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[1996-03-31-WWF-Wrestlemania XII] Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels (60-Minute Iron Man)


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I have always been blah overall to this match but it really stepped up when I watched it this time. I thought everything was clinched with an extra bit of effort that saw both guys really working to make a great match in spite of being unhappy with the other person in the ring. The mat work wasn't WOS level but was effective and basic in telling the overall story. The match also had enough high spots with near falls (Superkick to time keeper, piledriver, big crossbody, Flair bump to outside) to keep me engaged without needing the trading of falls. I have become I guess a defender of long matches. Going longer isn't always better but between this, Valentine/Backlund, Flair/Bret, and Curt/Bock, I have watched quite a few hour long draws the past couple of years that I consider great matches overall. This is now included in that list. ****1/4

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  • 2 years later...

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels - WrestleMania XII

 

Shawn Michaels entrance is very impressive and memorable.

 

First 20 minutes: You have to think the Ironman match favors Bret. Ironman pretty much neutralizes Shawn's uptempo offense. It really becomes a question can Shawn figure out a way to grind. Bret is the ultimate grinder and is very versatile. The early part of the match is all about establishing Shawn's ability to grind. He is the one taking down Bret and willing to go on the mat. Also note that most of Shawn's offense is generated once he has created some distance. Bret is going to want crowd the Heartbreak Kid and wrestle the match right on top of Shawn. The two big highspots of the first ten minutes are Shawn's rana to the outside (which Bret sells as frustration) and his skin the cat. Every time there is a criss cross Shawn is able to convert that into a armbar. Shawn admittedly had some great armbar takedowns. Bret was working his style the headlocks, working the corner, but he kept letting Shawn loose. Shawn in transition is going to be his biggest problem. Loved the dueling finisher teasers at 15 minute mark. Shawn scrambling out of the Sharpshooter and then Bret sitting in Tony Chimel's lap until the last second and BANG! SWEET CHIN MUSIC! Really great spot. Shawn sells his surprise well allowing Bret to take over with a chinlock. Again Bret grinding and keeping it close. Once Bret loses that control, Shawn is able to take over with the armbar. It will be interesting to see if this story of distance is maintained. Bret works well in close proximity and Shawn needs an uptempo game to maintain control. Better than I remembered thus far.

 

Second 20 minutes: Here we can point out once again Bret is in a face vs face match and again he works so well as the subtle heel NWA Touring champ. Unlike Flair, he is so understated. He is not drawing attention to himself. He is really letting Shawn shine. Notice little things like how he rolls up in the arm stretcher only to have it reversed into a hammerlock. Or how about how he gets out of the arm bars, like a pretty cheap, stiff elbow in the corner. He could have let the ref break the hold. Or how he drops back with Shawn throat first on the ropes. All these things allow Shawn to look great as the babyface and just put that little heat on Bret. A very selfless performance. Shawn is not being carried. Really unique offense from him like the shoulderbreaker, single arm DDT (great cutoff by him), powerslam, backbreaker, Fisherman's suplex. I thought the arm work was great especially from someone who doesn't do it often. Bret's piledriver was a great nearfall. It looked amazing and it really felt like a big moment. Even after Bret dropped Shawn throat first across the middle rope, Shawn didn't go away. It became about jockeying for position. One great moment was Shawn sizing Bret up for the superkick, but Bret dropping out of the ring taking a walk to regroup and Shawn diving out on the floor and wiping him out. Really great sequence. Big time highspot that makes Shawn look awesome. Even when Shawn comes out on the losing end, he looks like a million bucks. The tide finally turns in the Hitman's advantage when he back body drops Shawn over the top turnbuckle to the floor in a hellacious bump. Even though Bret gets the better, Shawn looks more impressive because the bump is so impressive. Bret goes out to the outside and slams the back into the post. Again that subtle heeling from Bret, it is not out and out cheating, but did he really need to do that. He could have just collected his countout fall. Bret really goes to work on the back in the waning minutes of this period. I think both wrestlers are wrestling their hearts out. The first 30 minutes were clearly the mat-based portion with only the superkick to Tony Chimel as the big highspot. They started ramping things up at the 30 minute mark. You see Bret is the master of pragmatic wrestling using every inch of the ring. Shawn is wrestling with his heart on his sleeve going full bore into every spot and just diving into the Hitman. Shawn tried to wrestle strategic in the first 30 minutes, but didn't get him anywhere so he just started to hurl his body at Bret. When that started, you see the bigger chances pay off (dive to outside), but also the risky behavior costs him (bump to outside). This is a lot better than I remember.

 

Final 20 minutes: Basically if Bret and Shawn had a normal length match, I would expect this is what most of it would like. Just a superb Bret heat segment with Shawn selling the back tremendously well, but also timing his hope spots well. I loved how Shawn would try to punch his way out of it, but Bret would comeback with these ferocious punches each time. Bret's reaction was great. The Flair Flip into the super back suplex was a GREAT nearfall. I would say a common knock on this match is that their are no falls in regulation, but I really did not feel that was an issue until here. I thought Bret really pummeled Shawn and earned himself a fall. By not getting a fall, it hurt the match because it became ridiculous that Shawn was absorbing all this punishment but kept kicking out. The dive by Bret out to the floor was great as was all of Shawn's ridiculous bumps to the outside. Fuck West Coast Crowds! This match was great and they were so quiet. Camel clutch was a little long. You can finally feel them stretching it out here. Superplex into Sharpshooter attempt was great. Bret eats a foot on his second rope elbow and here comes the Shawn comeback. But it is a cool one. It features a gutwrench powerbomb and a moonsault! He goes for the top rope elbow, but falls into a Sharpshooter. Crowd is on its feet. 30 seconds to go, Shawn does not tap, but the match ends due to the time limit expiring. It is a 0-0 draw and thus a tie goes to the champion and Bret Hart retains the World Championship, but wait...

 

Overtime: Bret works on the back. Shawn avoids him in the corner and BANG! SWEET CHIN MUSIC! They both get to their feet and Sweet Chin Music again! You know the whole restart actually makes this feel anti-climatic.

 

Awesome match on rewatch that really never drags, which is pretty impressive for a sixty minute match especially when one wrestler has a pretty limited offensive arsenal like Shawn Michaels. The first 40 minutes is great psychological wrestling. Shawn wrestling very strategically but also taking advantage of when the pace quickened. Bret did a beautiful job as the subtle heel Touring World Champion. He made Shawn look great and Shawn was working his ass off. The transition into Bret heat segment was great and it really showed both wrestlers at their best. Shawn all heart heading into the corner with reckless abandon. Bret the ever thinking pragmatic champion letting the overzealous challenger make the mistake. The Bret heat segment is great just awesome offense with great hope spots. It gets a little long and could have used a fall. Shawn's comeback is fiery and dramatic. It is weird the whole match is really well built, but the final finish just comes off as anti-climatic. Way better than I remember and actually very watchable just does not make you pump your fist at the end. ****1/4

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  • 2 months later...

One of those matches that has been called overrated by so many for so long that it has become underrated and people are rediscovering it (myself included). For years I was under the impression that this was merely a good match, nothing more, but I rewatched this recently and it holds up as a great match. I have this #3 for WWF in 1996 behind Shawn/Foley and Bret/Austin.

 

Shawn was really good here and wrestled with great focus but this featured a truly excellent Bret performance. For someone who was apparently unhappy with the result and the booking and what not, he turned in a really selfless performance. He did a great job getting across the fact that Shawn was actually outwrestling him and he was struggling to get a foothold and was getting more desperate. He worked almost like a subtle heel as a result. In fact he didn't have a real control segment until almost 40 minutes in after a huge Shawn bump gave him an opening. There were great micro details as well like Bret breaking a Shawn sleeper by backing him into a corner but the next time he tried that, Shawn just threw him backwards. Both nailed some vicious strikes too. Not something I would watch everyday because of the length but a great match nonetheless. Yet another to add to these guys resumes. ****

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I watched this last night for the first time in years and I almost tapped out at 15 minutes. So glad I didn't because the 45 minutes that followed was excellent. I get people saying it's slow and boring, but that's only for the first 15 minutes, that feeling out process to kill time, these guys are wrestling for 1 hour, they are not going to get gassed from the get go.

 

I forgot how stiff and snug the match was. Everything looked like it connected and the crowd thought so to because they were reacting to every hard hit which made the match better for me.

 

Not much else I can add that hasn't been said, if I could change one thing it would be the visual of the clock. I don't want to see it for the majority of the match because I constantly look at it and it can make the match slower.

 

After the match I watched the Greatest Rivalries interview and for them to sit down that day for 5 minutes and plan it out and then go out perform it, it really is a fantastic effort that not many can pull off.

 

Is it a 5 star classic. No. But it's close. Not every hour match has to be five stars, I think fans think if it isn't it's a disaster which I disagree with. It's a very solid match, it is watchable but it's one of those matches I can only watch every couple of years.

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  • 2 months later...

The second half of this match is definitely very good, but man that first half was totally dull. Just very uninteresting hold trading, just sitting in them passing time. The one thing that can be said positively about the first half though, was that it progressed very gradually, so by the middle of the match when it kicked into gear, it did feel like they had already had a grueling contest. But it was still boring. Although the shot of Michaels knocking out the time keeper was really good, and gave them something to replay a couple of times while Bret was sitting in a headlock.

 

But the second half is really good. Mostly build around Bret working on the back. He busts out all the offense and the threat of the Sharpshooter looms large, and the one time its teased is really well done. Michaels few, brief comeback teases are all really good and well received by the crowd. Towards the end Michaels comesback and dishes out some big offense and nearfalls. The Sharpshooter at the end felt like a big deal since they didn't bust it out until then. Very ending with the double SCM was good too. There was definitely a really good match in here. No doubt it should definitely, definitely not have been an Ironman match, and it should definitely, definitely not have gone 0-0.

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  • 4 months later...
  • GSR changed the title to [1996-03-31-WWF-Wrestlemania XII] Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels (60-Minute Iron Man)
  • 3 weeks later...

They wasted the timekeeper spot. It meant nothing when it could have been a factor in the story. Timekeeper goes out. No one knows how much time is left. The deciding fall happens but no one is sure if it happened within the 60 minute time limit.

Lots of opportunities to put falls in here that would have made this more memorable. (e.g. Shawn post bump - how is that not a fall?)

Brad

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  • 3 months later...

Man. I can hear people’s excuses now. “It’s all old school you wouldn’t like it”. Well since when is Shawn Michaels “old school”. Ha! And there are far more technically proficient matches then, and before 1996, so do away with that crap. When the first twenty minutes consists of nothing, but an extremely weak looking arm bar, with no sense of struggle or pain, and a superkick to an announcer that was telegraphed a mile away, you know you’re watching a bad match. Now that’s not to say that they couldn’t turn it around but they didn’t. HBK continued on with his awful work on the arm that was unimpressed and didn’t look even remotely painful. It was just there to pad out the time which I get but you have to try and make it look like you’re wrestling, and I blame Bret for this two. He was a dead fish in this match as far as being in the holds are concerned. His selling was also really, really bad. The rest of the match had a few chin locks and the occasional big move like the piledriver and the moonsault to the outside, so it’s not without its positives. The crowd was dead for obvious reasons and it really meant this math had zero energy or drama until the end. Bad match made even worse by awful limb work and bad selling. *1/4

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  • 1 year later...

This match may not be for everyone,  but I think for many that were kids during this era it solidified Shawn as the guy and came across as a legendary match and a great moment.  The entrance and the ending will be used as highlights forever.  I land around where Marty, Micro & Chad did on this one.  

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  • 6 months later...

Like many others, my opinion of this sixty-plus minute main event changes with time. I went from loving it, loathing it, to now just thinking that it's pretty good overall. The first half hour sees some rock-solid wrestling that bores a lot of the crowd. Hart's arm is worked over consistently, but it's eventually forgotten about during the finishing stretch. The most interesting thing that happens during the first half is the timekeeper accidently taking a superkick. It's brutal spot that really puts over HBK's Sweet Chin Music as lethal. The last thirty minutes kicks things into gear, with the guys hitting all kinds of exciting high spots. There's plenty of downtime hindering this overall, but this is the best Wrestlemania main event match behind Savage/Hogan at this point in time. Hart looked legitimately pissed off after he loses. 
★★★¼

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  • 1 year later...

I was impressed at this when I was 12 and still like the match but honestly that crowd was so dead for it I’m surprised they didn’t pump in any canned chants like they were even doing on Raw by this point. Not every week but when you can tell the taping was in it’s third hour.

It’s no Flair/Steamboat but it’s as close as they would get at least until they started pushing Austin properly. So while it’s a great match it might have been wasted on what just appears in hindsight to have been the largest Superstars taping ever, after Shawn’s entrance anyway.

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  • 11 months later...

It doesn't matter if this was Iron Man or just a match with a 60-minute time limit because this crumbles due to its lack of a cohesion, not because it poorly adhered to the gimmick. Bret and Shawn introduce multiple compelling threads throughout the entire hour, but they end up being disparate and shallow short stories that fail to tie into the conclusion of the match. 

**1/4

 

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