WWE Survivor Series: 5 Best World Championship matches in the PPV's history

#3 Bret Hart (C) vs. Shawn Michaels (1992)

5 years before Montreal, Hart and Michaels would square off at the birthplace of the Survivor Series.

Michaels shows up for the second time on this list, except this time he's 15 years younger and almost four years away from winning his first WWE Championship (against Hart, as it would turn out). This match was leagues better than their encounter five years later in Montreal and arguably better than their Iron Man match at WrestleMania XII, where HBK would win his first WWE Championship.

To give some perspective to this match, Shawn Michaels wasn't using the superkick as his finisher yet. He was using it, but it didn't win a match for him for quite a while. As for Bret, this is one of his first title defenses, as he is only about a month and a half into his first reign as WWE Champion.

Think about what you would expect from Bret Hart at his peak and Shawn Michaels as a young kid who soaks up everything with a sponge... and he's in the ring with The Hitman, one of the best in-ring sponge-fillers in wrestling history. Bret was 35 and Shawn was 27 when this match happened, and Bret had been in the business for more than twice as long as Shawn.

This wasn't the HBK we grew to know by the end of 1994 and for the rest of his career. This was the young kid trying to slip into a spot that in storyline (and probably in life) wasn't ready for. He showed the world that while he wasn't there just yet, the name Shawn Michaels was going to down in the history of the sport as one of the best and most important wrestlers of all time. Both men did, and this match is arguably the best-televised match they have ever had against each other.