[1994-11-07-WWF-Raw] Bret Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs Owen Hart & Jim Neidhart

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Kevin Ridge]

Pretty crazy to think that Bret/Owen feud has been going on for almost a year now at this point. Owen gets press slammed to the outside and claims to have broken his arm. Such a small looking building they are in. Bret vs Anvil has me wondering if this is the first time they have faced off. A bit too chinlocky at times. Owen and Neidhart use the Hart Attack on Davey Boy. Nice touch. Lawler gets in his Stu/Helen joke. Smith taps to a camel clutch. Well, not really. Ending isn't the cleanest but Bret gets Neidhart to tap to the sharpshooter. Good match but part of me wanted more out of this.

[Loss]

Pretty run of the mill compared to the Clique tag. Wrestled more like a house show match than a heated TV match in a hot feud. It's clear the WWF was done with Bret/Owen on top at this point, considering that they started putting them against each other on television. Even Bret's hot tag doesn't get much of a reaction, which is weird, because this same crowd was pretty hot for Bret/Kid a few months later. It's easy to see why Vince decided to go in a different direction. Bret as champ just wasn't clicking.

[Exposer]

This was a pretty good match. There were some nice cut off spots and good near falls. The match fell flat though as there was no real heat. That's too bad because with a little more effort and great heat this could have been a really good match.

[soup23]

Clunky match and the heat had really diminished for all the major players. For this to be Bret's signature run with the belt, he sure does not look like the ace of a company sometimes.

[PeteF3]

Not nearly as spectacular as the Clique tag but I thought this was a pretty well-laid-out, well-worked southern-style tag match. But, the lack of crowd heat is un-ignorable--Bret doesn't get much reaction for the hot tag despite working a good house-afire sequence, and there's not much pop for the Sharpshooter or the submission either. From a pure work standpoint, though, swap out the Anvil for somebody better and you'd really have something. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the WWF didn't do just that soon enough...

[flyonthewall2983]

So odd to see Bret and Jim wrestling each other. Have they ever had a singles match?

[PeteF3]

Neidhart had a house show run against Bret at the time.

 

They also had a few matches against each other *before* the Hart Foundation, when Bret was an undercard babyface.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Bret Hart & British Bulldog vs Owen Hart & Jim The Anvil Neidhart - WWF RAW 11/7/94

Since no one had really talked this up, I thought I found a hidden gem, but apparently everyone is just really lukewarm on it. Weird, because I am not a huge fan of Stampede style tag team matches, but I thought this was every bit as good as them so I thought this would warrant more love. 

It is pretty shocking in retrospect how much Bret Hart's signature title reign was spent against Owen. According to Cagematch, besides the televised title defenses against Backlund, Kid and Diesel, all the house show title defenses were against Owen, until they switched over to Anvil, oof. They made a big deal in the Action Zone match to say that would be the last Owen challenge so that was blown off on TV. Now it is time to give away the tag team match on TV. 

I enjoyed this as a Stampede style match with Owen basically filling in for Dynamite Kid and doing strange bedfellows tag. Nice to hear Vince acknowledge Bret/Anvil were tag champs. Slam bang start. Babyfaces whip the heels into each other and Bulldog press slams Owen from the ring to the floor onto Anvil, helluva spot. Always a Sleeze Pleaser. I thought Bret/Bulldog did a great really putting Owen/Anvil on their back foot during the shine, really overwhelming them with fast break offense. Bulldog was really throwing Owen around. I was disappointed by the transition to heat. The spinwheel kick is great, but Owen is supposed to be this brat heel. I would have rather seen some cheating like a Hart Foundation style sliding knee to the back (which we do see later). I liked the heat segment on Bulldog it did go a little long and maybe one too many chinlocks but there was a lot of action in and out of the chinlocks. Anvil throwing gutwrenches and powerslams was a delight. The start of the heat segment was Bret chasing Owen around the ring only for Owen to hit the Hart Attack on Bulldog. Great spot! Heel miscommunication sets up the Bret Hot Tag which I thought was very good, really liked the reverse crossboy onto Owen out of a standing ten count punch to Anvil. They fake us out with a possible double FIP with Owen hitting the sliding knee and during ref distraction a top rope elbow on Bret as he was pinning Anvil. That was great! Bulldog trips Owen and Bret applies the Sharpshooter on Anvil to win. 

I dont think this is as good as the Action Zone tag pitting Bret/Bulldog vs Owen/Backlund, but I still thought this was very good. They were given plenty of time and there was a lot of slam bang action throughout. The shine and the Hart Attack were really good. *** 3/4