a wrestling match in my sleep with.
Raw 25 will mark twenty five years of the long running WWE program later tonight.
