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[1994-03-20-WWF-Wrestlemania X] Bret Hart vs Owen Hart


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Bret Hart vs Owen Hart - WrestleMania X

 

Brother versus brother is such a great, natural storyline and this is the best ever execution of this storyline. Owen plays such a great insecure snot riddled with an inferiority complex. Look how he celebrates the break from the collar and elbow tieup or just kipping out of a fresh headscissors. That's premature braggart side. Watch how he takes it when his ego has been bruised how quickly he is jump to the ropes and call for a break or when he feels humiliated for being tossed out by Bret, he comes in and slaps him. Owen is just the consummate insecure brat. On the flip side, Bret is the definition of cool, calm and collected. At the beginning of the match, he makes it a point to safely win the match. Remember wrestling is merely pinning your opponent's shoulders to the mat for three, you don't have actually have to hurt him. So with this in mind, Bret goes for a host of cradles and uses the armbar as a base hold. Barring the arm controls Owen but it does not hurt him. From that base he can work his different varieties of rollups. Even the slap is more of a warning shot, snap out of it shot than trying to hurt his brother.

 

Now this all changes when Owen gets a spinwheel kick. Unlike his big brother, he is not going to take the advantage lightly and he rams Bret's back into the ring post and beging to work with some really stellar offense. Definitely his best Belly to Belly of all time and a beautiful German Suplex. I thought Bret was chippier than usual in this heat segment throwing in hope spots and making Owen cut him off. This is the missing ingredient in most Bret matches to take him to that ***** promised land. The Tombstone Piledriver spot was out of this world. I had forgotten how great that was and the missed top rope diving headbutt was such an excellent transition spot. The Five Moves of Doom are so great because it allows Bret to extend his comeback and create extra segments. Instead of three segmented match, he can have a five one which allows for variety and more of a roller coaster effect.

 

Now that Owen has started attacking Bret with suplexes, it showed him that he needed to elevate to his Five Moves of Doom. He is able to hit his Russian Legsweep, Backbreaker and second rope elbow with such beauty. You really feel he has the match on his side when BANG! Enziguiri of Death! Owen wants the Sharpshooter, but ends up on the floor and Bret slingshots himself over, but hurts his knee on the landing. Now here comes the heat, which plays off great from the Quebecers match and the original heel turn where Owen "kicked the leg out from under the leg". Owen decimates the knee in true Hart fashion. Bret does a great job selling. Bret is a very good subtle seller, he may not play to the cheap seats but he does a great job for those in TV Land. Owen was vicious and you feel him become more and more confident with each leg wrench. Yes, he applies the Figure-4 to the wrong leg, but that's a pretty common mistake. Loved the reversal would have loved to see Bret try for the Sharpshooter from that position as a Sharpshooter is just a standing reverse Figure-4, but we did not get that spot. Like Bret's payback spot with his own enziguiri. Love that symmetry. I also really loved how commentary was playing up how this would affect Bret's title match later that very night. It is one thing to lose a match it is a whole another to sustain an injury and so Lawler's point of just giving up was very valid.

 

Now that Bret's knee has been injured he holds NOTHING back and hits a PILEDRIVER AND A TOPE ROPE SUPERPLEX! See the progression of Bret's offense from cradles & barring the arm to typical pro wrestling moves to DROPPING HIS LITTLE BROTHER ON HIS HEAD! It matches perfectly with Owen's progression. He starts off as a petulant, insecure snot to suplexes and traditional pro wrestling to INJURING HIS OLDER BROTHER!

 

Owen takes it a step further when his trick knee acts up and rams Bret in his ballsack. There is really no turning back now, you are just a douche. Owen goes for Sharpshooter, but isn't as proficient as Bret and Bret breaks it. He applies his own, but Owen gets the ropes. Bret goes for the Victory Roll to try to get out of here, but Owen kneels down on his shoulders and wins the match!

 

I love how the match started as a match to see who was the better wrestler progressed into a match of trying to injure your older brother or drop your little brother on his head, but ultimately finished with a wrestling hold reversal. Just beautiful circular symmetry. Owen is very jealous, insecure brother that there ever was and he plays that role to perfection. Bret is the great mature, calm brother whose hand is forced to battle his little brother for self-preservation for his own title shot. Even Bret's face at the loss is perfect. He is like I cant believe that little fucker pinned me, The knee injury to play off the original heel turn was great. Incredible match. I will have to think about but I think this is the greatest WWF match of the 90s (need to watch Austin/Hart again) and it is right there with the Boot Camp match as greatest WWF match of all time. Bret and Owen made the Hart Family proud! *****

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  • 1 month later...

http://placetobenation.com/countdown-top-500-matches-of-the-90s-100-51/2/

 

#52

 

I could never get into this match as much as others seem to have as a kid. I was totally all about the ladder match. In my head, even though he won, I just never saw Owen at Bret's level (as a kid). So, the Austin matches did stand out to me more. As I got older, I was able to appreciate this so much more. I still prefer the Austin matches, but this is a a true classic all-timer WWF match. So much has already been said about it. I still have more of a nostalgia love for the ladder match. I know I'm odd man out there, but I'm a big nostalgia guy. It's just awesome these two brothers got to have this moment on this stage. Incredible.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1994-03-20-WWF-Wrestlemania X] Bret Hart vs Owen Hart
  • 4 months later...
  • 1 month later...

I've always really liked this without loving it. Last time I checked it out was for a Greatest WWF/E match ever poll about a decade ago, and even if it wasn't a personal favourite I thought it was pretty great. I figured it would hold up, and it did. I've seen Bret a hundred thousand times at this point and I know what I'm getting with him. He was good in this like you'd expect. All of his stuff looked nice and crisp, he sold well, bumped well, and the layout was simple yet effective with transitions that held weight. I like that about the longer Bret matches. Loss mentions it a page back about how they're usually broken down into clear chapters, and the progression from chapter to chapter makes sense. It's pretty standard Bret Hart layout, but I absolutely don't mean that in a bad way. But man, this was Owen's chance to shine and shine he did. The early stuff is pretty basic, mostly being armdrag/armbar work, but Owen is really fun during it. He celebrates everything like it's a victory, grabs hair and subtly cheats, then gets indignant when Bret does the slightest thing well. So he just slaps him real hard across the face (which we get a great payback to shortly after). There were two extended runs of offence for Owen in this, the first where he works over the back and the second, which comes after a short Bret comeback, where he works over the leg (including kicking his leg out of his leg). Offensively he dipped into his New Japan bag because he was throwing out all sorts of cool stuff for 1994 WWF. He hit a bridging German suplex (which looked better than most German suplexes thrown in WWE in years), did a couple dragon screws, put on a funky Indian deathlock thing, sat in a camel clutch while yanking hair and shit talking at the same time, etc. Just a really fun offensive display. Bret's offence was mostly his usual stuff; the back breaker, the side Russian leg sweep, elbow off the middle rope, all the hits you expect him to play. I like the finish a lot as well. Did Owen get lucky? Maybe a little. But was it luck that he knew to make that counter in the first place? Was it luck that he was able to execute it properly and keep Bret down? Was it luck that he controlled most of the match and showed he could hang? Maybe Bret wasn't all there mentally, having the title match later to think about and never being completely happy about wrestling his brother anyway, but that wasn't Owen's fault. Next time Bret should know better. I don't think this is the best WWF match of the 90s or anything (I don't know if it's the best WWF match of 1994), but it had a well-told story, lots of nice little touches, cool paybacks, smart callbacks...yeah, it was pretty great.
 

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I love this match. Most days of the year if you ask me what is the best match in company history, I'd say it's this one. That might be controversial in some quarters as this doesn't have the cachet of being a main event, but I don't care. This match delivered such a great story that it's my pick.

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  • 1 year later...

There's not a whole lot to add to this thread, except that when you combine the video package buildup with Vince and Todd Pettengill being SHOCKED at the heel turn, the sizzling intros with the "from CALGARY!" fake out, the match/its commentary, the finish, and the interview afterwards, it's maybe the best pay-per-view segment of all time.

The one detail I have to add is: after the second lock up that Owen celebrates getting the escape from, in spite of how collected and cool Bret is, Bret hears somebody yell "Come on Owen!" and he GLARES at the guy... for just a second. Because goddamn it, how dare that guy? After all Bret's done? It's a perfect little moment.

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  • 3 months later...

Just a technical masterclass with unbelievable workrate built around possibly my favourite storyline ever. Both Hart brothers have to resort to old Stampede tricks to try and outsmart each other. Bret just wants to get this whole saga over quickly, he doesn't want to fight his brother and has a championship match later in the night, so he's always going for quick pins. Owen is at his best when he's playing the bitter little brother and this might be his best ever performance. 

★★★★¾

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  • 1 month later...

This and Bret/Perfect (SummerSlam) were the two VHS matches that felt on a different level than any others when I was a kid.

Most of what I dig is mentioned above (including that "Come on Owen" moment) but I'll add that I love how the brothers are basically doppelgängers, with Owen using some of Bret's trademark moves, including providing the front-first turnbuckle bump for this match. They go back and forth with dueling sharpshooter attempts (successful and unsuccessful) and even with wear-down holds, there's a clear distinction between what each brother chooses to use on the other.

As a viewer, you know the match has reached a higher level when Bret gets his second comeback and having already used his setup moves, goes bigger with a brutal-looking bulldog, piledriver, and superplex. It's like by that point he not only wanted to really defeat Owen, but knew that if he didn't use more powerful moves, Owen could easily pull off the win.

Both Bret and Owen give fantastic "acting" performances too, which adds so much to this overall. Their reactions to the pinfall are just as memorable as any moment in the match itself.

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