WWE legend Shawn Michaels opens up on DX’s ‘old school heat,’ popularity of the crotch chop and more - Fox News

Shawn Michaels went from the "Heartbreak Kid" to one of the founding members of one of the most revolutionary factions the pro wrestling industry had ever seen at the time.

D-Generation X was formed in 1997 with Michaels, Triple H (also known as Paul Levesque) and Chyna (also known as Joan Laurer) as their response to the direction of the company.

In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Michaels said it was a seamless transition to go from his "Heartbreak Kid" gimmick to the "degenerate.".

"It certainly was because, as I stated on a fair amount of occasions, it was a part of who I really was at the time," he said.

And at that time, there just wasn’t much that I was afraid of and even (Triple H), as everyone knows is probably the most sensible out of all of us, he was also as equally as frustrated and just felt like this was his time and truly felt passionate about the direction we felt the business was going.

While fans have seemingly fond memories of joining in unison and yelling "Suck It!" in sold-out arenas during "RAW is War" shows, Michaels told Fox News Digital there were some issues with fans at first.

Shawn Michaels poses with Triple H.

While Michaels and his DX cohorts were getting heat from the fans, those wrestlers with long legacies in the industry did not exactly like it either even as going against the grain proved to be a shrewd business move in the midst of the Monday Night Wars with World Championship Wrestling.

"Everybody looked at what we were doing as unprofessional, not respecting the business, it all went against tradition, the purists and everybody else.

Now, everybody thinks it’s the greatest thing in the world … It started there was just a lot of animosity because they thought we were exposing the business and breaking the fourth wall," Michaels explained.

Shawn Michaels and Triple H roll out on a tank.

"I get it because it just went against the traditional values and saying things that were really real and that’s just something you don’t do.

And we had no idea, I certainly didn’t, that it would sort of harness that kind of appeal to that kind of rebellious attitude that was going on at the time," he told Fox News Digital.

WWE personality Shawn Michaels appears at a news conference announcing the WWE Network at the 2014 International CES at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas on January 8, 2014 in Las Vegas

When we were inside those ropes with each other it really was a lot of guys just having fun with their buddies," he said

Ryan Gaydos is the sports editor for Fox News and Fox Business