A Divisive Main Event: Bret Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels At WWE WrestleMania XII

Shawn Michaels is, unquestionably, one of the greatest performers to ever step inside the squared circle, yet in the mid-1990s, The Heartbreak Kid was arguably the best wrestler in the World Wrestling Federation yet to hold a world title.

That would change at 1996’s WrestleMania XII as Michaels accomplished the “boyhood dream”, but the talented and charismatic Michaels had also gained a reputation for being a major headache behind the scenes. Most would agree that HBK was worthy of winning the WWF Championship, but it is arguably fitting that the match which saw him win the big one is just as polarising as the man himself.

Vince McMahon Decides Shawn Michaels Will Stand Tall To Close Out WrestleMania XII

All the way back in the summer of 1995, Vince McMahon decided that Shawn Michaels would be standing tall to close out WrestleMania XII with the WWF Title around his waist, with the plan being set in stone eight months out from WrestleMania. 

Bret Hart recalled receiving a phone call from Vince McMahon in August of 1995 where the boss laid out his plans. The first of which was Diesel’s one-year reign as WWF Champion would be coming to an end at Survivor Series 1995 and Hart would be the wrestler to unseat Big Daddy Cool. Bret, in that same phone call, learned he would simply be a transitional champion until he dropped the belt to Shawn Michaels in Anaheim, California on March 31, 1996. 

When McMahon asked Hart if he had any issues losing to Michaels, The Hitman admitted he gave it some thought. Though a good portion of the locker room had grown weary of Michaels' behaviour and political manoeuvrings, Hart had no reservations about putting Shawn over. As Bret wrote, "Despite how the boys felt about him, Shawn was a hard worker and had paid his dues as far as I could see. Of course I had no problem with it."

Hart did, however, feel that while Michaels deserved a run as champion, it wasn't going to magically make things right with the WWF. He wrote, "I didn't mind putting Shawn over at WrestleMania 12, but I knew Shawn wasn't the guy to fill my shoes, and I was damn sure he wouldn't draw any better than I did."

Hart also noted that while he personally showed respect to his peers in the locker room, trying to do right by everyone regardless of their spot on the card, Michaels, "...treated a lot of the wrestlers like they weren't good enough to work with him."

With this duality of Shawn Michaels, the brilliance could be potent enough to offset any unpleasantries. As a performer, Michaels was everything the marketing and the objective critiques made him out to be.

Over the preceding few years, Michaels filled his match portfolio with genuine classics, from two very different ladder matches with Razor Ramon, to a heated Intercontinental Title match against Jeff Jarrett, to a Royal Rumble match laden with one rotten gimmick after another, with Michaels playing ring general for the match's entire duration.

When Raw was exceptionally bad at the turn of 1995, there was Michaels serving as regular guest commentator, echoing lots of audience sentiment by making fun of the hokey in-ring proceedings. That may sound insubordinate on his part, but the truth was that Michaels was usually the best parts of those shows. He was so lively, so charismatic, so refreshing that he outshined this tepid New Generation fare simply by firing off zingers from the company's TV studio.

Though a heel at the time, it was going to be hard to keep Michaels heel for much longer. Michaels radiated coolness, and audiences caught on to his dynamic talents more than ever. Entertaining in every conceivable way, Michaels felt like the star of the show whenever he appeared. He could outshine anyone else by working harder than them, and he could do it while barely lifting a finger.

A face turn after WrestleMania XI was an easy sell to the WWF audience. Though the top babyface tier was overcrowded in this period, Michaels had the most total upside. Crowds loved him, and he could deliver mightily in the ring and on the mic. He also wouldn’t turn 30 until July of 1995. 

Iron Man

Given what was being planned behind the scenes, Bret Hart made the most sense out of WWF’s top talents to walk into WrestleMania with the Winged Eagle around his waist, with Pat Patterson thinking up the idea of Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels in a 60-minute Iron Man Match at WWF’s biggest show of the year, with Patterson believing the two talents had what it took to tear the house down in an epic showcase. 

Patterson also noted that Vince McMahon wasn’t too keen on running such a match due to its length. At the time, the longest match in WrestleMania history was ‘The Ultimate Challenge’ between Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VI, which was just below 23 minutes. 

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter noted the risks of running the match, writing: "With expectations put at such a high level, if the two come through, it'll be a match remembered for years. But if they slip up just a tad, and going one hour with today's style of wrestling is asking a lot from both men, it'll be considered a disappointment."

Nonetheless, Patterson managed to sell McMahon on the idea. The match would determine the best wrestler in the World Wrestling Federation.

Running Hart vs. Michaels for an hour did have one subjective benefit, though. The roster was so bereft of established, WrestleMania-worthy stars in 1996 that devoting a large chunk of time to one match ensured that mostly the top guys would populate the card. 

This was evident on the six-match card, which was the smallest WrestleMania card to date, and the undercard was very much one of mixed messages. The pre-show featured the payoff to months of tedious "Huckster vs. Nacho Man" skits as Huckster, Nacho Man, and Billionaire Ted all dropped dead of heart attacks. This was on the same pay-per-view, however, where Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage's fellow golden age stars in The Ultimate Warrior and Roddy Piper humiliated two heels in their 20s in Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Goldust, despite WWF's claims of a New Generation.

Such ageist issues didn’t apply to the main event, though, as the headline angle was built around Shawn Michaels and his boyhood dream of becoming a world champion in professional wrestling. There were the expected obstacles, like falling short to Diesel at WrestleMania XI, staving off possible retirement due to injury via the unprecedented Owen Hart concussion angle, and then beating the odds to win his second Royal Rumble in 1996.

By the time Michaels came out of the February In Your House match, in which he defeated Owen Hart to retain his championship match, it was pretty clear that the WWF were going all the way with HBK. By contrast, WWF Champion BretHart was booked as a lucky survivor in title defences against The Undertaker and Diesel in his last two pay-per-view outings, and pretty much played second fiddle to the grudge between the two big men. 

Hart and Michaels, however, were presented on equal footing when the Iron Man stipulation was announced by Interim WWF President Roddy Piper on the February 26 episode of Raw. If the WWF were going to pull off an Iron Man Match in a WrestleMania main event, the two best men for the job were lined up to give it a go.

Planning The 60-Minute Iron Man Match

Endurance was going to be an issue, even for two well-conditioned wrestlers like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. A number system was devised by Hart so he and Michaels could communicate their discomfort as the match continued, with anything below a five meaning they were feeling good. An eight, meanwhile, meant they needed to slow down, and a 10 meant it was time for a rest hold. 

For the contents of the match, somewhat incredibly, Hart noted that he and Michaels didn’t start putting the match together until the early afternoon of WrestleMania XII. The plan was for Michaels to devise the first 25 minutes, while Hart produced the following 30 minutes, then Michaels would work out the final five. They then sat for over three hours, polishing the plan until they both knew it all by heart.

Hart also suggested that neither man score a fall during the 60-minute duration, which Michaels agreed to, reasoning that if they were the top guys, they should be difficult to beat, as opposed to catching multiple falls on each other. This would lead to an overtime period, where Michaels would quickly fell the champ, and accomplish the dream.

In an important detail, Hart also suggested that after the match, he wouldn't publicly endorse Michaels, instead displaying frustration over the manner in which he lost. Hart was taking a long hiatus from wrestling after the event, and the idea was to use his post-match actions as a way to build an inevitable rematch.

The Match

After all the talk and a WrestleMania which saw The Ultimate Warrior squash Triple H, Steve Austin pick up his first WrestleMania win over Savio Vega, and Diesel become the fifth victim of The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak, all eyes turned to the main event. 

Shawn Michaels entered first, preceded by trainer and mentor Jose Lothario. After Lothario entered the ring, he pointed to the heavens and, high above the capacity crowd, there Michaels stood, gyrating within a zip-lining harness. Seconds later, he took off from his sky-level base, repelling down overtop thousands of astonished fans in an all-time WrestleMania entrance. 

Bret Hart entered second in his usual straightforward fashion, spelling out the difference in philosophies and mindsets between the two stars. 

After referee Earl Hebner explained the rules, the match began, but many fans headed to the exits. It was reported that many in the crowd began leaving during the early stages of the WWF Title match, with the Wrestling Observer Newsletter estimating, "a few thousand empty seats". This was attributed to a number of largely-casual fans who had gotten their fill of the WrestleMania experience, chiefly the comeback match from The Ultimate Warrior, and they weren't sticking around for an hour-long match.

Around 15,000 to 16,000 fans stuck around for the main event, which began slowly as the early going consisted of groundwork and submissions, with the match refusing to spike until deeper into the first half of the encounter when Michaels moved to superkick Bret on the floor, only to strike timekeeper Tony Chimel when Hart moved out of the way. By the midway point of the match, the collective realisation was that there probably wasn’t going to be many falls in the match, so fans began loudly booing false finishes.

There was some genuine hostility inside the squared circle, though. Hart claimed that, at different points, Shawn Michaels subtly began working snug with him, leading to Bret responding in kind. At one juncture, Hart said that Michaels had inadvertently bitten his own tongue during a German suplex, and took his frustration out on Hart by subsequently punching him hard in the abdomen. The stiffer punches continued rolling in, until Hart fired back with a genuine boot to Michaels' face.

This didn’t work against the match, though, and Hart and Michaels executed the contest beautifully. The match was technically sound, it was just a little more “no-frills” than WWF fans may have cared for. 

The action picked up in the last 30 minutes of the match, where the Iron Man challenge started feeling more like the match of the year candidate that it was intended to be. The bumps became more dramatic, the near falls more elaborate, and the sense of urgency more palpable.

With five minutes left, Hart handed the match-calling over to Michaels, who had a gem of a final sequence in mind. Fighting like hell to score even one fall on the reigning champion, Michaels threw everything he had at The Hitman, to no avail. Then, selling every accumulated ache, Michaels ascended the turnbuckle in search of the answer.

Leaping with a missile dropkick, Michaels' feet were snatched out of the air by Hart, who twisted the challenger into his Sharpshooter. Michaels flailed desperately, as the 30 seconds left on the clock were made to feel like 30 agonising minutes. It was the same manner in which Michaels lost to Hart in a WWF Title at the 1992 Survivor Series. Now a babyface with a sympathetic story, Michaels correctly guessed that the fans would frantically count down as the arena clock hit zero.

Time had expired. Per the plan, Hart went to leave with the belt, believing that a tie meant he would remain WWF Champion. At this point, Howard Finkel announced a sudden death period, to which Hart feigned annoyance. 

The new period lasted less than two minutes. Hart worked over Michaels' ailing back, but the challenger managed to slip out of a cross-corner attack. That was when Hart turned and ate one superkick. After an excruciatingly-dramatic double down, both men dragged themselves to their feet, where Michaels delivered a second Sweet Chin Music, which was enough to realise that fabled "boyhood dream."

After the match, Bret Hart noted in his 2007 memoirs that when Shawn Michaels began celebrating, he frustratedly told referee Earl Hebner, "Tell him to get the f*ck out of the ring. This is my moment!" 

Though Hart expressed annoyance at Michaels' alleged remark when he first wrote about it, he later softened his take, saying, "Sometimes those things are said for the purpose of speed, and they don't quite come out right."

The Reception To Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart At WrestleMania XII

The match had the right result, but was the path to the finish line the correct one? 

Dave Meltzer awarded the match a rating of 4 1/4 stars , calling it "excellent", but he noted it was nowhere near where a match of its importance, placement, and promotional hype needed to reach.

Others have come to similar conclusions. Hart and Michaels may have worked masterfully within the framework of what they were tasked with, but it was hardly the masterpiece fans would expect from the two men. A normal match with no running clock may have yielded a WrestleMania all-timer, especially a 30-minute match comprised of the Iron Man's last 30 minutes.

The consensus seems to be that the Iron Man Match is a flawed classic - two top pros demonstrating why they're top pros, but not exactly a match you look forward to watching a second time.

The match also didn't prove to be much of a draw. At 290,000 buys, WrestleMania XII not only fell from the previous year, but it was the least bought WrestleMania dating back to WrestleMania 2, and that was back when pay-per-view was less widely available.

The performers were proud, though. Hart called the match, "probably the greatest match I ever had, or close anyway." Michaels felt a sense of completion over earning the championship, writing, "I thought to myself, if it's all over tomorrow, it doesn't matter. I've gone to the top."

From a technical and physical standpoint, it is fair to say that the match may have been each man's most impressive work.

Heat?

Post-match, rumours emerged of heat existing between Hart and Michaels, stemming from Bret not endorsing Shawn in the ring after the match. When Bret hastily left the building in his car that night, many of the wrestlers in the locker room believed that the two were on bad terms, whether it was due to Bret allegedly refusing to lose within the designated hour, or over the missed handshake.

The truth was Hart and Michaels concocted the undercurrent of resentment as a way of ensuring a little spark when they revisited their feud many months from then. If rumours of heat between them made it to the dirtsheets, that would only make their eventual rematches all the more intriguing.

Bret recalled brother Owen calling him the next day from Raw, telling him that a lot of the wrestlers believed there was genuine friction between he and the new champion. This pleased Bret, who was willing to let the tension simmer while he took his in-ring hiatus.

Manufactured tension would eventually give way to legitimate animosity by the time the two had another pay-per-view match with each other, though, with it all ultimately culminating in the ugliest of ways with the Montreal Screwjob.