it was for two reasons
>1) vince's riposte to hogan and macho going to wcw
this was his way of saying fuck you, i dont need you dinosaurs anyway, you old men cant do this, these are superior athletes
>2) a way to 'protect' bret
bret was unhappy about having to drop it to the new 'the guy', shawn, as he felt he had never been given a proper chance. his first run was cut short by hogan, and almost never got back to the top because of vince's obsession with luger. then he finally got the belt back at mania 10, but from then on never main evented a single ppv in his reign (kotr 94 lawler-piper (srsly), summerslam 94 taker-taker, ss 94 taker-yoko), and had to drop the belt to backlund to get it on vinces new shiny toy diesel. diesel was a shitter who shat up the title scene for a year, 1995 was built entirely around the wrestlers of the kliq, with record low viewrship and ticket sales. finally bret got the belt but only to drop it to vinces NEW shiny toy, shawn. hogan, luger, diesel, now shawn. of course bret was a pro so he did it, but he was unhappy, so they came up with this idea of the iron man match, and there'd be 0 falls. then unexpectedly sudden death announced, shawn wins. so in kayfabe, the bret character can claim he was wronged, as the match ended in a draw, so he retains. shawn still crowned the new the guy by picking up the sudden death win. no one suffers the first fall in normal time.
but it ended up being a flop as
- they went too slow, maybe they were too worried about gassing, so most of the match was very unexciting.
- the match told the wrong story. it was 45 mins of shawn out-matwrestling bret, then 15 mns of even back and forth, then sharpshooter, then sudden death. should have been the other way around, the experienced establshed champ with famous grappling acumen outwreslting shawn for 45, shawn usng resilience and heart and speed to rally back in the last 15, then the sharpshooter, then sudden death.
