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Shawn Michaels will be a star attraction when WWE hosts its 25th anniversary edition of Monday Night Raw next week.

The company is celebrating the landmark with a special show broadcasting from two locations in New York City on January 22.

Raw will emanate from the Barclays Center and the Manhattan Center - the location for the first episode starring Michaels back in 1993.

The 52-year-old is set to appear as part of the legendary faction D-Generation X alongside Triple H, X-Pac, Road Dogg and Billy Gunn.

The four-time world champion is currently on a spoken word tour of the UK and Ireland with British company Inside the Ropes .

Considered by many to be the greatest in-ring talent of all time, he earned the nicknames The Showstopper and Mr WrestleMania.

The 52-year-old spoke to the Mirror about the talents he'd love to work with today, his favourite Raw memories and Royal Rumble wins.

(Image: © WWE)

How excited are you to be a part of the 25th anniversary episode of Raw with D-Generation X?

It will be a blast. It's one of those things from a comfort standpoint and thinking about all the unbelievable, crazy things we did down the years on Monday Night Raw... it will be something that is in my wheelhouse and a lot of fun to do. The reuniting of DX will be a blast.

It's going to be simulcast, which I don't think has been done for quite a long time, from the Barclays Center and the Manhattan Center. I think there will be a lot of exciting things going on that night. And I say that because I have found out absolutely nothing! People keep asking me, which one am I going to be at, and I don't know yet. I think they might keep all of us in the dark, until right before show time, so it's exciting for everybody.

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You competed on the first episode of Raw, live at the Manhattan Center on January 11, 1993. What are your memories of that show?

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.

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You had the match of the night, successfully defending your Intercontinental Championship against Max Moon, at that time portrayed by Paul Diamond. He was a former tag team partner of yours in Texas All-Star Wrestling and a rival of your tag team, The Rockers, as Kato in the New Orient Express.

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.

Looking back and watching the match, you find yourself thinking 'I wonder why it didn't work out for him in WWE long term?'

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.

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What do you think has been the secret to Raw's longevity?

I honestly think it's being live. You are still always running that risk of it not going the way that one plans or hopes it will. There is still a question mark there when you are doing it live. I think that adds something that you just can't duplicate. There is always the opportunity or the possibility of something going amiss, so to speak, whether it's physically, verbally or whatever. You can't script everything and you just think about all the things that have happened over the years, good, bad or otherwise... I don't want to encourage anything bad happening, but when it's live, you just don't know.

We've had so many of those type of moments over the years that I think that has got to be the one thing. You can be 99.9% sure we've got everything covered and you still just don't know because life or something can change in an instant. If it happens in that two or three hours now, then it's going to be caught on camera. That's something you can't deny, there is nothing more real than that. That's why almost nobody does live television, because of that risk.

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What would be your top three Raw moments of the last 25 years?

I guess I would bookend them with that first Raw... and my retirement thing and saying goodbye [on March 29, 2010]. They were both very big moments for me. The third would be a tough one. I've had so many special moments with the WWE in general. Trying to limit any of my favourites to just three is very challenging for me.

The hour match with John Cena is probably in there [on April 23, 2007], I think about some of the stuff Jericho and I did, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Steve Austin, Bret Hart, Hunter, there are so many good things there. And of course some of the stuff I did with Undertaker. It's very hard to file it down to just three.

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You were part of the more cartoonish/superhero era of WWE in the late 1980s/early 1990s and a key figure in the shift to the Attitude Era, boom period of the mid to late 1990s, which the success of Raw was central to. Did you have a sense at the time of the significance of those days in wrestling history? Or were you too busy having fun?

No, you know what, I think we were just so busy doing it. It's great now to look back in the rear view mirror and you can see it and understand it and grasp it, because you have the time to take it in and absorb it. But to your point, when you're doing it, you're so caught up in the here and the now. You have no idea. To us, it's a ladder match and you're going to have it and you don't know that it's going to turn into this thing. DX, you don't know that it will turn into this thing. Hell in a Cell, you don't know that it will turn into this thing.

You're trying to do your best but I don't think any of us, certainly I didn't, I can only speak for myself, I don't ever remember going out there and thinking to myself 'we're going to create a memory here'. I will have to admit, I didn't have that much forethought, wisdom or anything. Ha ha ha. I'm a simpleton I guess at best! To look back on it now is absolutely wonderful, but at the time you're just doing it and trying to do the best job you can.

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Fans could quickly point to the biggest stars in Raw's history - who do you think are the underappreciated stars, who contributed a lot to the success of the show?

That would be countless guys, throughout the years. I think of all the different factions we had and all the guys who made up those groups, the different tag teams we had and the guys who made up those groups... you can always sort of point to those staple guys you saw at the beginning and end, and those were big important benchmarks within this show, but it's that middle area, that you have to keep strong.

That takes a lot of work from a lot of people. You think of all the names over the last 25 years who have come through the WWE, it's a list as long as your arm for heaven's sake. That's a tough one to nail down to just a few guys.

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Your D-Generation X partner X-Pac strikes me as someone who was a key figure for Raw in its early years and then again during the Attitude Era.

Yeah, for sure. Then you think of all the other guys who came in and out, [Kevin] Nash and [Scott] Hall in the early years. One guy I think about a lot is Kane. I mean my goodness and he's still doing stuff there. Just the longevity that he's had and the way he's that engine that could, that just keeps chugging along, all those years. That's a pretty steady, sturdy thing to have.

And again I know he's my buddy but Hunter, who has been there and stepped in and out of different roles down the years, I think is a pretty amazing thing. You have guys like that who have stepped in and out here and there but are still here all these years later.

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You're now retired and have consistently said it's not something you intend to go back on. But when you look at the current Raw roster, who do you think 'if I could have a match with someone, I would pick him?'

Honestly, my answer is always 'gosh, most of them'. Because there are so many. Being there for so long, I had a match with just about everybody. Now I go and it's nothing but new and fresh faces. And different styles. You can't help but think 'I could do that with this guy and this with that guy'. For me, it's most everybody because it's 100% variety. In the eyes of a WWE fan this would be fresh and new because it's absolutely nothing they have seen before.

That was very hard to come by when you were there for a long time. You have to step away for a long time and have that whole deck reshuffled. It's been almost 10 years since I retired. I'm not trying to dodge the question ha ha. There is just a litany of guys. I can go from Braun Strowman to Finn Balor and then you think about all the different guys between.

Last year there were rumours that we could see a match between you and AJ Styles at the Royal Rumble in San Antonio. What was the story there?

There was talk about it possibly happening at WrestleMania. I think he's an an unbelievably talented young man. I wish I was 10 to 15 years younger because there are so many great guys. But it's very important to me, I wouldn't have retired unless I was ready to walk away. I'm flattered that every year when WrestleMania comes up people talk about me coming back, but I enjoy my time with my family, I enjoy watching WrestleMania and I also enjoy watching WWE move into the future.

It's very important that continues to happen and the only way for it to do so is for some of us in a dignified way to walk away. Much as it would be interesting to be in there with some of those young men, it's their time now and I think it's important that we focus on them and the future of the WWE.

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You were the special guest referee for a match between Drew McIntyre and Adam Cole at NXT San Antonio in November [which ended with Michaels giving a superkick to Cole's Undisputed ERA teammate Kyle O'Reilly]. What is it like working with the NXT roster?

I think a great number of them have a phenomenal future and unbelievable opportunity with the WWE. From Roderick Strong to Johnny Gargano, Drew McIntyre, Adam Cole, Velveteen Dream, Sanity... there are a number of men and women down there I think are so talented, which speaks to the future of the WWE looking very bright.

I had a great time, it was a fun match to be able to get out there again and more importantly, I very much enjoy working with those guys. It really has reignited my passion and fire for the WWE again. I gotta tell you, I've grown attached to a great number of those men and women down there. As fun as it was for me to live out my dreams, I've got to say I'm getting so much joy and satisfaction from doing what I can to help them have the same opportunity. I absolutely thoroughly love being there, working with them and watching them go out, do well and succeed.

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This year's Royal Rumble will be held on January 28. As a two-time winner, what is your favourite memory of that event?

Well it's got to be the one I went in first and won [in 1995]. More importantly because of the way that one ended. That was very different at the time, we did something new and creative, giving you the impression Davey Boy Smith won [Smith threw Michaels over the top rope and celebrated but Michaels, who had only touched the floor with one foot, attacked Smith from behind and eliminated him]. That's when we first started to really think creatively outside the box with the rumble and do something different. That was my favourite because of the way it ended.

It was brilliant. The magical finish with Undertaker in 2007 was special too.

Oh my goodness, in San Antonio, when he came out last. That was pretty darn cool as well, I have to agree with you.

(Image: FilmMagic via Getty)

You will be on Raw 25 with your D-Generation X teammates and close friends like Triple H, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair. How fortunate do you feel that you all get to be a part of this together, when so many legends are sadly no longer with us?

And none of us ever lose sight of that. I can tell you this much, for me, the greatest thing about this job now, are these kind of times. When we get to come back, whether it's at WrestleMania or something like this, Raw's 25th anniversary. I still get to come back and sit around in the locker room with all the guys, whether it's [Steve] Austin, [Chris] Jericho, Mick Foley, whatever the case may be, Kurt Angle... and talk about the memories and the things that we got to do over the years and that we were all a part of.

I know my guys, I know my buddies, none of us in a million years would ever have thought that 25 years later, we would all get asked to come back because we were a part of so many big moments in the history of this 25-year-old, long-running television shows. It's mind-blowing sometimes, it really is and it doesn't lose its lustre for us. We're all at a very different place now and we all sit there very reflective and enjoy it. You throw The Undertaker in there and it's amazing. All of these years later, to sit around and get to do it again, is a pretty neat thing.

Tickets are still available here for the Inside the Ropes show at The Clapham Grand in London on Thursday, January 18.

Raw 25 will take place at the Barclays Center and Manhattan Center in New York City on Monday, January 22.

You can watch the event live on Sky Sports Main Event or Sky Sports Arena at 1am (on Tuesday, January 23).

Mirror Sport will also be covering the event live with updates, analysis and reaction throughout the night.