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In each edition of Gimmick Some Lovin', we take a look at one iteration of a gimmick match available on the WWE Network. Some are iconic for their success, others for the extent to which they flopped, and some just... happened.
We defined a "gimmick match" as, in any way, adding a rule/stipulation to or removing a rule from a match, changing the physical environment of a match, changing the conditions which define a "win", or in any way moving past the simple requirement of two men/women/teams whose contest must end via a single pinfall, submission, count out, or disqualification.
This week, we gather up our snacks and blankets, put our phones on the charger, and settle in for a long winter's night to look at (currently) the longest match in Wrestlemania history: the Iron Man Match from Wrestlemania XII between Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart.
A Tough Spot
Wrestlemania XII found the World Wrestling Federation at a very unique time in its history. Emanating from the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, CA, the future site of another Gimmick Some Lovin' entry, on March 31, 1996, this was the first Wrestlemania of the Monday Night Wars era, and the last Wrestlemania to occur before World Championship Wrestling would kick the war into gear with the start of the New World Order angle.
The show also represents the last Wrestlemania of the "New Generation" Era of WWF history; while the Attitude Era hadn't begun in full by the time 1997's spectacular rolled around, the product was decidedly different from what was on offer in the early spring of 1996. Some of the elements that would define the late-90s in Stamford were on display (namely, the chaotic and subversive sides to the Goldust-Roddy Piper Hollywood Backlot Brawl, which wasn't enough of a "match" to fully cover here), but the WWF relied on a great deal of traditional storytelling, and Wrestlemania stalwarts, to carry a thin roster.
Featured prominently are major heroes and villains of past Wrestlemanias like Piper, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Yokozuna, Undertaker, and The Ultimate Warrior; Vince McMahon relied heavily on these veterans' presence to boost pay-per-view buys and, in a possibly symbolic move, had Warrior no-sell Hunter Hearst Helmsley's devastating finisher to squash the blueblood in under two minutes.
Today's contest is partially the product of that depleted roster; on a card from the three-hour era of The Grandaddy of 'Em All, the packages, entrances, match, and the aftermath of this contest takes up between a third and a half of Wrestlemania XII's total runtime. Only five other matches make up the main card, which also lacks a great deal of the pageantry and celebrity involvement that marked previous events in the show's history.
Besides the Iron Man Match, the only other contest that feels like it has the Wrestlemania-worthy buzz and marvel is the far-better-than-expected Undertaker vs. Diesel; everything else feels thrown together (the six-man tag, Warrior-Helmsley), undeserving of a Wrestlemania spotlight (at that moment, Steve Austin vs. Savio Vega), or a better-in-concept time-filler (the Backlot Brawl).
Thus, the Iron Man Match had a lot of weight to carry in order to save this show. Its success at doing so has been pretty hotly debated over the past 22 years; we'll see for ourselves today how the only match of any real weight from Wrestlemania XII stands the tests of time and scrutiny.
Third Time's the Harm
Heading into Wrestlemania XII, Bret "The Hitman" Hart was the defending World Wrestling Federation Champion, a title he had claimed from "Big Daddy Cool" Diesel at Survivor Series 1995 (in a No Disqualification match that's probably overdue for its own feature here).
In the intervening four months between winning his third championship and putting the belt on the line against HBK, Bret bled buckets against his brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith at December's In Your House (the same event featuring the Arkansas Hog Pen Match on the undercard), lost to The Undertaker via disqualification at the Royal Rumble (when Diesel interfered, furious that Undertaker was getting a shot at what Diesel considered "his" title), and only retained his title at February's In Your House event when The Undertaker burst through the ring to drag Diesel "to hell", allowing Hart to win a cage match between himself and the future Outsider.
Hart was a sidenote in his own championship defense, and the overall story of that February pay-per-view centered on Michaels, who put his championship opportunity (won in the 1996 Royal Rumble Match) on the line against Hart's youngest brother Owen; Owen had sent Michaels to the hospital with an enziguri on a December edition of Monday Night Raw, which exacerbated issues Michaels had been suffering related to a September 1995 concussion.
Bret Hart explained in his autobiography that his third title reign, which, in terms of company history, should have put him in a league occupied only by megastars like Hulk Hogan and above performers like Ric Flair and Randy Savage, was only a measure to transition the title to Michaels. Michaels was the focus of WWF television at the time, and Hart wasn't even the star of his own title defences, which took a backseat to the developing Undertaker-Diesel storyline.
In retrospect, it's easy to see that there was no logical outcome to this story other than a Michaels victory: he was sold as the young underdog fighting to overcome his tragic injury to defeat the ageing and increasingly-irrelevant champion (according to WWF booking, at least). Hart's impending half-year hiatus, as well, wherein he pondered retirement and/or jumping ship to WCW makes that clear as well.
In 1996, however, for the WWF's target market (which included this writer, 10 years old at the time of Wrestlemania XII), this was a true toss-up, an epic dream match between two of the company's three biggest babyfaces (the third being The Undertaker, who always seemed to exist in a realm beyond championships).
The Rules
As announced on the above-pictured February 26, 1996, edition of RAW, the match would be contested under Iron Man rules: the match would have a fixed length of 60 minutes, and the man who scored the most falls over his opponent in that 60 minutes would be the winner and the WWF Champion. Referee Earl Hebner explains in his pre-match introduction that a fall could be a pinfall, submission, countout, or disqualification.
This was the first instance of the match type appearing on WWF television (paid or otherwise), although WCW had featured the match twice on pay-per-view (those contests only lasted 30 minutes apiece, however).
The Match
It's very difficult to go through the events of this match because there's simultaneously a lot to discuss and very little to discuss that matters. What's evident from the start, though, is the discrepancy between the match we as fans were promised and the match we ended up seeing, and the first 30 minutes feel like a definite bait-and-switch.
Most of those first half hour is eaten up by restholds, with armbars, headlocks, and hammerlocks applied for lengthy amounts of time as if the pair were cooling down from some prior high spots; the only thing missing was the actual high spots which tend to precede extended rest segments.
About a quarter of the way into the match, Michaels attempts his trademark superkick on the outside but, instead, plays his Sweet Chin Music for the timekeeper (on whose lap Hart was precariously balanced). We get more than enough replays of the kick, because there's nothing of consequence happening in the ring that a replay might distract from.
Additionally, Michaels spends much of that first half hour working Hart's shoulder, psychology which would have made sense had it affected any of the match's outcome (spoiler: it doesn't); Hart, meanwhile, spends some time working Michaels's legs, even though the Sharpshooter is established as a hold which affects the back (Hart's promos focusing on negating HBK's "Mexican" high-flying style helps that make better sense, though).
The match never truly kicks into gear until the halfway point, and those high-impact rest holds take their toll not only on the competitors but on the psychology of the match: on more than one occasion, each man has his opponent effectively defeated on the outside with no hope of making it in before the ten-count, and each time, the competitor in the ring breaks the count. It makes sense in a one-fall match, but in a match where each man is supposed to be collecting as many falls as possible, there's no way to justify the decision (although McMahon retcons a sense of dignity ascribed to both men as the reason they broke the counts).
Hart controls much of the 20s and the teens, and begins setting Michaels up for his finishing sequence; with less than five minutes to go, Michaels starts showing life again, taking over with his flying elbow and a moonsault then, in another absence of logic, goes for the same missile dropkick he attempted against Hart at Survivor Series 1992 (and almost no other times in his career, at least not the flat-back-bump variety), and gets the same result: the Excellence of Execution plucks him out of midair to apply the Sharpshooter for over a half minute before time expires.
Hart goes to leave with his title and does a great job selling his frustration that newly-reinstated WWF President Gorilla Monsoon has ordered the match to continue under sudden death rules (although, perhaps not all of that frustration was in character). The Hitman returns to the ring to continue methodically working his opponent to attempt the Sharpshooter again but gets caught with an improvised superkick (the familiar "didn't get all of it" variety). Michaels sets up in the corner for a second attempt, nailing Hart in the chin and collapsing atop the Canadian for the pin, the title, and the boyhood dream coming true.
My Rating
Back when I originally opened up my Netflix streaming account, the first movie I selected was one that I'd considered my favourite non-Star Wars film as a child, Jim Henson's David Bowie-starring epic Labyrinth. What I didn't realize was that a spellbinding film for an elementary school-age child and an entertaining movie for a graduate student were two wildly different things, and it was hard to look past the film's glaring flaws and inconsistencies to truly enjoy it.
The Iron Man Match is my wrestling Labyrinth; for most of the 22 years since it was performed, I'd considered it my all-time favourite, and looked forward to covering it here with a great deal of anticipation. I'd wanted to believe that the 10-year-old HBK mark was still alive enough in me to last 60 minutes with two of the greatest in-ring performers of all time.
My 32-year-old self, knowledgeable as he is about the realities of the industry both in 1996 and today, could not look past the match's flaws to consider it anything other than a sentimental love; I don't think I can keep it as a favorite because of what it accomplishes as much as what it represented for me when it occurred.
Most of the match is less professional wrestling and more participatory yoga; Hart and Michaels spend 30 minutes stretching each other in various holds with no real endgame in sight. It's not really until the final 20 minutes that it really feels like either man is actually attempting a fall, and the match is truly hurt by the gimmick: had the match simply been an hour Broadway with the sudden death addendum, history might treat it more kindly, but the fact that subsequent Iron Man matches have featured exponentially more falls, more moves, and greater drama causes this one to fade in retrospect.
The logical breaks are unforgivable in that context; those times when Michaels or Hart broke countouts, regardless of any ascribed honour for doing so, would be akin to a baseball player opting not to cross home plate because he wanted to "earn" his run more. Given Piper's and Hebner's setup of the rules and the apparent unwillingness of either man to eat a pin or submission, those countouts could have at least added something to the scoreboard before the buzzer.
The Shawn Michaels Wrestlemania Collection available on the Network shows clips from a series of HBK sitdown interviews before each contest; in talking about this one, Michaels says that the 0-0 regulation finish was by design to build drama. Others insist that the lack of decisions within the first hour of the match were a product of the two men's egos: neither man would deign to take a fall, regardless of the structure of the match type.
Again, were this a traditional singles match with a one-hour time limit that went the distance without a fall, that would be forgivable; we were promised, and most later Iron Man matches delivered, a series of falls and dramatic attempts to even and increase the score. The commentary echoes this disappointment, transitioning throughout the hour from "who will win the first fall" to "when will we see the first fall" to "maybe soon we'll see a fall" (not to mention Lawler having difficulty deciding which man he's cheering harder against).
In a reversal of expectations from the last contest we covered, I expected to reinforce my love of my all-time favorite match, and was ready to bask in its successes once again, but in retrospect can't muster anything more than a middling reaction. Its high spots are still fantastic, and the action is quick and engaging in places, but the match is so at odds with its gimmick that it overall fails to deliver: either lower the time limit, increase the falls, or remove the Iron Man setup, and my score dramatically increases.
Thus, the boyhood favourite...gets only 6.5/10...from this column's author.
The "boyhood dream" line from Vince McMahon still gets 11/10, however.
Meltzer Says
Meltzer goes ****1/4 for this one, which is understandable compared to what was on offer from the Big Two in 1996 (at least in the main event spot).
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