Gimmick Some (Wrestlemania) Lovin': RestholdMania!

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.

This isn't a still image; it's actual footage of about five minutes of the match.

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).

For as much time as Michaels spends working the arm and shoulder, it should have at least made applying the Sharpshooter more difficult for the Hitman.

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).

This hold lasts over a third as long as Triple H's Wrestlemania debut.

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.