Bret Hart

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Loss]

I don't feel like I have too much to add here, although I think people read too much into some of the criticisms I've thrown his way through the years. I absolutely think Bret was a great worker, but I think he was by and large a guy who stepped it up for big shows, but doesn't have the type of hidden gem matches you want from someone in the upper echelon of something like this. There are so many bland (inoffensive, but bland) matches taped exclusively for Coliseum Video or that happened on TV, often opposite very good workers where they could have done something good. It's easy to put all of that on the way WWF TV was put together at the time, but I think even guys like Michaels, 1-2-3 Kid and Owen Hart were better New Generation-era TV match workers. I'd probably have Bret comfortably above all of them, but it's a weakness of his that I think needs to be addressed.

[tim]

One guy who will be conspicuously absent from my ballot. I just don't ever find him that interesting. Even when I watch a Bret match that I like, I come out thinking that it had a good lay out, competently worked overall ... but rarely will I be able to recall anything interesting Bret did in the match.

[shoe]

I like Bret, but in his tag days his sternum 1st bump either led to the heat or shine segment 95% of the time.

[Timbo Slice]

Bret and Punk are similar to me in a lot of ways. You could tell when he gave a damn, when he really wanted to put on a good match, all that. So when he did give a damn, he was great. But there was also a lot of time where he didn't give a damn that drags him down in my eyes. I'll have him in the bottom half of my list, I'm pretty sure.

[Grimmas]

Bret and Punk are similar to me in a lot of ways. You could tell when he gave a damn, when he really wanted to put on a good match, all that. So when he did give a damn, he was great. But there was also a lot of time where he didn't give a damn that drags him down in my eyes. I'll have him in the bottom half of my list, I'm pretty sure.

Funny that Punk and Bret are two of my favourite wrestlers of all-time. Add in Muraco, who is the same way.

[stomperspc]

If we did this a couple of years ago, Bret would either not be on my list or be much farther down then where I see him ending up at this moment. I used to like the Austin matches and the Owen WM match but didn't think much of the rest of his body of work. In recent years, I've grown to appreciate his overall style a bit more including his promos and character. In terms of top 100, he still middle of the pack for me for many of the reasons that Loss mentioned. He's got a few high-end matches (the Austin ones in particular), a fair amount very good matches, and a ton of matches that are fine and harmless, but that's probably not good enough to be a true upper tier wrestler when talking about the best of all-time. Maybe this is a weird comparison, but in terms of their match resumes, I think he is more or less Arn Anderson with two/three really great PPV matches as the difference maker. That's very good, but not high-end good.

[NintendoLogic]

I've said pretty much everything I care to say about Bret, and to be honest, I'm rather bored of discussing him. I'll just say that I'll most likely be the high voter (or second-highest behind Grimmas). I had him slotted in my top ten, but I could certainly see him falling. I doubt he'll drop out of my top 20, though.

[goodhelmet]

 

Bret and Punk are similar to me in a lot of ways. You could tell when he gave a damn, when he really wanted to put on a good match, all that. So when he did give a damn, he was great. But there was also a lot of time where he didn't give a damn that drags him down in my eyes. I'll have him in the bottom half of my list, I'm pretty sure.

Funny that Punk and Bret are two of my favourite wrestlers of all-time. Add in Muraco, who is the same way.

 

 

Not to get off track but there is a Muraco thread where I beg you to actually list and argue for some great matches. There isn't even a Muraco thread (or I missed it in the search engine). Bret and Punk are in the conversation. Muraco isn't.

 

Anyway, Bret has too many good-great matches for me to leave off. He won't beat out the Memphis and lucha guys but he'll place in the Top 100.

[Grimmas]

 

 

Bret and Punk are similar to me in a lot of ways. You could tell when he gave a damn, when he really wanted to put on a good match, all that. So when he did give a damn, he was great. But there was also a lot of time where he didn't give a damn that drags him down in my eyes. I'll have him in the bottom half of my list, I'm pretty sure.

Funny that Punk and Bret are two of my favourite wrestlers of all-time. Add in Muraco, who is the same way.

 

 

Not to get off track but there is a Muraco thread where I beg you to actually list and argue for some great matches. There isn't even a Muraco thread (or I missed it in the search engine). Bret and Punk are in the conversation. Muraco isn't.

 

Anyway, Bret has too many good-great matches for me to leave off. He won't beat out the Memphis and lucha guys but he'll place in the Top 100.

 

The Muraco thread will come in due time. I have to re-watch some matches first.

[Lee Casebolt]

I've said pretty much everything I care to say about Bret, and to be honest, I'm rather bored of discussing him. I'll just say that I'll most likely be the high voter (or second-highest behind Grimmas). I had him slotted in my top ten, but I could certainly see him falling. I doubt he'll drop out of my top 20, though.

 

I'll be right there with you, I expect. The tag work, the Backlund feud, the Owen feud, the Austin feud, everything that went in to the last incarnation of the Hart Foundation...

[BillThompson]

A few years ago I would have said he was at best a top 50 guy. However, after watching his 90s WWF output he's a definite contender for my top 10. So many great matches and feuds with a wide variety of guys. His WCW work doesn't help his cause, and I can see the argument that he didn't put in a high quality effort night in and night out. Still, when he did put in that effort I felt he was top notch and at a level very few ever reach.

[NintendoLogic]

I've decided that if goodhelmet isn't factoring TNA into his voting, I'm doing the same with post-1997 WCW. As far as I'm concerned, Bret's career ended after Montreal, except when he briefly came out of retirement to work a match with Benoit to pay tribute to Owen.

[Lee Casebolt]

I've decided that if goodhelmet isn't factoring TNA into his voting, I'm doing the same with post-1997 WCW. As far as I'm concerned, Bret's career ended after Montreal, except when he briefly came out of retirement to work a match with Benoit to pay tribute to Owen.

 

Since TNA is basically a 1999 WCW tribute band of a promotion, that makes perfect sense.

[goc]

If I was going to put together a list, I would probably put Bret on it. I've heard too many people with first hand accounts of him kind of dogging it on house shows for me to consider putting him real high though. Meltzer was pretty much fully behind the Bret Hart WWF Champion experiment in late 92 but even he wrote this about a Flair/Bret house show match on 12/11/92 at the Cow Palace

 

 

A lot of fans didn't understand the subtle stuff so Hart's fans weren't cheering for him, while Flair's fans (which included a really vocal group of local wrestlers from Woody Farmer's Bay Area Wrestling) were going nuts for him so until the end it was almost like Flair was the face. Ironically, whenever Flair would use the ropes for leverage, one side of ringside went nuts so he played on that a lot. Hart didn't do anymore than Nikita Koloff used to do in the same situation if you get my drift, at least until the end.

Knowing how Dave felt about Nikita, this feels about as harsh a criticism as Dave would throw at a guy he generally liked.

[Gregor]

Hart vs. Flair, 12/11/92

 

I was pretty sure I'd seen another match from that show online, so I did a search for the main event and sure enough there it was. Hart really doesn't have any noteworthy offense until the finishing stretch, so I can see where Meltzer was coming from, but on the other hand it still felt like the typical Hart-Flair match stretched out to thirty minutes. It didn't seem like Hart was dogging it there.

[Jimmy Redman]

Bret is a guy that I have no idea what to do with.

 

I'm probably rare for the kind of wrestling fan that we are in that I didn't grow up with Bret Hart nor live through his era. I have zero personal attachment to him. I haven't even seen a lot of his major work, to be honest, and I'd appreciate someone letting me know what gaps I should fill to get a fuller picture of him. I've seen the Austin feud, the Owen feud, KOTR '93 and a bunch of Hart Foundation stuff.

 

Bret is a guy who just doesn't grab me in any way. He's sort of...too serious, in a way that makes him bland and not engaging. I love the Austin matches, but that's mainly because Austin brought something out of him. I love the Owen matches, but mainly for the brother dynamic. When Bret is the main force driving the match, I come away cold, because I find Bret so uninteresting. His super earnest, super serious, super logical approach isn't for me. Like, I can see that he clearly puts a lot of thought and effort into how his matches look, how they're structured and presented and worked. But maybe it's like...he thinks about it too much. It's like someone writing fantasy wrestling where they have so much time to think about every single word in the promos they're writing, every single little detail in angles, every single move in a match, and want to construct it all within an inch of its life so everything is perfect...and it ends up being too much. WWE can overproduce certain modern wrestlers and matches, but Bret overproduces himself. There's a lot of thought put into minor details and into keeping everything perfectly smooth and logical, and the big picture suffers. Sometimes the illogical move is the best move. Sometimes things need to be messy, or illogical. That is what gives you that human element, that connection. I don't get that from Bret. He seems like he's trying too hard to be a great wrestler.

 

But maybe it's just me. And like I said I am open to suggestions for essential Bret viewing.

[Grimmas]

The seriousness of Bret Hart is a lot of the appeal to me.

[Ricky Jackson]

His "serious" approach to WWF wrestling coming after years of Saturday cartoon was a major breath of fresh air at the time

[WingedEagle]

I loved Bret growing up and bought into his catchphrase hook, line and sinker. Rewatching him over the last few years -- whether through yearbooks, WWE dvds, youtube, wherever I came across it -- he was very good. But by no means anything GOAT. Will place a whole lot lower on my list than I ever would've thought even 5 or 10 years ago.

[Ricky Jackson]

My thoughts exactly

[JerryvonKramer]

I think he'll probably squeak my top 50. My main issue with Bret is that he's an offense guy and I really like my babyfaces to sell and sell. Bret is best imo working on top.

[Danish Dynamite]

Makes total sense, Parv. Two things make me rank him higher than you then. 1: I love the kind of babyface selling you're into as well, and I actually find Bret's selling quite good, but I also like offensive babyfaces fighting cheating heels. And Bret fit that mold well. 2: Bret is as much heel as face in my memories (Swiss-cheese-holy as my memory may be), and I love his heel runs :-) ... He'll be in my Top25, and maybe even quite high...

[Gregor]

I've never had a problem with Bret's charisma or intensity or anything like that. I think his record for delivering in big matches is outstanding, and I think that his house show/television match record is better than those of most of his contemporaries. To me his biggest problem is that he wasn't good at wrestling short matches - not that he didn't think they were worth his time and therefore didn't bother trying, but that he just wasn't the kind of guy who could wrestle a fast, fun seven-minute match. The most fun sub-ten-minute match from him that I can recall is the one with Will Sasso.

[Danish Dynamite]

Hmmm. Could be true... How long was the Hakushi IYH match? That was fun. ... Also I know the matches were longer, but his time in the ring in the first four Survivor Series matches weren't, and I think he managed to tell quite compelling and engaging stories in that time. ... But I've got to think more about great fun, shorter than 10 minutes, Bret matches.