Shawn Michaels Recalls The Moment He Realized How Influential His WWE Career Was

Shawn Michaels being a major inspiration to younger wrestlers and other fans of his is something that's been discussed openly for decades. Numerous wrestlers routinely cited him as an influence on them. However, it took a long time for it to click with Michaels that he was, on some level, a global celebrity whose presence had a genuine impact on the lives of many of his fans. At least that's how he explained it in an interview on the "Monsters of the Morning" radio show on 104.1 WTKS-FM radio in Orlando, Florida, part of an "NXT"-themed broadcast from the WWF Performance Center.

"After I retired, that's maybe the first time you start going out on appearances, or [in my case] I was doing a hunting show, went over to somewhere in Africa, we come to this very small airport, and literally all of a sudden, every person in the airport is just coming [towards us] and we're all like, 'Oh my goodness, what's going on?'" Michaels explained. "Then they start coming towards me ... The [equivalent of] TSA guys are coming over. And you just forget how big this brand is, where it goes."

That was when it clicked in his head that he was part of something bigger than he realized.

"You run across people at appearances who can tell you where they were at a particular moment during this match that you did and how that changed [their life]," Michaels explained. "And again, you go, 'Oh my goodness.' It's kind of weird [to me] because I'm just being a professional. We're not curing cancer, here."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "The Monsters in the Morning" with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.