Bret Hart

[DR Ackermann]

If you read Bret's book, I think its clear that his ego is the biggest reason. Part of that is that he is so wrapped up in himself that he doesn't believe anyone knows better than he does. He's pretty oblivious to wrestling outside of his own bubble, as Loss has pointed out before.

[Slasher]

If you read Bret's book, I think its clear that his ego is the biggest reason. Part of that is that he is so wrapped up in himself that he doesn't believe anyone knows better than he does. He's pretty oblivious to wrestling outside of his own bubble, as Loss has pointed out before.

I don't think I am necessarily making a counterpoint or even an attempt of one. Of course Bret has a giant ego but there isn't much of a difference between Bret thinking he knows best compared to wanting to work with people that would give him the certain respect to let him control the match because "he knows best".

[InYourCase]

I've watched a lot of Bret lately. Too much, in fact. I think my thoughts on Bret echo Dylan's on Jumbo. He's been in some amazing matches and at times is very good, but I loathe watching Bret's stuff. He doesn't captivate me in the slightest. He's someone I'll rank because I appreciate what he does and I can see hints of greatness, but he'll be a low-80's guy for me. I can't rank him any higher. A big mark against him is the fact that I don't like his TV matches, and that's a big factor for me when ranking US workers. I see someone like Kid who may not have the peaks Bret has, but has a plethora of fun TV matches, and that I can appreciate more than Bret needing 20-25 minutes to do great things.

[Jimmy Redman]

I said after listening to the WTBBP podcast that I really cared about...caring about the guys on my list. One of the casualties of that is that Bret keeps slipping further down my list. I like some of his stuff, and appreciate what he brings to the table, but it doesn't really resonate with me and I just can't bring myself to care about Bret. He won't slip too far because I love his best matches, but yeah. He's not one of my guys.

[Childs]

Is he still above Shelton's grandma?

[InYourCase]

Is he still above Shelton's grandma?

Post of the Year Contender

[Jimmy Redman]

Very drole Humphrey.

 

Sadly Shelton's Momma won't make my GWE list (soz for the spoilers).

 

If I was making a list of my pure favourite people or things or characters in wrestling, Shelton's Momma would 100% rank above Bret Hart.

[Jingus]

Caring about Bret can often be difficult. As a babyface, he's often annoyingly robotic. There's hardly any joy in him, any kind of enthusiasm or exuberance. He comes off as sour and dour, and when he's on offense it all too often devolved into him mechanically disassembling his opponent in a glumly emotionless fashion.

 

Sometimes he wasn't even any damn good at portraying his sportsmanlike character's alleged sportsmanship; I remember his match with Sting at Mayhem '99, where a run-in by Luger got Sting disqualified. Bret, being a theoretical good sport, insisted that he didn't want to win that way and demanded the match be restarted. Thing is, Sting was the one Luger had ended up whacking in the knee with a baseball bat while turning on his lifelong best friend, but of course the ref had been bumped (fucking Russo...) and this all meant that Sting was selling his leg as if it were about to fall off. Immediately after the match restarts, what does Bret do? He immediately starts kicking Sting in the injured knee in the most heelish manner possible. Yeah, it's technically a smart gameplan, but it's certainly not a heroic one; and on THIS night, finally winning the world belt, he desperately needed to look heroic. Instead he looked like a total asshole, hypocritically demanding a clean fight and then immediately taking unfair advantage of his enemy's handicap.

[Grimmas]

I disagree. Bret was an easy hero to love.

[Dylan Waco]

I disagree. Bret was an easy hero to love.

 

To be fair you are from the third world country where Bret is the tinhorn dictator.

[Bierschwale]

Yeah, I totally love Bret. I find his matches hypnotic. And his crazy old weirdo crank gimmick in retirement is fantastic.

[Strummer]

I kind of agree with Jingus's first point about Bret. I wasn't that big of a fan growing up and I think he nailed it with Bret just being rather mechanical and robotic in the ring. It was tough for me to truly support him like I did other top faces. I liked him well enough him but I preferred Shawn much more. I appreciate him now more than I ever did growing up and I totally agree that post retirement Bret is absolutely incredible!

[NotJayTabb]

Kinda love the way Bret isn't shy about showing his dislike of HHH, even after rebuilding his bridge with the WWE. I'm sure he knows giving HHH/Taker from WM28 4/10 is going to annoy HHH more than a spiteful 1/10, as it suggests he's given it some real thought.

[BigBadMick]

Don't want to derail, but isn't that a kick in the balls to his old friend undertaker too?

[Slasher]

Nah. Taker knows what Bret is doing here. He'll just brush it off as "Bret being Bret".

 

I think that Bret not being such a great sport in matches like against Sting is kinda the point. Ever since his heel turn in the WWE, I think his character, whether it was a conscious thing on his part or not, was someone who was very painfully lacking in self awareness. He always thought he was right, even when he wasn't. Even his babyface runs in WCW followed the same deal. He interfered in Hogan/Sting and made it all about his own horrible experience with the screwjob. Yes the idea was supposed to be Nick Patrick the evil ref on the take trying to screw Sting even when it was botched by the normal count, but Bret still made it about himself in such a selfish manner that it was hard to see how he was supposed to be anything of a babyface. After that he went into a program with Ric Flair as a guy who believed he was that much of a better wrestler...in the promotion that always took pride in their own Ric Flair being the greatest. This is a babyface? It just feels to me that Bret had become a parody of the character he always thought himself to actually being, and it was even more so exacerbated in the Attitude Era/Monday Night Wars. So if you look at him a certain way, he was more fun to digest than if you took it all at face value.

[DR Ackermann]

You could say that Bret's entire babyface career was like that albeit inadvertently.

[Boss Rock]

One of the best at getting the most out of very little. The Diesel, DBS, Undertaker, and Magee matches are obviously the most famous, but he could also have entertaining matches against guys like Shango or Bigelow. Very crisp and sharp-looking offense and a very realistic bumper/seller.

But while Bret was great at structuring matches against lesser opponents, he could also be very dry or, dare I say, too logical. Take the cage matches against Owen and Diesel for example. They're worked very realistically as both competitors constantly try to escape, but at times it feels like that's literally all they're doing. Logical? Yes. Entertaining? Not particularly. And apart from the Mania 13 Austin match, I don't think he has a ton in the way of true, bonafide classics. That's not to say stuff like the aforementioned Diesel Survivor Series match or Austin '96 matches aren't great, but they never quite reach top-tier level for me.

That all being said, I'm interested in seeing any gems from his WCW run. I've heard that it's largely bad, but I want to give it a shot. Also, are there any great Hart Foundation tag matches?

[Shrike02]

9 minutes ago, Boss Rock said:

And apart from the Mania 13 Austin match, I don't think he has a ton in the way of true, bonafide classics. That's not to say stuff like the aforementioned Diesel Survivor Series match or Austin '96 matches aren't great, but they never quite reach top-tier level for me.

I would argue his WM X match against Owen is one of the best matches in company history, and on some days of the week I'd argue it's #1.

[Boss Rock]

I did forget to mention that one, yes. Not sure where it ranks for me in company history but it's definitely great.

[NintendoLogic]

I'm a huge fan of the Hart Foundation's matches against the British Bulldogs (9/23/85) and the Killer Bees (2/17/86). I'd put them up against any 80s US tag outside of Midnight Rockers vs. Rose/Somers.

[Grimmas]

A few years back I watched every single Bret Hart match on tape and ranked the top 100 matches. You can read it here: 

https://prowrestlingsuperblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/01/top-100-bret-hart-matches-part-4-25-1/

Maybe my favourite ever, and like mentioned above one of the smartest workers ever. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I really need some new Bret to sink my teeth into. I think I'll hit up that list. 

[strobogo]

I love Bret, love his mind and approach, love his technique. It sucks that because of how WWE operated, he really only had a handful of big matches with other stars on TV or PPV for his prime, but almost all are excellent and varied. Pretty much everyone has their best matches with Bret.

 

The two classics with Owen in completely different styles,

Two classics with Bulldog in completely different styles

Two classics with Austin in completely different styles (Personally I prefer the Survivor Series match)

I would suggest the best matches in Razor's run only the WM X ladder match being even in the discussion

Two of the best three matches of Kevin Nash's career (and they also continued to have great chemistry even in WCW, even at Nash's laziest and Bret in jorts with scrambled egg brains)

The best 123 Kid match

The best match of the Steiners' WWF run

The best match of Bam Bam's WWF run(s)

Two classics with Mr. Perfect in pretty different styles

Probably the best match of Flair's first WWF run

The best match of Piper's career, certainly his WWF run at the very least

A lot of really good matches with HBK, weirdly most before either were truly established as top guys. 

 

His WCW run was what it was, but there still were some good highlights like Bret vs Flair, Bret vs Hennig, Bret vs Savage, Bret/Hogan vs Savage/Piper which was way better than it had any right to be especially as it involved 1998 Hogan, Piper, Macho with one leg, and unmotivated and also likely injured WCW Bret, of course the Benoit match but there were also a couple of TV matches with Benoit before the Owen tribute that were also good TV matches, a good TV match with Dean, a good Nitro match with Booker, and the aforementioned 2000 Nitro match with Nash which is easily the best thing Nash had been involved with probably since 1997 and Bret's brains were completely fucked. 

 

There's a lot of 80s stuff I never really got to dig into because cutting through Prime Time and the Old School shows was just too much for me, but I do remember a really strong MSG or Philly match with The Barbarian, and another with Taker in 1991 that was actually my favorite of all the Bret/Taker matches because I think their 1996-1997 matches suck. I'm going to dig through that top 100 matches and find some new Bret stuff to watch for sure. Bret had such a way of just feeling realer than everyone. It's a weird thing but what has always stuck out to me was the way his legs would lay after a bump. I can't explain it, but others probably understand what I'm talking about and it probably sticks out to them, too.

 

At this point I almost forget about the Hart Foundation as a tag, and now that I'm remembering some of those matches, man what a great. 

 

 

[MoS]

I wish Bret had done more brawls. It's weird cuz he was always pushed as a master technician, but I found his matwork solid but not spectacular, and often unengaging. On the other hand, he had excellent, crisp strikes, and when you would crack him and get the fire inside him to come out, that was Bret at his best imo. He was always a better brawler than a technician

[strobogo]

Agree he was actually a better brawler, but disagree about his matwork. His technique on everything was so good. Excellence of Execution really is among the most accurate wrestling nick names of all time.