Shawn Michaels opens up about one of his crowning achievements in WWE, his first world title victory over Bret Hart at WrestleMania 12.
The Heartbreak Kid discussed the Iron Man classic during a recent interview with GV Wire’s ‘Off the Bottom Rope, where he addressed the criticism that he and the Hitman still receive to this day about the match. The biggest thing Michaels has to say is that if they were any other wrestlers the criticism wouldn’t be so loud. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On the criticism he and Bret get for their WrestleMania 12 Iron Man match:
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 the tempo of the business now certainly was different. 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. 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 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.
On his chemistry with Kurt Angle:
The time limit, what we got to do, the placement on the show, the story we were in, a number of different elements add to that … just the unbelievable chemistry that he and I had.
Steve Austin recently spoke about his WrestleMania 14 matchup against Michaels, which was his first world title win and a passing of the torch moment. You can read about that here.
