Wham! their tour of China, received its world premiere as part of the festivities. For several years after becoming a solo artist, Michael spoke negatively, in public, about his time with Wham, partly because of the negativity of intense media coverage on Ridgeley. Michael complained of the constant pressure he felt, and he claimed that the duo had been mistreated financially. He also spoke disparagingly about some of the videos and songs from the Wham repertoire, especially the video from "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", and the songs from Fantastic. However, his perspective on the era softened somewhat in the
Wham Paymaster robbery the rocky ledge, Wham and Mays withdrew to the nearby dry creek bed. There Wham attempted to rally the soldiers to retake the lock box holding the payroll, but after seeing that eight of the eleven soldiers were wounded realized that was not a viable option. With the soldiers located about from their initial defensive position, the bandits continued to fire at them. With the soldiers pinned down, several of the bandits descended the hill and opened the strongbox holding the payroll with an axe. About 2:30 pm the bandits stopped firing and left in two groups. The first group