Bret Hart

[Grimmas]

I did rate the 100 best Bret Hart matches a few years ago: 

https://prowrestlingsuperblog.wordpress.com/category/lists/top-100-bret-hart-matches/

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

I remember quite clearly getting the 2005 Bret Hart DVD and it opening my eyes to the world of wrestling and what it could be. One of the best documentaries they ever did. Then I turned 10 years old.

I joke, but it encapsulates my experience, where Bret Hart's reputation as the best technical worker blah blah blah was very much simply clever marketing by Vince and himself. Was he better than Steve Keirn and Matt Borne and the other guys he was working? Sure. But was he really that much better than Hennig, Flair, Austin and the rest of the guys featured in his most lauded matches? I'm not so sure.

He was a very good wrestler, who was put in a prominent position to have good matches by US standards. But outside of his genuinely fantastic peak in the 90s, he's all around pretty dull. He falls back on his five moves of doom an awful lot. Not to say that many other top ten candidates also do not, but it always felt particularly egregious from Bret because of his lack of emotion and single-minded persona in the ring. 

It is of course, a tragedy he was forced to retire so early, and would have still had a lot to offer on a return to WWE.