When the wrestling world learned that Mandy Rose, the then NXT Women's Champion of over one year, was being let go by WWE for positing salacious pictures on her FanTime page against the company's wishes, it quite literally took the professional wrestling world by storm.

Say what you will about Rose's in-ring efforts and prospects heading into the future, whether she could parlay her success into a championship run on either RAW or SmackDown or if that shtick wouldn't fly on the main roster and would be re-packaged accordingly, the leader of Toxic Attraction was one of the top stars on the NXT roster regardless of gender and was a featured part of the company's television week-in and week-out as a result.

Fortunately, Shawn Michaels finally commented on the firing of Rose during his media call ahead of NXT Vengeance Day, and needless to say, he added a pretty interesting wrinkle to a story that initially seemed pretty cut and dry.

“Obviously, not the ideal situation,” Michaels said via Fightful. “I will say, if I’m allowed to say it for the record, I didn’t fire her. I can’t fire anybody. Only thing correct about any of that is that I handle creative. It was unfortunate. I think Mandy was fantastic for us. I absolutely enjoyed working with her. She was a phenomenal champion. We would have loved things to have gone different and been able to build our story with Roxanne, but I was put in a position to where I had to make a call creatively, and so we did that. It’s one of the things that I’ve learned, doing this job, nothing comes before the brand. We have to put those things forward and that’s what we did. Roxanne was certainly where we were going regardless, we just went a few weeks earlier than we expected to. The great thing is, now we’re right back on course and I will say, honestly, I think the world of Mandy Rose, she was nothing but phenomenal with us, we’ll miss her, but we’re thrilled about Roxanne Perez being the NXT Women’s Champion and taking us into the future.”

Whoa, so Michaels didn't fire Rose but came up with the albeit clunky way they wrote her off of television and gave the strap to Perez? Well, that certainly changes up the narrative at least a little bit and takes some of the onus off of HBK for letting go of his champ when, in reality, he was just doing his job too. Maybe now some hardcore “Mandy Maniacs” will lay off of Michaels for letting Rose go, but frankly, that seems rather unlikely.

Shawn Michaels also commented on potential NXT call-ups after Vengeance Day.

Elsewhere in his media call, Michaels was asked about whether he expects any call-ups in the not-too-distant future. While he didn't rule it out, Michaels noted that most of WWE's creative energy was being focused on WrestleMania moreso than how to elevate a performer like Bron Breakker to the main roster.

“That’s something where, it’s one of those ones where I’m hoping for a visit down the line,” Michaels said via Fightful. “I know, at times, not everybody believes me, but we [Triple H and I] text probably two times in the last several months with the schedule and everything else. I do know that, per tradition, usually around WrestleMania is when people feel those call ups are possible. That’s my feeling as well, that’s my hope, but right now there has been no information given on any of that kind of stuff. Everyone is concentrated on WrestleMania. This is a big year. This is a big year for Hunter and everyone in WWE. All hands are on deck to make sure everything goes as well as they possibly can. We want to dot every I and cross every T that we can. I just know the pressure that he’s under and I’m just doing my best to stay out of his hair, man the ship down here to the best of my ability, and I don’t want to be applying any ointments. Whenever it is that they are ready to call, we’re obviously here and ready to go.”

Will WWE have an NXT-involved surprise or two at WrestleMania 39? Maybe yes, maybe no, but as the company marches towards the “show of shows,” it's clear they have more pressing issues in mind than the elevation of Breakker, Grayson Waller, Toxic Attraction, or any of the other proven stars on the black and gold brand that could be ready to make the jump to the big show.