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Bret Hart


NintendoLogic

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I love The Beatles, but tracks like Don't Pass Me By, What Goes On and One After 909 aren't going to make anyone's favourite song playlist.

Those are only notable because the overwhelming majority of their songs were regarded as instant classics.

 

Plus, I was never a big McCartney guy so their may be a bias there as well. But we look back on them for their best songs (Yesterday, A Day In The Life, Norweigan Wood etc) when discussing their legacy, not an outtake from the Anthonlogy discs, which is like comparing a Wrestlemania match to a house show fancam.

While I may have been overstating the fact when talking about downright bad, I think the analogy holds up well, as they both have performances that are remembered as all-time greats, though perhaps not as good as some of the lesser known acts in history, and both have fans that will defend them to their death and get sensitive when it is pointed out that not everything they did was great ;)

I'm not even close to the hugest Beatles guy but you're talking about a band whose recorded output consists of eight years where they were working with one of England's best producers and setting the pace for their field with every new album. In light of the point being made, I'd compare Bret to a singles-oriented band with tight fundamentals who were never huge like Buffalo Springfield and not a band with a run of several classic albums, as whatever you think of them the Beatles are like the exact opposite of a band who only brought their "A" game for the big songs and were content to record lots of album filler.

 

/music derail

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Just curious, but besides the Benoit match, what WCW matches did Bret Hart take part in that ADD to his legend? WCW was full of stupidity in 1998 but why couldn't Bret get great matches out of guys who were already having great matches? I understnad losing your desire to wrestle after the Owen tragedy but I think Bret had a full year+ to prove that he could still work great matches but he never did. I also don't buy into the notion that he wasn't given the chance to work a great match.

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The backstage brawl with Sting leading up to the Halloween Havoc match is the first thing I remember from him at that time. A decent match with Flair in early 1998 and DDP at WW3. Nothing great though. Probably liked the brawl the most. That interview where he calls out El Dandy seems to be what most people mention when talking about WCW Bret Hart.

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Perhaps a better Bret Hart/Music analogy would be to The Beatles; they both put out some things that ranged from average to downright bad, but at their peaks they were pretty fucking awesome.

The Beatles had possibly the tightest quality control of their era making this a bizarre analogy.

 

I love The Beatles, but tracks like Don't Pass Me By, What Goes On and One After 909 aren't going to make anyone's favourite song playlist. Plus, I was never a big McCartney guy so their may be a bias there as well. But we look back on them for their best songs (Yesterday, A Day In The Life, Norweigan Wood etc) when discussing their legacy, not an outtake from the Anthonlogy discs, which is like comparing a Wrestlemania match to a house show fancam.

 

While I may have been overstating the fact when talking about downright bad, I think the analogy holds up well, as they both have performances that are remembered as all-time greats, though perhaps not as good as some of the lesser known acts in history, and both have fans that will defend them to their death and get sensitive when it is pointed out that not everything they did was great ;)

 

They recorded for release 200+ songs from late 1962 through the first day of 1970. You cited three of those songs, one written by Ringo and another that was left laying around from before they even got a recording contract. I could cite another dozen from their "prime" that were weak, crackers or flat out blew. But the key comment in blueminister's post was "their era". In their era, most rock bands and performers were singles groups whose albums were filled with, you know, "filler". It's worth noting the other three songs you mentioned:

 

Yesterday

 

This was a song recorded as "filler" for Side 2 of their second sountrack album, where Side 1 had all the songs from the movie. After shooting, they went into the studio to record stuff to fill out the second side. Granted... the Beatles treated "filler" differently that most everyone else. Side 2 of their first soundtrack opened with three terrific songs, two of which would have been hit singles if they chose them to release them as such in the place of primary singles, and the third of which was one of Lennon's strongest early period songs. In the case Yesterday, the group record what became an all-time classic and tossed it onto Help's second side... rather than leaving it in the can to be a single for December which they knew they would eventually have to come up with. It's the equiv of wrestling a ***** match infront of 200 people... except of course the Beatles drew more than 200 people.

 

A Day In The Life

 

They released four songs as primary singles in 1967: Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields Forever, All You Need Is Love and Hello Goodbye. The first two were bundled as one of their Double A singles. Day in the Life was... the climax to their album that year which contained no singles. Which everyone treated as an all-time classic when it was released (album and song alike). Other than Dylan, folks weren't generally doing that up to 1967. Hidden gems? Some artists did, but not often *intentionally*... and ADITL wasn't hidden.

 

Norweigan Wood

 

The singles from that recording session were We Can Work It Out and Day Tripper. More album stuff. Granted, Rubber Soul had some true filler on it. But they were also intentionally trying to come up with some good shit (some of it Really Good Shit) to anchor the album, stuff that would never be singles.

 

The Beatles are probably the musically equiv of Flair or Kobashi. Boatloads of good shit. They aren't bullet proof, and laid some eggs. They are far from the flawless greats that their biggest fanboys think they are. But in context of their times churning out loads of good stuff, some of it off the charts, they're pretty amazing.

 

Bret ain't the Beatles. That's from someone who is a fan of Bret's work.

 

John

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I am giving him the Benoit match because of the circumstances involved and because of the praise it has received over the years. I think WCW hurts him in the discussion because he couldn't get great matches out of guys who were currently having great matches.

They aren't even close to "great" matches but he had at least two matches with Luger that I liked a lot.

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John and others, I concede that my Beatles analogy may not be perfect :) Looking back, it doesn't really get across the point that I am trying to make.

 

My main point remains that if a wrestler can perform at a high level in the most important settings, then that holds a lot more weight in peoples perceptions of them than their performances on a fancam or B-Show tv program. Note that I am not saying that this makes them a better worker, rather that how matches are seen and remembered often correlates with the significance of the show that they took place on.

 

Because we have access to so much footage from such a wide range if sources and territories, we are spoilt in a sense that we get a far more 'complete' view of a wrestler's career than what we once did, and as a result we can see who the more consistent workers of their times were. Going back to the 90s, when we still traded VHS tapes and youtube could not even be fathomed, we did not have the luxury of tracking a wrestler's career as thoroughly or as easily as we do now. Because of this, the big PPV matches held much more significance, as I am sure we all rented the shit out of them from our local video store and this is where I feel a lot of perceptions of who was a good worker in the WWF came from at the time, as we didn't have the abundance of competitive TV matches that we do now.

 

While many of us (well, if your on this board the vast majority of you) have watched a wider range of footage now and can appreciate many of the great 'lost' workers - who the fuck knew who Jim Breaks was 10 years ago if you weren't from the UK - a far wider fanbase assosciates 'big time' performances with great workers. 'Mr Wrestlemania' Shawn Michaels is a great example of this, someone remembered by having what were seen as great matches (whether they were or not is up to you to debate) on the biggest shows. Bret falls into this category too, and while I feel that his resume reads far better than Shawn's, he does not have the complete career of the true GOAT-level workers. What he does have is a place in our memories, subconscious or not, for his legendary matches with Austin, Perfect etc, and these matches will always have a sentimental place in my heart that I defend, even though looking objectively I can see that he may not have been all that I made him out to be in my 13 year old mind.

 

As far as WCW goes, you can really tell that Montreal killed his love for the business at the time, and while he may have been there in body, he was definitely not there in spirit.

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Perfect Beatles analogy would be someone who had 10 years of great or near-great stuff and then retired.

 

I've said it many times before but the correct music analogy for Flair is Bob Dylan.

 

I understand that no one wants to talk about either The Beatles or Flair anymore in this thread though.

 

On Bret a thought I had is this: one of the reasons he is so revered by the mythical "casual fan" is because he's one guy where we saw almost the entire career in WWF. Ok, we didn't get the first couple of years in Stampede or the last year in WCW but we did get get his rise through the ranks from tag to IC to World champ, from heel to face to super face / company ace back to heel again. That puts Bret in a very select group of workers whose development is tracked "in the limelight". Also for a generation, Bret kinda grew up as we grew up. I think this is another of the reasons why he used to be in the GOAT discussion.

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Just curious, but besides the Benoit match, what WCW matches did Bret Hart take part in that ADD to his legend? WCW was full of stupidity in 1998 but why couldn't Bret get great matches out of guys who were already having great matches? I understnad losing your desire to wrestle after the Owen tragedy but I think Bret had a full year+ to prove that he could still work great matches but he never did. I also don't buy into the notion that he wasn't given the chance to work a great match.

Most of his good matches in WCW add to his legend. Talking about 1998 since that's what I already watched in it's (near) entirety, the Savage match on PPV is very good, and considering both were past their prime and Savage had a shitty knee it was really as good as it could have been. Then Bret had two very good match with Luger on Nitro and at least one very good match with DDP too. I realize I'm not talking about "great" matches, but having very good matches post-prime is a positive to me, especially when you get that from guys like Luger at this point of his career. And he wasn't working with a lot of guys who were having great matches either. Savage vs DDP had better match together than against Bret, but to me Savage is better than Bret, plus at this point Savage was not as injured as he was in early 98. Add to that they were two guys who pre-planned everything together so it seems obvious they would work well together. Anyway, Bret had a quite good 1998 in the ring when you think about it, including a very good Flair match (which, considering Flair's level of work at this point plus the fact they really never clicked that well, is again a positive to me).

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Perhaps a better Bret Hart/Music analogy would be to The Beatles; they both put out some things that ranged from average to downright bad, but at their peaks they were pretty fucking awesome.

The Beatles had possibly the tightest quality control of their era making this a bizarre analogy.

 

I love The Beatles, but tracks like Don't Pass Me By, What Goes On and One After 909 aren't going to make anyone's favourite song playlist.

 

I really, really like Don't Pass Me By actually :)

Beats me how it got a rep as a bad Beatles song.

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Perfect Beatles analogy would be someone who had 10 years of great or near-great stuff and then retired.

 

I've said it many times before but the correct music analogy for Flair is Bob Dylan.

 

I understand that no one wants to talk about either The Beatles or Flair anymore in this thread though.

Actually, the Beatles guys kept recording. The Beatles was the peak of them collectively. But it misses the point that as solos, they released a ton of charting stuff in the 70s on into the 80s. A fair amount of "solid-to-good pop songs", fewer classics.

 

The Beatles are Ric in his Prime. The Solo Beatles are Ric post-prime. Paul now is something akin to Old Ric, still grinding out material.

 

Flair's peak isn't Dylan. His late career isn't remotely close to Bob's late career either. Wrestling never has had a Dylan, and is highly unlikely to ever cough one up.

 

John

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2-out of-3 Falls Match for the British Commonwealth Jr. Heavyweight Championship

Bret Hart vs. Dynamite Kid

Stampede Wrestling • December 1978

 

Bret Hart vs. Buzz Sawyer

Georgia Championship Wrestling • September 1979

 

North American Heavyweight Championship Match

Bret Hart vs. Leo Burke

Stampede Wrestling • January 1983

 

Bret Hart vs. Dynamite Kid

Capital Centre • September 14, 1985

 

WWE Tag Team Championship Match

Hart Foundation vs. The Islanders

Philadelphia Spectrum • March 14, 1987

 

Bret Hart vs. Andre the Giant

Milan, Italy • April 10, 1989

 

Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect

Maple Leaf Gardens • April 23, 1989

 

Hart Foundation vs. The Twin Towers

Duluth, Minnesota • May 17, 1989

 

Bret Hart vs. Tiger Mask II

WWE / New Japan / All Japan Wrestling Summit • April 13, 1990

 

Intercontinental Championship Match

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

New Haven, Connecticut • November 13, 1991

 

Bret Hart vs. Undertaker

Madison Square Garden • January 31, 1992

 

Bret Hart vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Milan, Italy • April 25, 1993

WWE Championship Match

 

Bret Hart vs. Diesel

King of the Ring • June 19, 1994

 

No Holds Barred

Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart

RAW • March 27, 1995

 

Bret Hart vs. Jean-Pierre Lafitte

In Your House • September 24, 1995

 

Bret Hart vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin

Sun City Superbowl • September 14, 1996

 

WWE Championship Match

Bret Hart vs. The Patriot

In Your House: Ground Zero • September 7, 1997

 

WCW United States Championship Match

Bret Hart vs. Booker T

WCW Monday Nitro • January 25, 1999

 

Semi-Finals Match for the WCW Championship

Bret Hart vs. Sting

WCW Mayhem • November 21, 1999

 

Blu-Ray

 

WWE Championship Match

Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna

White Plains, New York • November 29, 1993

 

Bret Hart & British Bulldog vs. Owen Hart & Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart

Albany, New York • October 19, 1994

 

Bret Hart vs. Hakushi

RAW • July 24, 1995

 

WWE Championship Match

Bret Hart vs. Vader

Friday Night’s Main Event • August 29, 1997

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Intercontinental Championship Match

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

New Haven, Connecticut • November 13, 1991

 

 

...has this one aired before?

 

Also Classics on Demand is listing a December 1978 show from Stampede this month, so maybe bits of that 2/3 with Dynamite may air on that first.

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Per Graham:

 

WWF @ New Haven, CT - Coliseum - November 13, 1991

Ric Flair (w/ Mr. Perfect) defeated WWF IC Champion Bret Hart via count-out at 19:18 when Perfect pulled the champion off the ring apron behind the referee's back as Bret attempted to get back into the ring (Invasion 92)

 

It was a Superstars taping where we got all sorts of these "other matches" tapes for CHV or Primetime or other places to toss.

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