Shawn Michaels Believes WrestleMania Iron Man Match Against Bret Hart Deserves More Credit

Shawn Michaels is widely regarded as one of the greatest performers in the industry’s history. Throughout his career, he had many legendary matches that cemented his status as a Hall of Famer. However, there is one match that has divided fans, despite its historic significance.

The bout in question is the 60-minute Iron Man match between Michaels and Bret “The Hitman” Hart at WrestleMania 12, which was the first of its kind in WWE history. While some fans and critics laud the match as a masterpiece of technical wrestling, others have criticized it for being slow-paced and overly long.

When asked about the reception of the match during an appearance on GV Wire’s ‘Off the Bottom Rope’ segment, Michaels expressed his belief that if anyone else was in his place, or if Bret Hart faced someone else, the match would have been better received.

“Hindsight is 20/20, especially for the people that didn’t do it. You know what I mean? Understanding the business now and just the tempo of the business now certainly was different,” Michaels said. “Do I think [the criticism is] a little unfair? Obviously, I do. I think if it were somebody else other than myself, and Bret was doing it with somebody else, I think they probably might not get quite the hard time.”

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Despite the criticism, Michaels still considers the match “fantastic” and a significant risk for both performers, given the challenge of wrestling for an hour straight.

”I always more so appreciated the risk that we were willing to take as performers to go out there and do that hour match at that time, again in the business, that was that was a huge risk from a company standpoint. It’s very challenging from a performance standpoint to do that. For anybody … to knock it, obviously, as somebody who’s never done it.”

Michaels is retired now and is focused on making NXT a great brand, and many young Superstars of tomorrow benefit from his teaching every day. Regardless, that match will be widely regarded as an important match in the history of WWE.