AEW's Lance Archer Shares Ill-Fated Story Of Signing Up For Shawn Michaels' School

AEW star Lance Archer has remembered the time he almost joined Shawn Michaels' wrestling academy, which he couldn't join due to an unfortunate accident. 

Michaels ran the Shawn Michaels Wrestling Academy after retiring from in-ring action in 1998, training several wrestlers, one of whom was AEW star Bryan Danielson. Archer, on "The Hawk's Nest" podcast, said that he too was keen to join the academy, but a car accident caused him to miss out on that opportunity.

"I signed up for the school — and I would have been a part of the second class ever, which at that time Shawn was heavily involved in. Shawn was heavily involved in the first few classes, like the first, second, third, and maybe the fourth, I think he was involved in. Then he had his kid and some stuff happened or whatever and then he went back to wrestling or he went back to WWF at the time," he began. "I would have been a part of the second class but I just had a car accident."

With his car totalled, Archer neither had the money to get a new car to travel to the academy or pay the fees. He recalled Michaels' mom, Carol, who was a part of the staff at the academy, calling to inform him about being accepted into the school. He was told that he had to pay $3300 to join the school but told her that he didn't have the money.

He, luckily, wasn't injured in the accident and went on to find another training school in Texas to begin his pro wrestling career. But, his first appearance in a wrestling ring was not a pleasant experience as he said that the school asked him to perform various moves during his tryout, which he said was a painful experience. He later went on to wrestle in TNA, had a brief stint in WWE and a run in Japan, before signing with AEW in 2020.