Shawn Michaels Thinks Criticism Of WWE WrestleMania Iron Man Match With Bret Hart Is Harsh

Shawn Michaels’ win over Bret Hart at WrestleMania 12 saw the ‘Heartbreak Kid’ win the WWE Championship for the first time in his career, with HBK defeating ‘The Hitman’ in the first-ever WWE Iron Man Match.

As historic as the match was, fan opinion of the bout has been divisive to say the least, with the pair famously ending the 60-minutes tied at zero falls apiece, before Michaels got the win with a Sweet Chin Music during sudden death overtime.

When asked about fan opinion of the match during an interview with GV Wire’s ‘Off the Bottom Rope’, Michaels feels criticism is harsh:

“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. 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,” said Michaels.

H/T: POST Wrestling