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In 1996, Bret Hart returned to WWE television and immediately established that he had come back to wrestle Stone Cold Steve Austin. On the surface, this was a pretty straightforward instance of a veteran face calling out an up and coming heel to set up a one-off match that they would both benefit from. Indeed, in producing a rock solid match in and of itself, Hart-Austin seemed to serve its purpose. Hart had the momentum to logically reenter the main event picture. Austin didn’t lose anything by coming up short against such an elite star, and if anything enjoyed a bit of a rub for having held his own against The Hitman.
But things were just getting started.
Hart vs. Austin would spill over to the Royal Rumble where the Texas Rattlesnake stole the battle royal victory. That would set them up for an iconic I Quit Match at WrestleMania 13, which gave way to a key double turn as Hart went heel and Austin turned antihero face, only to continue their heated rivalry into the summer. At the end of the day, it was one of the best and most important programs WWE ever engineered. This article looks at five key reasons why it was great.
#5 Setting up Austin as a megastar
Steve Austin had been a great in-ring worker long before WWE got fully behind him. After he had shaken off Ted Dibiase as his manager and taken on his Stone Cold persona, he started to elevate himself as a magnetic personality and cult favorite. The feud with Bret Hart took Austin to the next level, though, as even more skeptical fans who still saw him has a mid-card guy had no choice but to take notice.
Via great matches, great promos, and an above all else heated feud, Austin became not only a star but the most irresistible force WWE had at its disposal. Going toe to toe with The Hitman permanently elevated Stone Cold even though Hart by and large one the overwhelming majority of their matches against one another. Working with such a main event guy and a top-notch worker was key to getting Austin over, and after he lost their WrestleMania match, it's telling that Austin would be winning WWE Championships at three out of four of the WrestleManias to follow.
#4 Making the most of The Hitman at the end of his prime
Bret Hart is one of the greatest in-ring workers in WWE history, and he grew into a decent promo man when the company needed him, positioned as a main event fixture for the last five years of his tenure. While The Hitman still had gas in the tank in 1997, he also had enough miles on him that he and WWE alike were eyeing the future and the likelihood that he would transition away from full time wrestling in the five years or so to follow.
In hindsight, we now know that Hart would end up leaving on ugly terms and working for WCW until he was medically forced into retirement. As such, WWE, in some ways, looks even smarter for how well it used Hart in the twilight of his WWE career. Sure, Hart could produce good to great matches with almost anyone WWE cast him with. Working so much with Austin produced great matches and moments, though, besides elevating the next top star of the company who would wind up eclipsing The Hitman in so many ways.
#3 The Matches
WWE is, above all else, a wrestling company. While the promotion is famous for pushing iconic characters and creating moments more so than generating outstanding matches from a more purist perspective, it’s nonetheless important to WWE history that they have great matches to turn back to and to cater to fans who do privilege ring work above all else.
The Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin feud produced more than its share of good to great matches. Their original Survivor Series 1996 showdown was an instant classic that landed in the four-star territory by any measure. Their follow up WrestleMania 13 collision is on many critics’ shortlist for the greatest WrestleMania match of all time, and the general consensus is that it was five-star encounter. On top of that, they were the most featured performers on each side of another iconic match—a ten man tag that highlighted the In Your House: Canadian Stampede show that hardcore fans tend to point to as a great main event of one of the five greatest WWE shows of all time.
#2 The proxy feuds
Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin was, in and of itself, a tremendous piece of storytelling that produced superb matches. Better yet, though, it also gave performers surrounding these two a lot to do. The preceding entry referenced the Canadian Stampede ten man tag team main event, which represented so much of what Hart-Austin did by way of fueling proxy feuds. In that match, not only Hart, but his brother Owen, brothers in law Jim Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith, and friend Brian Pillman all felt like top-shelf stars—beloved faces in Canada and vile heels in the States. Meanwhile, guys like Ken Shamrock, Goldust, and The Legion of Doom on the other side of the match got more meaningful material to work with than they otherwise would have.
A good feud can do a lot of the careers of the two core performers involved. One of the signs that Hart vs. Austin was a truly great one was how much it did for a number of other performers. The Hart Foundation faction was a huge success and added heat to a number of high profile stories in their orbit.
#1 Setting up a template for Austin vs. McMahon
Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin was a very different storyline from Mr. McMahon vs. Steve Austin. Hart was a veteran ring general, arguably more capable of calling better matches, more consistently than anyone else in WWE history. McMahon was not a trained wrestler but rather got by as an all-time great villain on account of his personality, real-life credibility as the owner of the company, and the added sizzle of his herculean physique.
However, Hart vs. Austin and McMahon vs. Austin also had some deceptive similarities beneath the surface. The heart of Stone Cold facing off with The Hitman was grounded in the new guard daring to challenge the old guard and shake up WWE’s status quo. Not so dissimilarly, Austin went from challenging an inveterate star to challenging the company itself in goading its chairman into wars of words and eventually fisticuffs. Austin was nothing if not an anti-authority character. The feud with Hart was key to establishing that foundation; the rivalry with Mr. McMahon elevated the dynamic to its highest level.
