What is it about Bret Hart that people find fascinating?

May 2024 ยท 4 minute read
Before any Bret marks fly off the handle, I am not sarcastically asking "What's so great about Bret Hart?". The question stems from the amount of views and replies that any Bret Hart post gets. Click on Old School Wrestling and scroll down...in general, posts get a few thousand views, unless it's about Bret. Then, you see 12, 15, 17 thousand views.

So, I am legitimately asking, what is the fascination with Bret Hart based on?

I'll start with my opinion.

I started watching wrestling in 1986 and I only watched WWF until 1995 or so...when the guys I grew up watching started showing up on that other channel. Until then, I knew of Flair, Luger, Road Warriors, the Steiners, etc., before they jumped ship to WWF, from their pictures in magazines, but I never watched NWA or anything but WWF. At the time I started watching, Bret was part of a heel Hart Foundation tag team and even though I rooted for the good guys, I liked Bret and was THRILLED when he and Anvil became faces. He had a very cool look and was fun to watch in the ring. I bought his shades and his tank top. (Granted, I am actually one of the people who bought a Hercules t-shirt, so take that for what it's worth. No offense to Herc, and I still think the shirt looks cool, but I doubt he was atop many merchandise sale charts.) Personally, I think terms like ring psychology and "telling a story" are horribly overused here, but Bret's matches really did make sense more than others. He would favor the body parts that his opponents worked on. He would play possum to gain the advantage. Even to a young kid, like me at the time, he was a smart wrestler with cool-looking moves. Not the high-flying spots done today, but he did moves most other guys at that time didn't do...or at least didn't do as well. Check out SummerSlam 89...that match with the Brain Busters is a perfect example. (Actually, I was in attendance for that one and, before signs were EVERYWHERE in the crowd, I had made a Hart Foundation sign that security didn't let me bring in. Fortunately, my dad put it up his pant leg and I didn't have to throw it out.) But, as much as I loved the friendly characters like Hillbilly Jim and Junkyard Dog, Bret was fun to watch in the ring.

While I was still a huge WWF fan, Bret won the IC title a couple of times and right at the end of my true fandom, he beat Flair for the big belt. The Hulkamania Era had ended at WrestleMania VIII, so I was coming to the end of my infatuation with the WWF at the time Bret was rising to prominence. It wasn't anything to do with Bret, it was just that most of the guys I grew up watching were leaving and I wasn't as interested in the New Generation stars. As my childhood faves started showing up in WCW, and the Monday Night Wars began, I came back to being a full-time fan, but nowhere near as into it as I used to be. BUT, I got a good look at Bret Hart and what he had become. His matches always seemed to be more interesting than the others.

This leads us into the Hart Foundation heel stable, his feud with Michaels and beyond, but I'll stop here because I wasn't watching nearly as much as most of you probably were.

So, what was it about Bret? What IS it about Bret that makes anything having to do with him such an attraction for those on this forum? It can't all be Screwjob-related. Is it because of his wonderfully-detailed biography? Did that look into the lives of so many wrestlers make people feel like they knew Bret in a way? Is it simply because he was so good in the ring? Is it because he seems to still be bitter about the product? Is it the "what ifs" concerning Bret leaving WWF, Owen's tragic accident and all that goes along with that?

I realize I wrote quite a bit here, but I was trying to show that I was a Bret fan and understand why people love, or loved, him. I'm not someone who hates him and is complaining about the attention he gets. I'm truly just wondering why, after all this time, any mention of him gets incredible amounts of attention. What are your reasons for reading Bret posts and not reading others as much?

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