Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Pod Warriors 14: Bret Hart on PPV in the WWF
5 Plays1 year ago
Heel Husband and The Fig God are back and have dropped an almost 4-hour long masterpiece chronicling every PPV match that Bret “Hitman” Hart wrestled in WWF. In addition to discussions the matches, ring gear, and wrestling figures of the Hitman, the conversation weaves in and out of almost every major angle and development in WWF from 1986 to 1997. Plus, a heavy dose of listener mail!
Use code CHICKFOLEY to save 10% at www.RINGSIDECOLLECTIBLES.com
Find all things Chick at www.CHICKFOLEY.com
The resource we used to reference Bret’s gear
http://crazytights.ovh/wrestler/5/bret-hart
The resource we used to reference Bret’s figures
https://tinyurl.com/e7swbr47
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Episode Focus
00:00:19
Speaker
the pod warriors are back this is episode 14 in me and the fig gods ongoing series and Jordan do you think this could be the greatest podcast in the history of podcasts I mean this one specifically or just like the podcast as a whole because the answer no this either way
00:00:39
Speaker
Okay, fair enough. Yeah, this is a this is kind of like my dream podcast. Thank you Jordan in advance for even entertaining this as a concept but it's going to be all Bret Hart we're basically going to chronicle his career on pay-per-view in the WWF so we're going 1986 to 1997 we're going to be talking about
00:00:59
Speaker
The matches he had some of the storylines and behind the scenes stuff the gear he was wearing since his gear was always such a big part of Brett's appeal and The also the figures, you know, we obviously were we love wrestling figures here So we're going to talk about some of the figures that represent these iconic performances throughout his career getting into it to start though Jordan and what does
00:01:21
Speaker
Obviously, everybody, I think if they're listening to this right now, they know where I stand
Bret Hart's Influence and Legacy
00:01:25
Speaker
on Brett. Where does Brett kind of fall in all time for you, both on your rankings of the best ever and just as a as a personal favorite? So, I mean, obviously, everything that he did as far as in the ring is, as you know, I'm a big in ring work fan. I'm a I'm a work rate guy. So Brett Hart definitely checks that box for me going back and watching a lot of his old matches.
00:01:51
Speaker
Um, and like I said, we're going to dive into this, but some of it is a shame what they did to him. Like just going back and watching some of these, like how he was treated and stuff like that. It really is a shame. Um, but I mean, he's definitely in the top five for me as far as like personal favorite. He's probably not in my top five, just cause of, um, my top five is a little different. I mean, obviously, you know, I have ultimate warrior in there. So, um,
00:02:19
Speaker
this that's not a knock on bread it's more just my personal opinion so like i said though definitely top five in the ring one of the best to ever do it so yeah i'm excited to do this but yeah like you said this this is your baby so i'm gonna i'm gonna let you uh drive and lead the ship on this one so i'm looking forward to it though
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, Brett is obviously my all-time favorite. Very, very passionate about my fanhood for this guy. I'm staring at three different pieces of Brett Hart artwork right in front of me as we record this. Our son's name's Brett. He's not named after Brett the Hitman Hart, but obviously we got the inspiration from the Hitman for naming him that. And I just love this dude, man. I've said him and Michael Jordan were kind of like my two celebrity role models growing up as a kid.
00:03:10
Speaker
They just, they just had a huge impact on me as far as, you know, wanting to, wanting to be the best at whatever I was doing. Obviously, you know, I'm not a five-time world champion at WWF and I've never won an NBA championship, but I just, you know, both of them kind of, I think the thing they had in common was that singular drive to be the best at what they're doing. And I tried to just take a little bit of that, you know, just to kind of keep me motivated on, on doing, you know, whatever I happen to be doing.
00:03:34
Speaker
I just, you know, I liked the guy from the, from the start, man. Obviously when I was first started to watch wrestling, whole Hogan and ultimate warrior for kind of like the two big favorites of mine. But I always, Brett always caught my eye, man. I was always a hit man fan from the first time I saw the heart foundation. And by the time he went solo, like it was a wrap, man. He was my dude. So I'm really excited to do this and kind of go through some of the highs and lows. Cause he was all over the place, man. He was in matches that are completely forgettable. And then he's in some, some all time classics.
00:04:04
Speaker
It's going to be a lot of fun. Jordan, you got anything else you need to express feelings on, man, before we start getting into some
The Hart Foundation Era
00:04:10
Speaker
of these matches? Now, the only thing I was going to say is, like you said, he has been in some forgettable matches and going back and watching, and I'm probably going to piss you off with this, but going back and watching a lot of the Heart Foundation stuff.
00:04:22
Speaker
Dude, Anvil really was the fucking Anvil for fucking Bret Hart. Like he drug a lot of his matches down just because of he wasn't like the in-ring technician. He was literally just the muscle for the group. So Bret literally had to drag him along in a lot of these matches we're going to talk about. And I guess I never really noticed it when I was younger because I wasn't paying attention to that at that point. But watching it when you're older, it is definitely obvious who was carrying this team by a mile.
00:04:52
Speaker
God damn, man. I was not expecting this to start with a shoot on the anvil. Well, I mean, it's not a full on shoot, but dude, I mean, let's let's call a spade a spade here. He was definitely dragging the team down.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's a reason now when there's a hot tag team, people ask, you know, who's going to be the, the, the gym night harder, the Marty Gennady of the team when they split up. So he, he earned that reference for sure. Um, but we'll get into it, man. Starting off, you know, these first few years are going to be the tag team years all the way back to WrestleMania two, 1986. This was the, you know, this was the WrestleMania that was in three different cities. Um, it was in, you know, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and the main event of the Chicago portion of the show.
00:05:34
Speaker
was a 20 man battle Royal featuring a lot of NFL players. And sure enough, it got down to the last two it's Andre the Giant and Brett the Hitman heart and, and break it's dumped to win it Andre throws more the top rope down on the anvil. Some noteworthy things about this it was Brett's first pay per view appears obviously first WrestleMania. And the big thing is that they were wearing the blue and black gear of the heart so
00:05:58
Speaker
even though the heart foundation is known for that iconic black and pink, when they were first starting out, they rocked a few different colors. They had some black and white gear, the black and blue that they wore at this show. Then there was even some black and red before. And according to Brett, obviously Brett's a good storyteller. There's obviously a little bit of kayfabe in all the stories he tells, but according to him, it was Vince McMahon. When he saw them in their black and pink gear, he basically said, that's it, that's you guys look and stick with it. And that's kind of how that became their trademark. But
00:06:27
Speaker
What is your thoughts on this battle royal? Do you remember this one at all, Jordan? I remember watching it and my note for this was, this is the one with all the football players, correct? Or is my memory gone that bad? Yeah, the fridge, a few others in there. I think the fridge was the only real noteworthy one that was in there.
00:06:47
Speaker
this is forgettable just for the fact that there's 10 football players in this match and 10 actual wrestlers i mean i'm all for them bringing celebrities and stuff in but when you're doing a royal rumble and 10 of the guys have zero shot of winning like it kind of ruins it a little bit for me um i mean having said that the gear is dope but
00:07:06
Speaker
The match itself, it's just there for me, it's not really doing anything. Yeah, other than the ending of Andre and the yellow trunks scooping up Brett and toss him over, I don't really remember much about this match, but it is pretty fun just for that, because that was definitely a WrestleMania moment, as Michael Cole would say. As far as figures go, I just picked up the Battle Pack 47 set of
00:07:31
Speaker
of Bret Hart and Jimmy M1i Hart in the blue and black gear. Do you remember that one that came out in, I think, 2015? Yeah, I actually bought this one when it came out. I'm pretty sure I got it at Kmart on the dying days of Kmart, if I remember right.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, this was right around Kmart's death spiral. These were back when basics were still pretty damn good figures, man. They're really the only thing you missed is the hip articulation and the ab crunch, but they were still totally passable to be added. They were collection worthy, I guess you could say.
00:08:01
Speaker
Really fun set. I'm hoping that we get the Hart Foundation as a series in the Coliseum collection. That just makes a ton of sense. And we know they played around with chases in the Ultimate Editions. If they would make like a chase set with the blue, I think that would just sell like hotcakes.
WrestleMania and Survivor Series Highlights
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, this needs to be made in Elite form. So I would be all for that. Even better if it's Ultimate. So I'd sell for Elite, so completely fine. I mean, I definitely want these in Elite form though.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah, we got the Andre from this match in the most recent WrestleMania Basic Series. Pretty cool figure for Basic. That's a great figure, actually.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, actually, you remember he was in the yellow trunks but black boots from like elite 60 actually went and made a little, you know, quick Frankenstein custom swap swap the boots around it to make an elite version of that one so yeah fun figure kind of big picture wise man the WrestleMania battle royale they tried to really make it a thing back in you know 2014 through like about 2018 and it seems like they've kind of tapered off on the Andre the Giant battle royale do you think they should
00:09:09
Speaker
should bring it back in a big way or are you cool with it kind of just fading off into the history books of WWE? So I liked it because it got a lot of people on WrestleMania. The biggest problem with it is I mean the prize was winning a trophy like
00:09:25
Speaker
I don't think that's really doing anything for anybody. I think it needs to have bigger stakes to it. Whether that's just like a US title match or an Intercontinental title match, like why can't the winner go on and wrestle the Miz or whoever is the Intercontinental Champion on the second night of WrestleMania? I think that would be cool.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And I think that'd be a perfect way to do it, man. Do you, whatever, whichever show they're on, they could challenge for the secondary title on that show. Um, I like it for the same reason you said, man, it's just a fun way to kick off the night on WrestleMania. I think it's the perfect thing for, for the pre-show. Um, but they haven't said anything about it this year. I think the past couple of years they've been doing it on like the
00:10:03
Speaker
Smack down a raw before WrestleMania. So it's doubtful that we're gonna see it make a comeback this year But but yeah can't count the pod warriors is in favor of the Andre being being kind of restored to its original glory You're here
00:10:17
Speaker
All right, let's go to 1987, the Pontiac Silverdome in front of 876,000 people. If you listen to Hulk Hogan telling the heart foundation, they come into this as the tag team champs, but interestingly enough, they aren't defending the belts. They're in a six man tag match with fricking Danny Davis against the British Bulldogs and, uh, and Tito Santana. So this was kind of just random WrestleMania multi-man tag.
00:10:42
Speaker
They did have some interesting gear in this they rock these like metallic all pink singlets that was kind of stood out from a lot of their gear throughout the 80s. Did you look at any pictures of their gear from this event right now Jordan, I am and I actually do remember these so I mean it looks cool like obviously great, great look for figures, but yeah, unique nonetheless.
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah, we output the link in the show notes, we're using crazy tights.ovh that's kind of the source for a lot of these gear references and stuff figuring out you know what Brett wore throughout the years because even though it was for the most part always pink and black there were always little subtle differences and it just evolved a lot throughout the year so we'll definitely hit the link in the show notes you can follow along with us on the various
00:11:29
Speaker
The various sets of gear. So there was a really, really cool figure set from that matches the look of this. It was in Jack's classic superstars and it's a three pack with Jimmy Hart, Bret Hart and Jimmy Amble. What do you think of this set, Jordan? Absolutely gorgeous. They could easily do this in a three pack and a lead form right now. And I would buy it in the heartbeat.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah, it does look awesome, man. Jax, even though the actual form of the figures, I'm not a huge fan of, they did really have some awesome, awesome releases during that classic Superstars line. They killed it on packaging, too. These figures always look special when you saw them on the pegs.
00:12:05
Speaker
Yeah, and the other thing I love about it is that they kept the same color scheme and packaging style throughout the line like there's no way you could do I mean they've come close to doing it with the ultimate editions but even the ultimate editions have already had some some minor changes throughout the you know throughout the short history same thing with defining moments those boxes changed a little bit and the elites like you know every six or seven series they change their boxes. Yeah. Yeah, these are the classic superstars are all awesome. But yeah, like you said the figs just don't
00:12:34
Speaker
the way you can pose them and stuff just doesn't quite do it but very cool set. All right, so let's get to the next paper view on the list survivor series 1987. We are kind of going through these early years kind of kind of fast just because there's a whole lot more meat on the bone once you get to Brett's solo career and quite frankly you know like Jordan mentioned you go back and watch these. A lot of these tag matches man are kind of are kind of forgettable dude it's
00:13:01
Speaker
I really need to do some deep thinking on this if maybe I've had the heart foundation overrated as a tag team and throughout the throughout the years because I think they it seems like on pay-per-view they ended up being a little bit less than spectacular outside of one match that we'll get to I think they really kind of made their bones off like this they look so good on like the squash matches and shit on superstars you know
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, you're stealing all my show notes for this because I actually wrote down the exact same thing. Because for this one, well not this one in particular, but I wrote down for a later one. Is it just me here? The Heart Foundation match is not as good as I remember. Yeah.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, we'll we'll get into it. But the survivor series 1987, they're in the same gear for mania. And they were just in one of those classic survivor series tag team matches they used to have where it's five complete tag teams on each side. So you get 20 guys in the match. What were your thoughts on the format of those that they had? They had them in the early survivor series and then they brought them back the first few years of a brand warfare starting in 2016. So on these, my thought is always, holy shit, that's a lot of people in one match. And
00:14:06
Speaker
These kind of, to me, feel like throwaway matches. I don't want to disrespect anyone that's in this match, but I mean, let's call it for what it is. These are basically throwaway matches. They didn't really have anything for them to do on the cards, so they threw tag teams in a Survivor Series match, and I mean, for the most part, they are not the greatest matches, because there is so many people in them. But it's enjoyable to see, but definitely not something I love.
00:14:33
Speaker
And it's like a kayfabe phenomenon that your HP starts off at like 75% of what its normal level is in any Survivor Series match. In these, it starts off at like 40% because you got guys taking the three count off of like a half-ass stiff clothesline and like an elbow drop and they're just getting pinned to that. It's all about fucking clearing the ring in these matches. Yeah, the match quality on these is definitely not up there for what we're used to when a lot of these tag teams are in matches. So it's unfortunate, but
00:15:03
Speaker
is what it is. We'll take a little another little pod warriors, you know, segue or interlude, if you will, and discuss the future of survivor series. So obviously this last year, it was a great event. Make no doubt about that. But it marked the debut of war games on the main roster. There were no traditional survivor series matches and kind of kind of calls into question what the future of the format is. What are your thoughts, Jordan? Are you cool with this? Just making it
00:15:30
Speaker
making it war games here on out or would you like to see the traditional survivor series stay alive? I love the traditional survivor series matches. So this is kind of heartbreaking for me. It kind of takes away from what this pay-per-view actually is supposed to be.
00:15:48
Speaker
The last time to me, they had a great one was 2019. And I was actually in the building for that one when they did, uh, Rob or Smackdown versus NXT. That show was phenomenal. Like they, they threw it down. Um, they did it the right way. I just feel like, I don't know, man, war games being the survivor series pay-per-view at this point, just, I don't know. It just seems weird to me. Like I don't, I don't really see a place for it on that card, but it seems like that's where they're going to go. And for me, it kind of sucks.
00:16:19
Speaker
I floated this idea when we did our review of the original show on the main Chick-fil-A show podcast, dude. I think they should combine it, dude. Do war games, but contested under survivor series rules? Yeah. How cool would that be, man, if you could get eliminated and stuff in there? Yeah, because I mean, don't get me wrong. War games is cool. It's cool as shit. The concept has always been awesome. But I just feel like taking away the entire survivor series portion of it kind of ruins it. So yeah, that could be a good way to do it.
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, you could, and you could get, you know, you could have a lot of fun with, you know, guys getting eliminated prior to everybody being in the match. So you just have different advantages and stuff. I just, I think that'd be a cool format and it would breathe new life into war games. Sometimes war games can be a little bit of a drag until you get everybody in there, right? There's like, there's no suspense until everybody's in the match.
00:17:06
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that's part of the reason why some of these matches aren't as memorable because of that reason. Like first 30 minutes is basically a throw away. Like, you know, nothing's going to happen meaningful in the first 30 minutes. You might get a cool spot here or there, but nobody's taking a pin. So I don't know. To me, it kind of ruins it.
00:17:26
Speaker
All right, let's go to WrestleMania for the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, another fucking battle royale and another second place finish for the
Bret's Solo Career and Key Matches
00:17:35
Speaker
hit man. So in this one, it's him and you know, the Heart Foundation are still heels at this time, you know, they're starting to get a little bit of babyface reaction, but
00:17:42
Speaker
Brett decides to team up with, uh, with bad news Brown to, and I don't know if, you know, the plan was that they were just going to share the winnings or whatever, but you know, they eliminate the last of the baby faces. And then in the words of grill of monsoon, bad news Brown, just Pearl harbors, the hit man gets him with the ghetto blaster, which side note, what an all-time great name for a finishing move.
00:18:02
Speaker
And, uh, and tosses the hit man over at the top rope. They, uh, you know, bad news. Brown gets one of the all-time great trophies we've seen in wrestling history, but the hit man proceeds to, uh, to just destroy that motherfucker. And that was really kind of the, the face turn for the hearts, man. Uh, what, what, what you take on the rest of me for about a Royal, I think it was a little bit more excited than the rest of mania too. It's short. Like that's the thing that I remember most about this match is it's not a very long match. The quality of wrestlers.
00:18:29
Speaker
not the highest it's ever been obviously I mean there are some good people in it but again just it doesn't feel like they know what to do with Brett at this point in his career like he's just they just kind of throw him in a match and hope he can make a chicken salad out of chicken shit if you will because I don't know man it just seems like he's even at this point it seemed like he was above this match to me like when I went back and watched this it just seems like he shouldn't be in this match
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, and even as early as 1988, if you read his book, which I highly recommend, they were starting to float the idea backstage of him going on a solo run. And it kind of never took off, I think, because the Hart Foundation was so over with the fans. Vince just didn't want to break them up yet. Because back in the day, tag teams stayed together for a long ass time. There wasn't always the rush to break them up like we see nowadays. Yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
Go back to your point on the shortest of the match. You gotta remember, WrestleMania 4 was the one with the 14-man tournament, and so you got a shitload of matches coming off that, and that's tying up basically your top 14 stars to keep them out of the Battle Royale. Yeah, I mean, I get the reasoning behind it. It's just, again, it's just a match thrown together just to get people on the card, so.
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah, I used to love renting WrestleMania 4 as a kid because you remember it came in that giant VHS box because it was two tapes you actually had to swap the tapes out halfway through the show and Even though looking back like most of the matches on this show on this card or dog shit Like it was still like it was just it was so novel to me that I would have to switch tapes halfway through the pay-per-view It's like the first time you watch it and you realize it's only half over the movies not even over a second team
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, the the gear on this one Brett is wearing this kind of a unique look for him He for the most part his gear always look like he if it wasn't a one solid course singlet It would look like he had pants of one color and then basically like a tank top a different color But this one he was rocking a singlet over pink tights though the black singlet over pink tights What'd you think of this look this one's weird to me? I'm not a huge fan of this one. Honestly, I mean I
00:20:36
Speaker
Just looking at the pictures of the of him actually where it just looks so weird to me Yeah, it definitely just looks awful compared to all the other gears that he's had I would say dude I would not sweat it at all if we got an elite in this look complete with the trophy from WrestleMania 4 You know like a breakable trophy from this event. Oh, you wouldn't be mad if they made another Bret Hart figure. I'm shocked. I
00:21:02
Speaker
Jax, once again, shout out to Jeremy Padour, the godfather of wrestling figures. They put this out towards the tail end of classic superstars. It was all the way in series 26. They released Brett in this look, if you're looking to grab this in figure form. Interesting note. It was Bad News Brown and Brett right here. Bad News Brown also kind of
00:21:25
Speaker
ultimately sank the stampede wrestling like the height of it in up in Canada. If you watch the tales from the territory about the stampede wrestling, you know, Brett's dad's two hearts promotion, it was really bad news. Brown that fucked him over because
00:21:42
Speaker
I guess they had received a warning from, I can't remember exactly what the title was, but basically the equivalent of like the Sports Commission, what you'd have in some states down here about the matches being too violent. And they had warned Bad News, it goes by Bad News Alum in Canada. They had warned him not to, you know, have any blood or anything in his match. And he went out and still, you know, the guy who was, I think him and the guy who was wrestling both bladed, bleeding like stuck pigs all over the place.
00:22:08
Speaker
Caused us some just a shitload of fines For stew heart and they were already kind of barely making ends meet the territory was it was you know? Admittedly, it was already on its way down, but that was like the death blow So kind of ironic that you know, he fucked over Brett here also Yeah, definitely Not a good look at all All right, let's go to SummerSlam 88 this is the first pay-per-view with the heart foundation as baby faces
00:22:37
Speaker
And it would mark the first of three straight years they're going for the tag team championships they would face demolition acts and smash. Brett's kind of the standard gear we think of we think of the heart foundation the pink tank top with the black pants and stripes and just you know the black star on the ticker the black heart on the tank top.
00:22:56
Speaker
Jax classic superstars had this look in series one so right when they were kicking it off They kicked off the two packs with the with the anvil and brad and actually have that bread figure He's he's shina's kind of taking him on a lot of our travels around the world as a little a little token I really don't remember this match that much man. I I remember like in my mind I can picture the entrances of it And I know axe and smash got the win on this one, but I don't remember a lot about this one How about you so?
00:23:22
Speaker
I watched this one back actually today. And I did have a note from WrestleMania three, Jimmy Hart gets involved. And my note for this one is, Oh, look, Jimmy Hart gets involved again, this time throwing the megaphone to ax for the eventual death bloated heart foundation in this match. Also, the best part about this show is warrior pinning honky tonk man in 31 seconds. Oh, yeah, just an iconic, an iconic moment in wrestling, like, by far. So you thought the
00:23:52
Speaker
You like that better than, uh, Hulk Hogan and, uh, macho man going up against, uh, Teddy Biase and Andre the giant. I mean, yeah, the ultimate warrior ended honky tonk man's, uh, really long intercontinental title reign in 31 seconds. What's not to like.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, you're right dude that mega powers match the only thing that's good about it is Afterwards seeing you know, you get the first little seeds planted for the mega powers exploding Alright survivor series 1990 1988 same situation as year before the hearts are stuck in the giant tag team survivor match You get anything to say on this one Jordan?
00:24:27
Speaker
Same thing. The only thing about this match is the hearts get eliminated in really weird fashion. Like Brett goes for a pin on somebody and the ref determines that Brett's shoulders were down. So, uh, they get eliminated from the match. Weird. Told you, sir. The survivor series tag team matches, David. A cut hair blows on you in the wrong direction and you're eliminated. Yeah, not great.
00:24:49
Speaker
Royal Rumble 1989, they're on the undercard, six-man tag match, teaming up with Hacksaw to take on Dino Bravo and the Rougehoes. What's your favorite Rougehoes match, Jordan? Probably this one, because it's the only one I can think of.
00:25:05
Speaker
Dude, I forgot. I forgot how over hacksaw was at this time. His reaction in this match is insane. Like it almost blows the roof off. He's probably in 1988. I probably put him or excuse this early 1989. He's probably number four behind Hulk warrior. And then it's a toss up I'd say between him and Jake. Maybe Jake, Jake, the snakes probably a little bit ahead of him.
00:25:29
Speaker
But Hacksaw was always over with the fans. Yeah, it's it's crazy to see though because I mean obviously now we look back at Hacksaw and he's a great guy and But I just don't ever remember him being this over actually because I mean I was four years old well three technically when this pay-per-view happened so I definitely wouldn't remember it and
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah. WrestleMania five. This is like the first wrestling show I remember watching. I know my parents were, they were still young enough that they were like actively wrestling fans when this happened. And I guess they got it on pay-per-view or something. Cause I remember watching it on tape like the day afterwards, you know, obviously this one's famous for the mega powers exploding Hulk Hogan versus macho man. It was the biggest pay-per-view buy rate that they had since WrestleMania three.
00:26:15
Speaker
the hearts though they're on the undercard they're taking on a pre rhythm and blues version of the honky tonk man and greg the hammer valentine what you think of this match george uh decent match i mean there wasn't nothing out of the ordinary just whatever yeah could have been it did not scream wrestlemania it could have been on any episode of superstars or saturday night's main event throughout the year and shocker jimmy heart's megaphone comes into play for the finish so yeah i'm starting to sense a pattern here
00:26:43
Speaker
We'll get to it in a couple of years, but yeah, Jimmy Hart being a thorn in the Hart Foundation side was a really like super long form story that they told. And I don't think they'd get enough credit for that, man. How long they kept that going. They're rocking the same gear from the previous year's SummerSlam. This one's got some sentimental value to me, because as I mentioned before, the first ever WWE show I went to, the main event, was Rhythm & Blues against the Hart Foundation. We were front row for it.
00:27:11
Speaker
I always got a soft spot for that. I was really, really excited to get that rhythm and blues Greg Valentine earlier this year. And I'm hoping that we get him in elite form in the legends line. I mean, I think that would sell like crazy. How about you?
00:27:22
Speaker
Oh yeah, it would be a hit. Although the way the retro's are selling, it's not giving me a lot of hope that they're gonna release a lot of these in elite form just because of the way these are selling. So I don't have a good feeling. I think people are just retro'd out there, dude. That's my thoughts, man. I think there's just...
00:27:41
Speaker
between zombie Mattel and to be honest like Mattel's retro offerings have been a little bit yeah I'd say I wouldn't say uninspired the choices have been good but I think the execution has been like really bare bones man you can definitely tell it's on a bigger scale now like the way that they're producing them there's definitely a lot of issues in execution on some of these figures so yeah it's not not really that surprising I guess
00:28:07
Speaker
I just think, I think the hammer is super toyetic. And obviously he's got, you know, even more than in real life. He's just like a legendary action figure, you know, for everything that happened with that, the original Hasbro back in the day. And I think if they drop that and maybe updated Honky Tonk, man, I think people would be all over it. Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
Alright, SummerSlam 1989 second straight year that they're fighting the tag team champs they lose to the brain busters in this one. Now on paper, this should have been like, and just like an all timer of a match right Tully Blanchard and Arnie Anderson against Jim Nighthart and Brett the Hitman Hart but for whatever reason, man, I don't know if it was just, it could be that they were told like,
00:28:48
Speaker
you know, give us a three star match. We don't need you guys to go out there and tear the house down. This was just really underwhelming. And I think one of the all time disappointing matches when you look at what could have been.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah. This match. Sorry. This match to me is the definition of mid. Like it just seems like two of the greatest tag teams are just going through the motions. Like it doesn't seem inspired or anything. It's just, they're just out there to wrestle their match, collect their paycheck and go home. Like I did watch this today as well. And I was really disappointed after I watched it because it's just, it's puzzle rock. Yeah.
00:29:21
Speaker
I mean, this is arguably two of the best tag teams of that era and the match is just, it's there. That's about all you can say about it.
00:29:29
Speaker
One thing I can think, man, is we know that racist piece of shit Hulk Hogan back in the day would basically tell the bookers, make sure our match shines. I don't think he wanted what I'm sure he thought was straight up under Carter's to go out there and steal the show in one of the first couple matches of the night. So I've never seen that explicitly stated about this match, but that's my belief. And I'm going to take that one to the grave as far as the Brain Busters versus the Heart Foundation goes. Yeah.
00:29:58
Speaker
Moving on to November of 89, we're at Survivor Series. Now, this is a really interesting concept right here. They split up the Hart Foundation. I think, you know, again, like we talked about, there were a few different times where Bret Hart was kind of, they started to kind of get the gears in motion, remember to go solo before it finally happened in 91. And this is one of the first kind of public displays of that. So the Hart Foundation split up. Bret's on a team with Hacksaw, Jim Duggan, Hands of Stone, Ronnie Garvin, of all people, and Hercules Hernandez, one of against Macho Man,
00:30:27
Speaker
the Canadian earthquake at the time, not just earthquake. Dino Bravo and Greg Valentine and Jim Nighthart was on a pretty badass team himself. He was with the Ultimate Warrior and the Rockers. What do you think of the thoughts behind splitting the Heart Foundation up for, I'm putting them on different survivor series teams? I don't hate it.
00:30:45
Speaker
Mainly because it gave bread a little bit of an opportunity to shine on his own more or less The notes I had for this match is heart and savage you got some time together in the ring, which was phenomenal I mean obviously at this time those are two to me two of the biggest stars in wrestling the only unfortunate thing about this is this is kind of a To me kind of a squash match for a survivor series Greg Valentine was the only one eliminated from the Kings Court team so
00:31:13
Speaker
kind of unfortunate that Hax on Brett were on a team that basically got squashed. I mean, it was a 20 something minute match, but more or less it was a squash match.
00:31:23
Speaker
All right, I want you to jump in your time machine. Put yourself back in 1989. Assume you're not a little four-year-old Jordan, but you're already a smart at this age. Who are you putting your money on for the solo potential? Because at the time, a lot of folks thought that Jim Nighthart was actually going to be the breakout star based off all the charisma stuff in his promos. Where do you think your head would have been at if you're a smart in 1989 seeing the Hart Foundation?
00:31:47
Speaker
I definitely can see why people would say that about the anvil just because he, his promos were always passionate. Like he always seemed into it and Brett's kind of more reserved and doesn't really bring a ton of heat when he's on the mic at this point. Having said that watching these two guys in the ring, it is a stark difference on wrestling potential. So I still would have used Brett as the bigger star just cause his in-ring ability was so much better than the anvils at this point.
00:32:18
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. Like I said, the anvil fit the profile of big 80s wrestling stars much better than Brett did but Brett just always had that something special, even from the jump. Alright so Royal Rumble 1990 Brett's actually in the Rumble, enters first, he was the, he was eliminated by Dusty in this one.
00:32:38
Speaker
And ironically enough, Brett was also the first man in the rumble in 88. This is one before pay-per-view, but the first ever rumble Brett was the first guy in and you kind of going to see some recurring patterns where Brett's kind of the first to do a lot of really memorable stuff in WWE, but last about 20 minutes eliminated by dusty. I really don't remember a whole lot else notable. He didn't have any eliminations in this match. Do you remember what were kind of some of your, not necessarily specifically about Brett, but we're all Rumble 90. What's your thoughts on this one? Remember Hulkster wins this one by eliminating Mr. Perfect.
00:33:07
Speaker
I mean, we've went over the whole Royal Rumble thing. Uh, devious. He puts on an absolute show in this match with how long he's in it. Um, yeah, Brett, I guess I didn't remember Brett being that short amount of time. I mean, he wasn't in
World Title Pursuits & Rivalries
00:33:20
Speaker
there that long. So I know you said 20 minutes, but I don't know to me, he just, it was filler. Like I said, he didn't have any eliminations. He was just in there. Yeah. But.
00:33:30
Speaker
Whatever it's kind of just a whatever match. I mean Hogan had to win. So Yeah, the memorable thing about this one is we finally got the showdown between the warrior and and Hulk Hogan. Yeah Can you explain to me in kayfabe? Why the warrior Hulk Hogan did that crisscross spot? Oh
00:33:47
Speaker
No, I cannot at all. Just for show, baby. That was only for show. I'm not sure we've ever seen that since, dude. Like I just said, if somebody that didn't watch wrestling was watching that, it would be absolutely impossible to explain to them why the fuck they were running crisscross patterns through the ring. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense looking back on it and hopefully they don't ever do it again because that was stupid.
00:34:10
Speaker
All right, going to WrestleMania six, uh, you know, standard heart foundation. Look here, black top, pink pants. He, this is the debut of the, uh, the hearts on the leg that he would have for his, uh, to represent his kids. They squashed the Bolsheviks in about 25 seconds. I think this is just something to just pop the Canadian crowd. Um, we talked a lot about WrestleMania six, you know, I don't think it's a whole lot needs to be said about this match, but sum up some of your thoughts and, uh, and feelings about, about WrestleMania from 1990, Jordan.
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah so my notes for this were a real technical classic clocking in at 19 seconds so this match was definitely not it. WrestleMania 6 as a whole obviously I still think it's successful just because of the main event. I mean it's to me still is the biggest match they've ever done and it's gonna be pretty hard for them ever to hit that peak again. It was literally the two biggest guys in wrestling wrestling each other for the two main titles at that time and
00:35:09
Speaker
I just I don't see any way you could ever get that high ever again.
00:35:25
Speaker
Even the other time, they came close to something like that, I'd say at WrestleMania 12 and at WrestleMania 17. But at WrestleMania 12, the crowd was already getting a little bit tired of Brett. And I think Sean was definitely a couple of notches hotter at that time. And same thing at WrestleMania 17, I think the crowd was a little bit hotter for Austin than they were for the Rock. So that's the other two times I can think of that they really did a big straight up, we're putting our two top baby faces against each other and it even came close to that.
00:35:51
Speaker
Like you said, they really weren't close to Hulk and warrior. That was just just a really, really special match, man. Again, go back and watch it. Anytime somebody says those guys can't wrestle like, no, go and watch that match. It's a masterpiece. Yeah, that is literally the definition of two brick shit houses crowd completely split down the middle for it. Just absolutely fantastic.
00:36:16
Speaker
What's your thoughts on the heart attack as a tag team finish? I like it personally. I think it's cool. Obviously, I don't think it would be as well received in today's day because everybody's all about the flippy shit and flying around and stuff. It's a setup move today, but I thought it looked awesome, dude. Brett always got a tremendous amount of speed when he was running the ropes and just really put some stank on that clothesline. Yeah, they did a really good job with it, but yeah, like you said, that's at best a setup move now.
00:36:47
Speaker
All right, moving deeper into 1990 I think we are at art what I would say is our first, our first true bonafide Bret Hart classic on pay-per-view. I'm staring straight ahead at some how handy artwork depicting this match.
00:37:02
Speaker
two out of three falls for the tag team championship. It's their third straight year and they finally capture it. They defeat demolition to become tag champs for the second time. I love this match. It's my favorite tag team match ever. It's one of my what I like to refer to as Magnificent Seven. I got seven matches that are kind of like
00:37:21
Speaker
just at the tippy top of the Pantheon and wrestling for me. And it's the only tag match that's in there. I just think it's great, man. Between Brett and Jim Nighthart, you got all three members of Demolition and then Legion of Doom get involved. It's got a hot finish and I just love this match. Yeah.
00:37:38
Speaker
I mean, it's best to three falls hard foundation against demolition. As a kid, what more could you want? Like the match itself is so well paced. The finish of the second fall is a little clunky, but it doesn't really take away from the match at all.
00:37:53
Speaker
And this is still one of the absolute biggest pops ever for a tag match when the hearts win the titles. Like if you go back and watch this, I guarantee it stacks up to any tag team match where the titles change hands as far as pop. Like the crowd went nuts when they won.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was really similar to when Steve Austin came out and helped mankind win the World Championship for the first time because, you know, as much as I love the Hart Foundation, I'll admit the Legion of Doom were the most overtagged team in the company at that time. So I think when they came out to kind of keep Dimlish from cheating, the crowd is already just on fire. And then when the hearts actually when the belts that just like, you know, makes the explosion.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah, they did. WWE definitely got the cheap pop out of bringing them out because it added to the match. Usually I am not in for a run in at all because I just don't, I think a lot of times it takes away from it, but to me, this one adds to this match.
00:38:52
Speaker
The pretty iconic look right here, they debuted the leather jackets. They're both rocking these black and pink jackets. The anvil had a pink like, it was kind of like a biker hat type deal. I don't know. What would you do? It's not a beret. It was like, I don't know. What would you describe that thing the anvils weren't on his head?
00:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a mixture between a skullcap and a bandana. Try to keep it politically correct on how you would describe it. Like a skullcap slash bandana mixed into one. I don't know. I mean, it worked for him because he just looks like a badass. Were you going to tell him that thing looked stupid because I wasn't?
00:39:28
Speaker
Yeah, true. And as far as figures go, we got the ring gear of these in Elite 43 with Brett and the Anvil. The closest we've got to the whole shebang was, again, shout out to Jax, classic superstars. This was a pro figures exclusive. Now, I am not familiar with what pro figures was. It's not around anymore. Can you explain pro figures, Jordan? Wish I could, but I don't even know what that is. You're basically speaking a second language to me right now.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah, if you go in wrestling figure database, you can you can find this set. I'm guessing pro figures was just, you know, an alternate to ringside collectibles that was around during the the classic superstars heyday. That was honestly like my my kind of dark period for for being a wrestling fan and figure collector. So I'm not super familiar, but really nice set. They come with the leather jackets. I'd love to see, you know, Mattel try to get these guys with with the gear. That could be a great option for the Coliseum collection if they end up doing these.
00:40:22
Speaker
Going back to demolition, man, we've talked about this a few times before, but let's get it on the record on Pod Warriors. I was a fan of Crush being in demolition. I know that their peak was Axe and Smash, that's a classic demolition, but as a six-year-old, I was like, holy shit, they got this new guy who's even bigger than Axe and Smash and just looks freaking awesome. It took demolition up to another level for me, even though the run with Crush in the mix was pretty short.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah, I liked it too. I think the three of them put it together so well. And I mean, dude, Crush is just a gigantic dude anyway. I mean, he looks cool as is. So putting him in some face paint, some dominatrix gear just made him look that much cooler. Yeah, they were rocking the freaking there. They were just a ball gag short of being gold dust in 1998. Yeah, it wasn't great.
00:41:12
Speaker
All right, so we talked about Brett being the first guy in the first rumble. The debut of arguably the most legendary wrestler in WWE history takes place at our next pay-per-view Survivor Series 90. And right there across the ring from him, first guy to get in the mix with him is Brett, the hit man, Hart. This was, you know, the Harts were teaming up with Coco Bewear and Dusty Rose to go up against Rhythm & Blues, the Million Dollar Man, and a debuting mystery superstar who turned out to be the Undertaker.
00:41:41
Speaker
I thought this was actually a pretty badass survivor series match. You get the debut of Undertaker who just looks freaking awesome dude. He straight up plants Coco B. Ware's head in the middle of the ring with a stiff tombstone. Then him and Dusty brought him back to get DQ'd. And Brett Hart and Ted DiBiase basically have a damn solo match to end this one off.
00:42:00
Speaker
Yeah, this is a, a very significant match. Like you said, because of the undertaker, um, no one knew at the time what, what they were doing, but it literally spawned the greatest, the greatest character in the history of WWE. So, um, yeah, like you said, DBSI and Brett put it down in this match. That was basically my note is that DBSI and Brett are owed a steak dinner from undertaker for how much they kicked ass in this match.
00:42:26
Speaker
What's really crazy, one of Bret Hart's brothers, I forget which one man, forgive me, but one of his brothers actually died the morning of this show. How crazy is that? That is insane, I never knew that.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah. And Brett was, I guess, he talked about in his book, you know, obviously he's close with Pat Patterson. So I don't think he meant, you know, obviously Pat didn't know anything about it, but he talked about, he was, you know, kind of walking around a little, you know, melancholy, a little bit sad backstage. And Pat Patterson walked around and was like asking him why he was looking like such a cry baby. God damn. God damn. Wow. Yeah, man. Like fucking stiff. What were your first impressions of The Undertaker as a kid?
00:43:09
Speaker
uh scary as shit like dude there was nobody like this at that time like him coming out like what the hell is this like just just a cool character and like i said man spawned 30 years and he was cool until the day he retired from wrestling like still to this day undertaker school like people go meet him and he's not even wrestling anymore
00:43:31
Speaker
He, so this is November 1990 he debuts. We went to a house show in Murphysboro, Tennessee, and I want to say February it was between, it was between world rumble 91 and WrestleMania seven because the main event was ultimate warrior fighting sergeant slaughter in a cage match for the
00:43:49
Speaker
for the championship so he'd already lost and we had like six or seven throw seats and this was back during that time where as soon as you know somebody's entrance music hit you know the fewer kid you could run right up to the rail right you could get on that like corner section of the front of the front row railing to reach out and get high fives you know this was back when security was a lot more lax
00:44:09
Speaker
And I remember doing that for every single person until The Undertaker came out. And I still have memories of my dad trying to get me to go up there to be close to The Undertaker. And I absolutely was fucking terrified, man. And he fought Tugboat. And in my mind, he was murdering Tugboat in that match. I'm thinking, why is nobody coming out to help Tugboat? Tugboat's just getting his ass straight up womped, dude.
00:44:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's crazy going back and watching this because yeah, man, just the fact that they even created a character like this is borderline dark, man. Yeah. I mean, at this time, dude, like you said, wrestling was about kids, man. Like they everything had to be kid friendly. Like they had a ton of toys. The merch was all kid centric. Like everything was about kids and they have this dark character come out.
00:44:56
Speaker
And yeah, dude, I just I remember watching him wrestling. I'm like, what the hell? Like this is insane. Brett kept it going with the taker. We're over 91. Undertaker actually limited him. I don't really got a lot to say about the 91 actual rumble. How about you?
00:45:13
Speaker
No, I mean, but like you said, Undertaker came right in the ring and eliminated Brett immediately. So I don't think we need a hit on that. But just so we're clear, I hate this show because Warrior loses the slaughter. Dude, I was about to say, man, that's my one takeaway. That is definitely, as a kid, that was the result that got me so fucking pissed off, just because even as a young Mark, I could identify that Sergeant Slaughter sucked, dude. He was just getting cheap heat off this Iraq thing. He was so freaking boring.
00:45:42
Speaker
You know, shout out to Sergeant Slaughter because he was a legend. He had some bad ass matches back in the 80s and stuff before he took his long break to go be Mr. GI Joe. Had some really, really good bras with Pat Patterson and some other folks. But when he came back in the 90s, he was so bored. He was basically like the gender mahal of his era, you know? Let's just call it like it is.
00:46:01
Speaker
Sergeant slaughter should have been nowhere near the fucking belt at this point and it's fucking offensive to this day that he penned ultimate warrior no less to win it like Dude, we couldn't have had some equality take it off warrior and then have slaughter win it I don't know man. This one's so kind of pisses me off to this day. Thanks for really digging that wound in
00:46:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean it set up a classic with warrior and macho man, but I don't know man I suspect there's a better way to book it even if you would add macho man beat him for the belt at this show You could have hogan take the belt from macho at mania and then do warrior and macho it it's summer slam or something but
00:46:37
Speaker
But yeah, even as a kid, I was absolutely fucking pissed that goddamn sergeant slaughter won the world championship and was going to be fighting at WrestleMania against Hulk. Yeah. All right. So speaking of which, WrestleMania seven, it's the end of an era. This is the last televised match of a Bretton and Jim Nighthard as a tag team. And we wrap up.
00:46:57
Speaker
One of the longest running stories in the late 80s, early 90s of wrestling, that Jimmy Hart managed nasty boys defeat the Hart Foundation with Jimmy Hart's motorcycle helmet as the weapon of choice to help them cheat and get the victory.
00:47:14
Speaker
I thought this is a pretty badass match man. Nasty boys could always go as brawlers They were they were a nice contrast to kind of the technical smooth style the heart foundation and I thought it was a pretty fun match This was probably second place to me behind where you're losing the slaughter for matches that fucking pissed me off as a as a as a youth Yeah, my notes on this work for the final time tonight Jimmy hearts dumbass cost the heart foundation and
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah, this is a good match. Solid match, especially for the nasty boys. I mean, they definitely weren't putting out technical classics. But if you get in the ring with the right people, they can definitely have a solid match. And this was one of them. Yeah, this is a distant second or whatever on this card to Ultimate Warrior and Macho Man, which is one of my all time favorite matches. So yeah, agreed. I would say it probably was the second best match of that show, though. I think the only thing that was really in contention was probably the rockers against Haku and Barbarian.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, Macho Man and Ultimate Warrior is phenomenal. Alright, let's get to the good stuff.
00:48:25
Speaker
Square Garden, welcome to SummerSlam. History will be made tonight. Excellence of execution versus the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time. This is the moment I've been waiting for as I've thought and crawled my way to the top, the next World Wrestling Federation Intercontinental Champion right here. Now it's gone, this one's underway. All the models at stake here. Everybody here.
00:48:56
Speaker
Both guys taking a lot of liberties here in this one. They know how much is at stake. They're not laying back. Hitman wide open on the apron. Right into the steel barrel cage. Perfect will be in the showers in 10 minutes. He's got him set up for it. Oh no, no!
00:49:19
Speaker
Nobody's ever kicked out of that. I have never seen a match go one way, then the other back and forth so many times. Oh, look at this. He's got it half way out. The coach is up by the apron. And there goes the coach. Nice block there, that move. Not a fuck out there. The shot shoot in. He's got it. He's got it.
00:50:02
Speaker
You heard the call from Gorilla just an all-time classic of a of an intercontinental championship match one of the best match in summer slam history just hearing that little highlight reel is really making me want to go back and just fire it up like as soon as we get done recording tonight and
00:50:15
Speaker
Yeah, I actually did watch this one. Man, I literally forgot that Brett was the first person ever to kick out of the perfect plex, like just absolutely unheard of. And the perfect drop in the leg drop and him countering it into the sharpshooter from the ground. Absolutely beautiful. This is a masterful match. Like, yeah, I mean, I really can't add anything else to it. That's not already been said, just phenomenal match.
00:50:41
Speaker
Yeah, it was a great one, man. Shout out to Mr. Perfect. By all accounts, his back was shot like damn near as bad as HBK's was at WrestleMania 14. This would be his last match for over a year. So he powered through it and put on just a straight up banger to put Brett over in a big way. Him and Brett were very close backstage. I think it was important. Uh oh, would you just pop the top on, man? Just a bush light. Nothing fancy. When we do these longer. Dude, don't disgrace it. It's not just a bush light. That's a fucking bush light, dude.
00:51:11
Speaker
I mean, it is a bushlight and I know a lot of people don't like just normal beers, but when we're doing one of these long ones, I can't do too many IPAs or else I'll be shitting fucking Christmas goose after this is over. Yeah, and the speech starts to get a little bit too slurred for public consumption there towards the end of the show.
00:51:30
Speaker
Yeah, great, great match man. Awesome finish. You know, it spreads first solo match on pay per view, which just goes to show you the faith that the company had and put them over in a big way like that because perfect had been pretty damn untouchable up to this point. He lost a couple matches here and there, but he was booked very strong. Like you said, the perfect plaques was one of the most protected moves in the company, even considering this was a time where
00:51:52
Speaker
You really didn't kick out of finishing moves, man. That was hardly ever seen, so it was a huge deal. If you were watching a match back in this time period, somebody kicked out of someone's finish. Yeah, you could almost say Mr. Perfect was booked perfectly. Yeah, he's also the perfect friend. Jesus. All right, shout out to Macho Man. Let's not get going on that ride. I'll start crying.
00:52:17
Speaker
Gear wise, this is pretty significant. We see Brett coming out in the pink leather jacket. That's something that you don't even see a couple of times. So really bold choice for his first solo match. And this was also the debut of the skull and wings logo that would pretty much stick with him for the rest of his career, man. It doesn't really make any sense why he has a skull and the wings on his heart. I've never heard him explain any real significance of that. You think it's just because it looks badass or what?
00:52:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's just because it looks badass and Bret Hart gained some XP points changed his logo from just a just a heart to this heart with the skull and wings coming out of it. I love this look like this logo is awesome. And yeah, man, this was a this was a chase that I preordered off ringside just so I'd have it right away because I wanted this one pretty bad.
00:53:06
Speaker
Yeah, in figure four, they just gave us this in elite 94 no jacket. So, you know, they left some meat on the bone to maybe do this as an ultimate edition down the road. I got sabotage wrestling on Instagram. They did make us a pretty sweet, custom made jacket to go with them. So
00:53:22
Speaker
But yeah, very nice figure. And yeah, this is kind of the start of aggressive ball and look, he still got like the straight lines on his pants and stuff. He hasn't gotten too crazy with it yet. But you know, as we get into it, you'll see the gear starting to slowly evolve and just kind of change up more and more.
00:53:38
Speaker
Survivor Series 91. He's in, it's really just kind of the schmaz of a match. This is team Piper versus team flair, and it ends in basically everybody in the ring getting counted out, except for Ric Flair. The only real significant on this is he's rocking with is one of my favorite leather jackets is it's the one that had the skull with the nail in its head and kind of like bloody and stuff. I just, you know, again, it doesn't really make sense in any way. There's no way to like
00:54:01
Speaker
to explain like why he's wearing it. It just looks fucking cool. Me and Jordan were texting last week about Chalk Line dropping the 95 Brett leather jacket. I said they need to drop this one and I'd grab it and rock it to the Ace Hardware here in Oakland.
00:54:14
Speaker
I could just imagine you showing up in your Crocs and your Brett leather jacket days. A pair of chalk line shorts look like Billy Badass. I'd rock the Brett shades also. Well, obviously. I mean, yeah, I don't really got a lot to say about this match. I think it was just, I think they were just looking for a way to get Rick flair on the pay-per-view and Brett's kind of just there in the mix.
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah, I got I got nothing on this one. I actually didn't even do notes on this one. That's how little I cared about this match. Yeah, it's whatever. Fast forward to less than a week later, Tuesday in Texas, he's opening the show defending the IC title against Skinner. This one's pretty cool, man. Like it's actually a pretty good match. You know, for those who don't know, Skinner
00:54:57
Speaker
AKA Steve Kern was a legend back in the Florida and mid south wrestling scene in the early 80s he was in the fabulous ones wrestled by his real name Steve Kern, but most significantly he went on to start FCW and ran WWE developmental up until like the early 2000 teens.
00:55:14
Speaker
And he started what would go on to become NXT, you know, Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose slash Jon Moxley, Seth Rollins. They all came up through FCW before going on to NXT and the main roster. So I think a lot of folks don't really know exactly how impactful, you know, Skinner is and as far as the grand history of wrestling goes.
00:55:34
Speaker
I love how this show starts and Skinner's already in the ring, doesn't even get an entrance or anything. Just cut straight to Brett entering. Notes on this match. Skinner does his normal dirty stuff, grabs the chew can. He does his finisher. Brett kicks out, ends with the top rope slam into a sharpshooter. I mean, yeah, like you said, this is a good match. For what it was and for what this show was, definitely a good opener.
00:56:03
Speaker
Yeah, Skinner is still one of the, uh, the only time he's ever had a figure made was in Hasbro form, man. Would you be down for an elite version of Skinner? Oh yeah. I mean, the dude looks awesome. Like, can you imagine if we got like the chaw bucket and everything with it? That'd be cool.
00:56:17
Speaker
Yeah, a little act maybe you could have him like those those maximum sweat figures that would sweat Maybe you said like some dip spit that will come out of his mouth. All right Let's not go in reverse in what we need to have happen like that's we definitely don't need that to happen. I Think it would be cool man maximum sweat maximum spit Yeah, that's what she said
00:56:40
Speaker
Wow. Okay, let's go to WrestleMania 8. Another all-time classic, man. Brett becomes a two-time Intercontinental champ by beating Roddy Piper. I fucking love this match, dude. It's right on the cusp of being one of my absolute all-time favorites, but just a really, really fun match, man.
00:57:01
Speaker
Um, uh, this is another one I went back and watched Brett bled so much in this match with that blade job, like just absolutely insane. How much blood there was. Um, the counter of the sleeper into the pen. Absolutely iconic. Like unforgettable that it happened. Um, Brett finished this still gets used today, man. Yeah. And Brett having this good of a match with Roddy, who's definitely not known as a in-ring technician. Just.
00:57:29
Speaker
speaks to Brett so much. This match is fantastic. Yeah, Brett has, he talked in his book about that. Actually, it was on an Instagram post whenever Roddy Piper passed away in 2015, that he thought that this match is really what submitted him as a main eventer in Vince's eyes. You know, he'd had some success prior to this, but he said that Roddy basically, you know, he was a made man after this match.
00:57:53
Speaker
A little bit of controversy with the blade job. So there was a strict no blood policy in 1992, but him and Piper thought that they really needed it to just amp up the drama of their match. And they, you know, the reason he bled so much is because they wanted to convince backstage that it was, you know, a hard way. It wasn't, it wasn't a work and they were effective, man. Like, you know, they all was forgiven. They didn't get any heat off of it and just, you know, got congratulated for a good match.
00:58:20
Speaker
If you remember later on in the night, macho man and Rick flair, both also bleed. They don't bleed as much, but it's clear. It's a blade job. Both those guys were actually fine. 5,000 bucks on the same show that Brett got away with it, Scott free. So another salute to Brett for a, uh, you know, just the amazing job he does, but.
00:58:36
Speaker
Yeah, I love this match. The gear is really cool, man. It's, he's rocking some all pink gear, got that skull jacket again that we talked about. And this was the debut of, you know, for lack of a better term is like the squiggly lines on the pants. You know, prior to this, he had like, it looked like almost like, you know, football team stripes and stuff like classic, classic style, like, you know, athletic pants. Now he's starting to rock like the squiggly designs and stuff.
00:58:59
Speaker
Yeah, this kind of reminds me of like when you're doing a creative team on NCAA football and you graduated from the high school uniforms up to like the Wolverine style or whatever they were called on that game. So yeah, it definitely cool luck. And yeah, we just keep evolving with his gear as we go on. Do you think this is Roddy Piper's best match ever? Oh, I don't even think it's close, honestly. I think this is by far his best match ever, personally.
00:59:28
Speaker
You thought it was better than the Hollywood back lap brawl at WrestleMania 12? Man, I forgot about that one. Now you bring that in. That match has aged kind of well to me, man. It's still stupid as fuck, but it's a lot of fun.
00:59:42
Speaker
Gold dust getting stripped down on that match. It's not good. Them driving the Bronco is hilarious though. The OJ Chase is just hilarious dude. It was just bizarre man. Even as a kid I was like, that's OJ's truck dude. What are they trying to do here man?
01:00:00
Speaker
I don't know, dude. In some ways, I feel like it was just way above its... Kind of like punching way above its weight class. They were going for some really high satire and stuff. And then in other ways, I'm thinking there was no thought put into it whatsoever. And it was just the dumbest fucking thing they did in 1996. Yeah. Really great.
01:00:22
Speaker
Four figures, Mattel has not done this one yet, man. We've only gotten one all pink Brett's for the, it was the ringside exclusive from war one, but 93, which we're going to get to. And then they're re-releasing that as the ultimate edition here pretty soon. But this was a little bit more basic version of that gear. Jack's classic superstars gave it to us in series three, just a really beautiful figure, man. At some point I'm going to go back and grab some of these, these classic superstars Brett figures.
01:00:48
Speaker
So I guess this is my thing with Mattel is Brett had so much iconic gear, but first and foremost, Mattel needs to fix the head scan before we do anything else. Like let's, let's fix that before we graduate to all pink and all that stuff. Like just fix the head scan first, like start there and then we can work our way through it. But I would love to have this in a lead form. I just, it's such a badass looking figure, even in Jack's classic.
01:01:16
Speaker
I don't know if it's sweaty Bill making the calls or just somebody else that does the head scopes. I'm not sure. But whoever it is, they're definitely a Shawn Michaels fan because Brett has just never had a good head scope from Mattel. I don't get it. His hair is the biggest fucking problem. The way they drape his hair over his face, it doesn't even look like hair. It looks like like part of a shirt like is dangling off his head. I don't get it, man. It's just literally had to give my figure. That's the,
01:01:42
Speaker
My bread figures are the only ones I've ever had to give haircuts. Like I'm Bruce the fucking barber beefcake, dude.
01:01:47
Speaker
That first Ultimate Edition, literally, as soon as I fucking pulled it out of the box, I had the scissors ready to go and fucking trimmed his bangs for him. Like I'm fucking hairstylist. Did you record it and then send it to him on Instagram? Like, don't worry, Brett, I got you. I should have, dude. And I remember Sheena was just like convinced I was going to fuck it up. Actually did a pretty good job, though, dude. So I'm going to give myself the very horror with Pat on the back. Like when your like when your parents tried to give you a bull cut when you were a little kid and fucking came out all fucking crooked because they put the bull moved because you were moving.
01:02:18
Speaker
Dude, I just don't know what the fuck they were. The Ultimate Edition is the worst one where it had that big old glob of hair just coming straight down to the floor. He looked like the lead singer of the fucking Misfits, dude. It's like, why the fuck does my Bret Hart look like he's going to a My Chemical Romance concert, dude? Like, fix your fucking hair. Got a fucking emo Bret on next. Yeah. Yes, exactly. I don't get it, man. It's just...
01:02:39
Speaker
Maybe Bill does have a problem with him. I don't know. I just, I don't understand it. And there's been numerous people that have like posted in a lot of the message boards and stuff like what's going on with Brett's head scan. Like I just, I don't get it. How the hell does Jax do it that well? And Mattel cannot get it right. I just, I don't get it.
01:02:58
Speaker
And I feel like they've been getting worse dude like I'm looking at the I'm looking at the the blue the blue and black one from that battle pack they were came out back in 2015 and like
01:03:11
Speaker
It doesn't look exactly like Bret Hart, but it looks fine, right? It looks totally passable. Some of the ones they have now, it actively distracts you from the rest of the figure, man. I don't got a head sculpt fetish, right? I don't have to have every head sculpt look like a tiny little version of the wrestler. It just needs to not detract away, man. For me, as long as a head scan is close enough and doesn't look fucking goofy, I'm fine with it.
01:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, just because the box art has his hair over his face, dude, his hair wasn't over his face all the time. Like when he's wrestling, his hair is pulled back because he's so sweaty. Like why can't we just do that? Like this, this next one for SummerSlam92, like his hair is not in his face and it obviously looks better. Like why can't we just do them all like that? I don't get why we need to have hair over his face. Fucking stupid.
01:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, I get what they're what they're trying to have but like yeah when his hair would fall on his face It was like little wispy pieces like it didn't like fucking block out the Sun like these do now yeah, like how would he even be able to see like it looks like he has like those vertical sunglasses you see in like Yeah, all right, let's get to another instant classic
01:04:26
Speaker
355 jam-packing Wembley Stadium, who won the suspect-a-cope. Any boy spent, you have got to be feeling enormous pressure going into this match for the Intercontinental Championship. The World Olympic Champion, Lennox Lewis, in the corner of the British Bulldog. You will be stepping into the ring with your brother-in-law. The head man, Brad Hart, just as popular as the British Bulldog, any boy spent. Tonight, I have the honor of
01:04:54
Speaker
being with my husband, Davey Boy, my brother, Brad, giving them all the support that I had given them. Expect us to be as he saw, rolling down the bottom. And now you can turn Diana looking on. Humbling to win, Justin affords it on a part of both participants. Time's up, swim, wait a minute, come on!
01:05:30
Speaker
is just taking place here at SummerSlam, the new Intercontinental Champion.
01:05:41
Speaker
All right, you guys heard Vince and his best over the top announcer voice made one of the greatest matches of all time. And he ain't lying, man. This thing is just another classic. It's another one I have in my all time favorites. I'm staring at a canvas watercolor painting by Sam Evans on my wall from this match. I love this one, dude. Made of Vince, you know, what you can make a case for is the biggest summer slam of all time. And it's just gripping from start to finish.
01:06:10
Speaker
Let's let's talk about the the real meat of this match though The fact that Davey boy and the anvil had been doing a ton of drugs for a month leading up to this match Brett literally called the entire match in the ring cuz Davey boy could remember none of it and
01:06:27
Speaker
The fact that he wins is even more incredible after knowing that fact. Dude, the fact that Brett literally called this entire match in the ring tells you just how great the dude was. Davey being the first person to ever escape the sharpshooter. Another thing that's like, what the fuck man? Knowing what we know now.
01:06:45
Speaker
Davey, Boy, and Anvil literally did not care at all. Like, they could give two shits about anything. I mean, it's pretty obvious at this point. And the fact that Brett was still cool enough to do this and call the entire match and was still cool with taking the pin says a lot about him and his character, man.
01:07:02
Speaker
Yeah. Brett in his book, he talked about it. This was one of those matches, same as Hulk and warrior at WrestleMania six and warrior and macho man at WrestleMania seven, where basically they had rehearsed the entire match several times. Like they, they, this wasn't one where they were like calling it in the ring. Like they had Scott, they had, they had practiced every single move and I had it down pat because you know, Brett just really want to put Davey boy over strong for his big moment.
01:07:25
Speaker
According to Brett, about five seconds into the match, Brett says to, or Davey boy says to Brett, you know, Brett, I'm fucked. I don't know any of the match. And, uh, and yeah, man, they, uh, you know, Brett powered through it. So yeah, like he said, man, the, the match was amazing. When you consider those, um, those circumstances makes it even better, but
01:07:49
Speaker
just awesome action-packed match dude just you know super technical there's the drama of it being brother-in-laws against each other and just a beautiful finish man another one of those finishes that's been used several other times since then and it still holds up you know Nick Aldis and Cody used it
01:08:07
Speaker
as the finish in their NWA Championship match at All In back in 2018. And it was just as great then as it was back in 1992. What did you think of Diana's performance? So, you know, Diana had a, she had a long interview before this man. What do you think of Diana and her role in all the drama on this one?
01:08:27
Speaker
just absolutely over the top like it's just like come on for the cat's ass what are we doing here like the acting was so bad and Sean if you watch that interview right for the match she's still talking and Sean Mooney basically just cuts her off it's like all right on to the match
01:08:43
Speaker
All right, we gave you two minutes and you're trying to take up 25. Brett's gear in this match is, you know, I put in the notes that it kind of fully evolved, right? It basically at this point, his gear is kind of what it would be for the rest of his career. He's got kind of like the crazy lines on the side, skulls and hearts all over the place. And it's really cool.
01:09:05
Speaker
We talked about it from SummerSlam 91. This was the chase and this was the mainline version in Elite 94. So just two badass Bret Hart figures that Mattel hooked us up with here in the last year. Yeah, they definitely put it down with Elite 94 for Bret. So bravo, Mattel. Way to go.
01:09:23
Speaker
All right, let's go to Survivor Series 92. So something really, really important happened between SummerSlam and Survivor Series. Up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Bret Hart grabbed the World Championship from Ric Flair on a freaking house show. I guess it was maybe a cut hair above a house show, because it was taped for a Coliseum video release. But what do you think was the thought process behind having him get the belt from Flair on a house show like that?
01:09:52
Speaker
I mean, they obviously were taping it for a reason. They knew what they were doing, going to sell tapes and stuff like that. Weird to say that going back now. But I think that was the entire reason behind it. You have to do some stuff at house shows, and I still think they should do more of this stuff now.
01:10:12
Speaker
You have to make it worth people attending, right? You can't just throw it away and make it just, oh, you're going to see some one off matches and stuff like that. I like this personally. I think it's really cool. I wish they would do it more when Samoa Joe won the NXT title at a house show. I mean, that's an incredible moment. Like, yeah, I might jump to a house show and here's thinking, all right, man, it's just gonna be like any other house show and a title change going to end in a VQ or something. You know, dude, that's that's awesome. Like,
01:10:39
Speaker
90s wrestling got it done, man. They knew what they were doing. And yeah, this is really cool. And yeah, imagine being in the house when Brett wins the world title from Ric Flair. Dude, it's a legit core memory for me. WWF superstars would come on at 11 o'clock on Saturday mornings. I always watched it because this is pre Monday night raw. So like superstars is where you had all your storyline development. And I remember turning on a random Saturday and the show starts with me and Jean Oakland announcing that he's interviewing the new
01:11:08
Speaker
world champion Bret Hart and I remember freaking out running into the kitchen like yelling at my mom like Brett's the champ, Brett's the world champ. Looking back, I'm sure she was like, who gives a fuck, dude? I just remember that surprise and that feeling of like, like I said, turn it on my TV and randomly Bret Hart was the champ, man.
01:11:28
Speaker
It was just freaking beautiful man goes into this pay-per-view we get what was really kind of undersold it It didn't make a big deal out of this match It was basically a glorified exhibition match as far as the building stuff goes But it was the intercontinental champion Shawn Michaels ironically enough having his first showdown on pay-per-view against the hitman
01:11:48
Speaker
This is definitely the Jordan Wells special work rate match of the night. 30 minute absolute banger. Um, Brett eventually wins with the sharpshooter. May I talk about the start of something special though, between him and Sean, obviously it ends poorly. We'll get to that later, but
01:12:07
Speaker
Dude, these guys just put it down on there in the ring. They just had so much chemistry when they wrestled. Everything was clean. It never seemed like there was a dull moment in their matches. It always felt like they knew the next step in every match. I love watching Shawn and Brent wrestle. Like I said, unfortunately it came to the end the way it did.
01:12:28
Speaker
Dude, this is like one of my favorite feuds of the nineties. I love Brett and Sean, I think. And I like that you have become more of a Sean Michaels fan because dude, him and Brett just, they put it down every time they wrestled. I mean, no matter who they were wrestling, Brett and Sean were carrying the match. So them being in the same match together, you know, it's going to create just awesome chemistry.
01:12:51
Speaker
Yeah, Brett had described it on the rivalries DVD that came out, I believe 2013 or 2014 of him and Sean. He said that, you know, he thought him and Sean were basically like wrestling soulmates. And it was just a shame that they couldn't get along better than they did because they would have had so many more all time classics, man. And it really is, you know, just I think they were just kind of like, you know,
01:13:13
Speaker
if star-crossed lovers, man, that's kind of what they were in the wrestling world, dude, because they were just polar opposites on the way they carried themselves and everything behind the stage and kind of their philosophies towards the business. But like you said, when that bell rang, these guys made magic every time they were in there together.
01:13:27
Speaker
Yeah, dude, it gets used a lot. But I mean, these guys were equals in the ring like you and you don't get to say that often about either one of these guys against their opponent. But yeah, when they got to wrestle together, they, they just knew what to do and they knew how to do it. Yeah, like I said, there was never a dull moment in their matches. It was just always awesome.
01:13:46
Speaker
This is kind of my key. Like when I hear Survivor Series 92, man, the thing I think about is it's just such a like a warm memory for me, dude, is, you know, Bret Hart celebrating with Santa Claus and the fake snow coming down from the roof after he wins this match. Doesn't he have a promo backstage with Santa too, eventually?
01:14:05
Speaker
Think that was like a Coliseum video exclusive. I don't think that's on the actual pay-per-view broadcast But yeah, that's out there dude like they were just they were just really making him just straight up white meat Babyface all the way. Yeah, they really leaned into it that night All right, let's go to royal rumble
01:14:23
Speaker
1993. This is similar to the match with Sean, man. Kind of not a huge bill. This is kind of just like a flavor of the month type challenger. It's Razor Ramones. His second match on pay-per-view, he had been in the big tag match at the Survivor Series against Mr. Perfect and Macho Man after team over Ric Flair, but we get Razor and Brett for the World Championship on the undercard of Royal Rumble 93.
01:14:47
Speaker
I think this gets lost a lot for Razor's career about how big this is that he's actually wrestling Bret Hart for the title this early in the card on Royal Rumble. It's a great match. It starts off really hot. Razor comes out like a ball of fire. It slows down a lot more to Razor's pace as it goes on, and then Bret speeds it up at the end.
01:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's just, it's awesome. Razor hits a near pinfall and Brett turns it into the sharpshooter and I do these guys had a lot of chemistry too, man. I liked watching these guys wrestle each other. It was just, it was really good. Razor was just so fluid in the ring. Like for a big guy, he just, he moves so damn well, even against the smaller guys. Like it really is a shame.
01:15:37
Speaker
I mean, obviously we obviously know what happened, but it's a shame raiser and never won the big belt in WWE because he definitely deserved it. The dude could work with anybody, dude, and WCW, man, I feel like with the whole breakup of WCW, dude, he kind of.
01:15:54
Speaker
He could have been like the Jay Uso, like, you know, to use a modern day, you know, comparison, dude, he could, because I felt like he was always, even though Hogan was the bigger star, and obviously Kevin Nash is super impressive being seven foot tall and, you know, big sexy with blonde hair and everything, dude. But I thought he was always like the emotional, like center of the NWO, right? He's who the fans are. He's the one who did the
01:16:18
Speaker
you know, WCW or NWO survey. And like, I just feel like if he would have got a big baby face run out of like the breakup of the NWO, he could have been, like you said, he could have been a world champ.
01:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, I hate it that it always seemed like he was the bridesmaid and Hogan and Nash were the bride and groom. Like they always got the big matches and they always got the big pushes and razor was just, he was always there on their side, but he never got to do anything that was like over the top meaningful. Like he helped end Goldberg streak obviously with the cattle prod and
01:16:54
Speaker
I mean, it really does suck, man. He definitely should have got the big bell. It's really unfortunate. In WWF, he was always just intercontinental champion guy. You know, four time intercontinental champ. One of the best ICG champs of all time. So nothing to be ashamed of, but it feels like it could have been a little bit more. And he's been on record on, if you listen to some of the podcasts he did with, he had a really good one with Stone Cold, man. They had about a two hour interview.
01:17:15
Speaker
back in 2014 and he talked about how, you know, he was just never a mark behind the scenes, you know what I mean? And he had a good mind for the business, so he was always cool to take a back seat if it made for a better story. And I feel like maybe if he was a little bit more selfish, you know, maybe we would have seen him have a little bit more success as a solo star. Should have been more damn selfish.
01:17:36
Speaker
We'll, we'll get to that, you know, in a year from now and in podcast time. But yeah, good match. Like I said, similar to Sean, it's kind of like flavor of the month type challenger. I don't think anybody really thought razor had a real chance of walking out with the belt. Do want to talk about Brett's look from this. So this is, you know, affectionately referred to as the pink and black attack. There's a legendary ringside collectibles exclusive figure of this. And now it's getting remade as an ultimate edition, all pink gear, you know, got some splatter got this crazy
01:18:05
Speaker
pink jacket. Like, dude, just one of Brett's best looks ever for sure. Yeah. So since since we're looking at the figure again with the goddamn hair, like
01:18:16
Speaker
why dude why is that fucking necessary it looks stupid as shit like well the base head sculpt is okay yeah the base head sculpt is fine but that dumbass one up top where he looks like cousin it is fucking stupid like dude come on man can we make some effort out of this it does anyone actually think that looks good like it looks stupid
01:18:38
Speaker
Like I said, somebody in Mattel hates Brett, dude. I'll get him. This is a dope figure, though. I love the ringside exclusive, and I'm really excited to get this one. Yeah, it should be hitting target pretty soon. So hopefully we get that. Maybe we can do a fig hunt for WrestleMania weekend when you're here. Oh, yeah. Fig got on a fig hunt in Tennessee. Let's get to what I call the original cash in.
Controversial Moments & Critiques
01:19:05
Speaker
It's your challenge. You didn't test the fortitude, you'd accept my young opponent's challenge. Come on! Come on, young fellow, come on! So Fuji says that Jokko's inter-zishing a challenge to Hulk Hogan. The Hulk is more concerned with helping his friend, Red Heart. We need one more second. We will put on, and wait, no! No, no, wait! Right now! Fuji says that they'll put the time on the Hulk right now! Come on!
01:19:34
Speaker
Let's go. You got any guts? Let's do it. Mr. Fuji has set up. Let's go. On the line right now, this is a holster. Let's go. Let's go. Don't get out of the way. Look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Don't look at him.
01:20:02
Speaker
The crowd wanted to go for it, but then Fuji reaching back into us for Muna there. And he's got more than solid water all over the eyes of Yokozuna. Hold it up, Fuji down. Hold it up, close down. And down goes Yokozuna. Hold it back to Lee. Hold it to the counter. No. Hold it to Lee. Hold it to Lee.
01:20:48
Speaker
To me, this is one of the most cringe moments in WrestleMania history, man. What a shit way for Brett's first title reign to end. I feel like they made Brett the equivalent of the fucking guy sitting in the corner of the hotel room holding the camera while his wife's getting her fucking guts bashed in. Wow. Jesus.
01:20:57
Speaker
I'm not going out there.
01:21:09
Speaker
Too stiff. Oh my god didn't know that's where we were going but am I lying? Tell me when I start lying It's just yeah, I'm not a fan of this at all. I fucking hated this when it happened and Hogan always got to get his shit in fucking win the match dickhead I wouldn't have had as much issue with it if they didn't have like if if Brett just fucking rolled out and went to the back and then Hulk came out and challenged him I wouldn't have as much issue with it
01:21:39
Speaker
But the fact that, you know, Hulk had to come out and console Brett, even though they never had any established prior relationship. And then Brett had to kind of give him like the thumbs up to go and fight Yoko Zuno. Like it just, dude, I just thought they made Brett look like shit here. Let's have a conversation though about what, what really needs to be pointed out about what we just listened to. We need to bring yellow belly back. Like, come on, you yellow belly could be in a gutless turn.
01:22:05
Speaker
It is just a good insult, man. It just cuts to the bone. Yeah. I liked this Brett and Yoko match. It is fun, dude. It's fun. There's some cool spots. Brett trapping Yoko's leg in the ropes. He did a lot of moves off the ropes, too. He did a bulldog, a clothesline, an elbow drop. A wicked clothesline, dude. Yoko was really athletic at this time, too. I want to talk about the ending of this match, though.
01:22:33
Speaker
Am I the only one that is confused how salt in the eyes gets a three count? Like he's so disoriented. He doesn't know he's being pinned and can't kick out. Dude, it's just a lot for me. I think it's just the pain, dude. That was the thing. We haven't seen that in a long time. The salt in the eyes has definitely been retired, but at the time it was a legit finish, dude. And in kayfabe, I think wrestlers have just, you know, they watched enough tape that they began to focus on like pain management techniques to where it no longer bothers them as much as it did.
01:23:02
Speaker
But back in the day, it was a totally logical finish. Yeah, I don't know. It just doesn't age well, I guess. Plus, we didn't know it was actually salt, dude. It could have been fucking cocaine, dude. Yeah, I didn't know that fucking thing. Well, if it was cocaine, Brett definitely would have kicked out. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, in a way, dude, it's hard for me to criticize, because if you go back and watch, the crowd pops like fucking crazy, dude. So there's some interesting things about this WrestleMania IX. It was in Las Vegas.
01:23:31
Speaker
Um, really just iconic stage design. I love the stage design from that, from that show, but it was at, there was at the, uh, the garden arena of Caesar's palace, the outside arena outside the, uh, the casino and the fans, it wasn't a wrestling fan audience, dude. It was mostly that they have a lot of specials going that basically if you made reservations at the hotel that week, they were putting, you were getting tickets to WrestleMania. So it was a lot of, it wasn't a lot of hardcore wrestling fans. It was a lot of just, you know,
01:24:00
Speaker
you know, people who may not even been fans at all. And probably Hulk Hogan was the only person on the card that they knew because it definitely got a pop. So I feel like that may have played a part in why they they booked this finish like they did. But but yeah, just truly one of the most controversial endings to WrestleMania that we've ever seen. And it went nowhere because the very next show, Brett or the very next show, Brett Job and excuse me, Hulk Job to Yokozuna and drop the belt back. I don't know, man, what's what's kind of your your ultimate verdict on this one?
01:24:30
Speaker
the match itself or the actual pay-per-view because I don't the ending I hate it I really do I just I think it's hasn't aged well I get it like like you said I get it this is not like a full-on wrestling crowd which that that in itself makes it fine right but
01:24:49
Speaker
I just hate how they just do everything for Hogan. I don't know, man. It's just, it's a lot for me that they literally at this point would do anything to make him happy. And it sucks, man. It really does. And sort of been a great moment for Brett to win the title from Yokozuna, but instead, oh, Hogan's already wrestled once. Let's bring him back out here after his fucking terrible match with the mega maniacs.
01:25:15
Speaker
Uh, it's fucking stupid. I just, I don't like it. I hate this pay-per-view as a whole. There's other than the set design, this pay-per-view does nothing for me. I mean, every match, if you look at like ratings of every match, like almost every match is like a one star or a lower. I mean, Jenkins, also taker is disgusting. Like it's bad. I think the best match on this show is the Steiners versus the head shrinkers. And it's a fine little tag match, but it's nothing to write home about.
01:25:41
Speaker
This is a really bad show. It's just not good at all. Going to the look for Brett, he did have some unique gear. It was all pink gear with white trim. He typically would have black trim on his gear, but he had white on this one, so it kind of set off a little bit. It was like a hotter shade.
01:25:58
Speaker
of pink the closest we got to this in figure form was in classic superstars two packs series 10 they did Brett and Yoko and being jacks they kind of botched some of the details on it so as black outline on his gear but so pretty fun figure set even though jacks did absolutely horrible job at the super heavyweights
01:26:16
Speaker
Yeah, Yoko looks so weird. I mean, this is definitely where, like, look how small Yoko Zuna's head looks on that body. Like, looks like- Yeah, the body's just ridiculous, dude. Like, they went overboard on it. Yeah, it's not good, but yeah, I think we can move on from WrestleMania 9 pretty easily. All right, you ready to take a little beverage break? Yeah.
01:26:46
Speaker
I just wanna know, wanna know you I just wanna know, wanna know you
01:27:09
Speaker
All right, it's time for the beverage break. You know, this is a staple of the Chick-fil-A show, but we absolutely cannot do an episode of Pod Warriors without getting boost up. That's part of the charm. You guys love to hear it. We get a little bit more loose on the mic. You've already heard a little bit of that so far. I think this was the debut of Drizzy Drake on the Chick-fil-A show universe, right? I don't think we've heard him before on here, have we, Jordan? I don't think we've ever done a Drake song, so welcome to the Pod, Drake.
01:27:37
Speaker
That was the the instrumental from cameras from take care two thousand eleven one of the all-time great hip-hop albums i think. Yeah i love that i still play it to the state.
01:27:48
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of fun, man. So many good bangers on that one. We did Drake to try and tie into the whole Canada thing with the hit man. If you remember, Brett actually had an IG post. Somehow he had gotten his hands on an OVO t-shirt and basically gave a big salute to Drake whenever Drake conquered Meek Mill in their beef in 2015, 2016. Talk about a squash. Yeah, that really wasn't even close at all. And I like, this is coming from somebody that likes Meek Mill too, and it still was not close.
01:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, meek meal. Drake was just ahead of the game on that one. But let's get into it. Jordan, what are you drinking, man? Again, just crack to top. Pop the top on another Bushlight. Just an all-time classic. Probably my favorite beer ever. I drink these, if not daily, every other day.
01:28:38
Speaker
It's definitely one of my seminal favorites. Miller Lite is my go-to. If I could only have one beer the rest of my life, it'd be Miller Lite over Bush, but my dad's a Bush Lite guy. They go down easy. The ice cold Bush Lite's tough to beat, so yeah, I'm right there with you, man. I will bring the creativity for this one. I am drinking Dragon's Lair. This is by 450 North Brewing Company out of Columbus, Indiana.
01:29:05
Speaker
This is their part of their slushy XL series. It's a smoothie style sour ale with dragon fruit peach and raspberry so This thing is it's actually got actual fruit in it It says on the can to drink as fresh as possible due to the large amount of fruit in this beer. It is like a
01:29:23
Speaker
Um, do you ever, do you remember when they used to, I don't think they even make them anymore. Jordan, you remember when we were kids and they had those Bacardi, like frozen daiquiri mixes that like our parents would get? Oh yeah. Yeah. That's what this kind of tastes like, but in beer form. Interesting. Do you actually, I don't even know if you would call this a beer, dude. It's, it's purple in the cup, man. It's almost like more like a cocktail than a beer. But it literally is like the texture of a smoothie, isn't it?
01:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, very smooth. I've had a couple of these beers in recent months, dude. I think this may be the last time I'd get them, dude. I'm actually not a huge fan of this style of beer, man. I feel like, I don't know if my palate's kind of off or if it's a mental thing. I feel like I'm always getting just like the fucking Vegas hint of like a note of like sour milk when I drink these things, man. What about you? Where are you at with the smoothie style beers? I don't do these.
01:30:16
Speaker
My wife Ari absolutely loves sour beers and smoothie style beers So she'd definitely be the better person to talk to on this I know she likes the Drecker ones like she always says those ones are really good The other problem with those do to four pack of those is like 25 bucks a lot of time
01:30:34
Speaker
This was 32 bucks and like, you know when I'm buying I mean, you know, not that I'm ballin dude But I've just I bought it so much that I really don't pay a lot of attention to the price tag when I buy craft beer I just assume they're gonna be pricey right like typically a four-pack you're looking at like 18 19 bucks man for some of the pricier ones But yeah, I didn't even check it and I got to the cash register guy bring it up $32 and I'm like, what the fuck man? I mean, obviously I'm not gonna walk away right like I got pride. I'm a dude, but uh, but I was just like Jesus Christ
01:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, but for me, dude, it's because they always, the thing that makes them smoother, they put a little bit of lactose sugar in there. And like I said, I don't know if it's just in my head now, but I feel like I'm always just getting a little bit of a dairy note on the tasting on these and it's just a little bit of a turn off for me. That's interesting because I got some beers during Christmas and I didn't, I don't really like beers that have lactose in them. I don't know, maybe it's just me.
01:31:28
Speaker
But I got three of them. And I thought they all tasted like shit. Like I got the exact same thing that you were getting it just it tasted like old milk to me like I don't know. And these were all hazy IPAs with lactose. So you would assume like the IPA flavor would take it over.
01:31:45
Speaker
and then I dumped it out at the end and it was just I don't know it was gross at the end it was just really thick and nothing good about it so I think I'm done with the lactose flavored beers for now. I think for the I think the lactose beers I think you've really got to have them like as fresh as possible because I had some
01:32:06
Speaker
Back when the Book of Boba Fett came out, they, O'Connor Brewing in Norfolk, this is when we still live in Virginia, they did the beer of Boba Fett, and it was a milkshake IPA. It wasn't a sour, but it was an IPA with lactose, and it was pretty good, but I'm talking like I was at the brewery the day the cans dropped and got like one of the first four packs off the line and drank those, and those were pretty good, so maybe that's it. But yeah, for the time being, I think I'm off the lactose beers, man. I guess, so the,
01:32:34
Speaker
The beers you sent me, I think it was before last WrestleMania when you sent me the Saturday morning one with the lucky. I'm pretty sure that one had lactose in that one was fine. I didn't mind that one, but I don't know, man. I just, maybe some of them have sat on the shelf too long because people see that they're $32 for a four pack and they're not willing to drop $8 on beer. So that's probably been sitting there since last summer.
01:32:57
Speaker
Yeah, and like you said, you mentioned that it was the smart mouth cereal pack that we, that they came out, you know, the, the nostalgically delicious was like the, that was like Lucky Charms branded one. That was kind of the key, but it was vague. It was like the flavors were kind of like faint, dude. It was like, like you got a hint of Lucky Charms flavor and like cereal flavor, but that was it. I feel like some of these crap breweries feel like we just got to go harder, right? We got to be more extreme, where I feel like maybe like a little bit of that kind of flavor could go a long way, but it's really easy to overdo it.
01:33:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's probably why it's just one of those things, but.
01:33:33
Speaker
All right, you ready to get back into some wrestling? Absolutely. All right, so we have moved on from the WrestleMania IX debacle.
King of the Ring & Rivalries
01:33:46
Speaker
We're into the King of the Ring 1993. Now, this to me is arguably pound for pound Brett's greatest performance ever on pay-per-view. He fights Razor Ramon in a really, really awesome match in the first round, which is coincidentally Razor Ramon's last pay-per-view match as a heel in WWF.
01:34:03
Speaker
fights Mr. Perfect in a really great rematch from SummerSlam 91. Some folks actually think this surpasses SummerSlam 91. I'm not quite there with it, but it's really good. And then he fights Bam Bam Bigelow in a really great finals match. Three different finishes, becomes the first King of the Ring on pay-per-view. I just, I love this as a truly iconic performance from the Hitman.
01:34:25
Speaker
Yeah, so my note was this Knight proved that Brett was easily one of the best ever. Three completely different matches. Yeah. The Razor match, he uses speed to beat him. Ending was a top rope reverse suplex. Great match. I liked the Mr. Perfect match a lot. Like you said, I don't know if it's better than the
01:34:47
Speaker
The summer slam one, but it's still really good. The only thing I don't like about this match, and I know they use it a lot in the nineties, but I am never a fan of a small package as the, the finish. So I didn't love that. I think that takes a little bit away from it. So that probably knocks a point off of it for me, just cause that's the finish. Um, I thought the Bambam match was good, but you can clearly tell Brett is exhausted at this point in the night. Um, I actually did watch these three on Sunday and.
01:35:17
Speaker
He is by this time and as he should be I mean wrestling razor and mr. Perfect by themselves on any given night is a task of itself and then having to wrestle them and then bam bam who got the bye because of an injury so Yeah, the bam bam match to me is definitely not the best which that's fine I mean bread had already wrestled so much by that point so I get it, but yeah, just a special night for Brett and
01:35:46
Speaker
We got an awesome figure of this in 2018. Ringside Collectibles gave us the exclusive Bret the Hitman heart with the robe, the crown and everything.
01:35:56
Speaker
Yeah, this is absolutely incredible. I love this figure. I have this figure. I actually bought two of these and like an idiot sold the other one on eBay for like 40 bucks. Like what the hell was I thinking? It's a pricey figure nowadays. Yeah, it's really expensive now and it's phenomenal. I would love to get this one signed. It's just, it's a really cool look. Again with the goddamn hair though. Looking back, how goofy is it that they actually got Brett to get in the full king get up?
01:36:24
Speaker
Yeah, extremely weird. Definitely not something you would picture as him ever doing again, but it's still cool. Definitely a moment, as Sheena would say. And we kicked off the start of a really great mid-90s rivalry with Jerry to think we're all coming out and attacking Brett during his coronation ceremony.
01:36:47
Speaker
I am definitely of the belief that Waller has a place in wrestling history on top of his announcing. I just was not a fan of his ring wise. So I didn't love this. I just kind of thought it was stupid. Like Brett is already above him at this point for me. So I don't know. Wasn't a huge fan of that.
01:37:06
Speaker
Yeah, I would have loved it like Brett and Jerry Lawler doing some like side stuff down in USWA in Memphis, but like you said, Jerry Lawler style and hats off to him and all time great, right? You can make an argument that Jerry Lawler should actually be in like the top 10 professional wrestlers all time. But it was so old school and just so Southern wrestling heel shtick that it didn't really belong on pay-per-view and he did end up getting a handful of pay-per-view matches against Brett.
01:37:34
Speaker
I will say I think Jerry Lawler is probably one of the 10 most influential people in wrestling. I think that's a better way to describe him just for everything that he did on the Memphis wrestling scene and everything. And I mean, dude, he brought in some huge people like him wrestling, Andy Kaufman and stuff like that was definitely huge back then. So he definitely has this place in wrestling history, just not my favorite personal wrestler, but definitely a huge part of wrestling history.
01:38:01
Speaker
And he's right there at summer slam 93. So Brett gives us a two for one special on this night fights doing Ironically enough, you know, he fought razor and razors last match as a heel at king of the ring This is doink's last match as a heel on pay-per-view here at summer 793 beats doing and then Jerry Waller and faked the injury to get out of it And he fights Jerry Waller second. I think the match with doing is really really good. This is the original incarnation of doing Matt Bourne amazing wrestler from the Pacific Northwest actually
01:38:30
Speaker
actually wrestles on WrestleMania one against Ricky the Dragon Steamboat as danger map born. Um, but he was the, you know, the heel doing and just a really, really awesome influential character when he first came in. I think this match is, uh, I think the joint match is pretty good, man. The joint matches. It is a really good match. The Jerry Waller match is not good. Like, let's just call it for what it is. It's not good. It's an angle more than a match.
01:38:54
Speaker
There's nothing about it that I would consider a wrestling match as far as that's concerned. But yeah, the Doink match was fun to watch. I enjoyed Doink. I mean, definitely at his place. I hated clowns as a kid, so it was easy to hate him as a heel.
01:39:09
Speaker
And it was really cool how they rolled Doink out, you know, we're just like, you'd kind of see him strolling through the background on Monday Night Raw and stuff like that. And it's like, what the fuck is this? This is a couple years after it was a real phenomenon as a television miniseries. And yeah, super creepy and dark. That early incarnation of Doink. Yeah, I loved it. I thought it was really well done. Looking back on it.
01:39:31
Speaker
There's an alternate universe where on this night, instead of wrestling a double feature against Doink and Jerry Lawler, that Brett is main eventing and getting a passing torch moment, winning the World Championship from Hulk Hogan. Supposedly that is what was originally sketched out when Hulk got the belt from Yokozuna at WrestleMania IX. What do you think a Brett-Hulk match looks like at SummerSlam 93, Jordan?
01:39:56
Speaker
Hogan gets a shit in obviously. It'd have to be some schmaz finish for Hogan to agree to lose that match clean. Like you mentioned, some sort of small package, something like that. Yeah, he's definitely not just taking a clean loss, like tapping out in the sharpshooter. He definitely isn't doing that.
01:40:14
Speaker
I'm seeing, I'm seeing either a small package or maybe Holt goes for like a, a back suplex and Brett rolls over to a cross body and you know, Hulk kicks out at fucking 3.01. I could see a run into where it distracts Hulk and then Brett gets like a roll up or something to win the match and be like, well, you couldn't beat me without someone running in. So it would be something along those lines knowing Hogan.
01:40:37
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Let's go to Survivor Series, man. So the match is kind of forgettable, but it's still pretty historically significant. This is Bret Hart going up against HBK and the Knights. Now, you might be wondering, why the fuck did HBK have Knights? He didn't.
01:40:55
Speaker
This was originally supposed to be Jerry Lawler, but the king got in a little bit of trouble for possibly robbing the cradle, depending on how much you believe the accusations did. Basically, I think it was a 15-year-old he was accused of having relations with, and had a bit of a legal situation back here in Tennessee. And luckily, Shawn Michaels was there to come to the rescue with the knights there.
01:41:20
Speaker
They fought the heart family it was brat olin and their brothers you really need to look brats rocking the singlet and what do you what do you think of brat in the singlet with no no long time it sure is something that kind of describes this whole match for me just a cluster fuck of a match like.
01:41:37
Speaker
I would probably quote like Seth's famous quote, I'd close my blinds if this match was on in my front yard. Yeah, then the Knights for so obviously you got Shawn Michaels, who's an all timer of a wrestler. I think it was Bruce and Keith were the two heart brothers. There's a reason that this was the only ever match they had in WWEF. But Shawn's Knights were I think I forget what the fourth one was. It was a no name, but then it was Greg Valentine and Barry Horwitz.
01:42:05
Speaker
I don't think either one of those guys are sitting the world on fire, right? Definitely not. Yeah, this is not a great match at all. There's nothing about this that I would never tell anybody, hey man, be sure to go back and watch this because you're really going to see a real treat of a match here.
01:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, the only thing this is significant for is it did kind of light the fuse on one of the great rivalries in wrestling history when Brett accidentally gets Owen eliminated. Owen ends up being the only heart brother eliminated from the match, and this kind of plants the seeds for Brett and Owen's absolute epic rivalry. Yeah, absolutely fantastic to set this up. That's about the only thing you can say about this match, honestly.
01:42:51
Speaker
Talking figures, a lot of people really want to get a figure of this because it's a unique look for Brett. For me, dude, I only would want this if we got all the Hart brothers. Obviously, we know that for Owen, that's basically impossible. For Bruce and Keith, it's next to never happening. I don't want this as a standalone. To me, it only works if you get the whole set. What's your thoughts? I don't want this figure unless it's with everybody or else the figure just looks weird on its own. We need everybody in it.
01:43:21
Speaker
Um, yeah, not a fan of the, it was an all time swerve upgrade for me. Um, last year, 2022, when they announced the survivor series lineup for elites, Brett was in it. It was originally rumored. It was going to be survivor series 93. Brett, when they switched from it to survivor series 96, that was just like, you know, I was HRD hard for that one. The fourth night, by the way, was Jeff Gaylord. So I have to ask you, uh, just based on principle, what's your favorite Jeff Gaylord match?
01:43:51
Speaker
I don't know, dude. I don't know. I'm not real familiar with the gay world, dude. Yeah, I figured you'd say that. All right. Let's get to one of the most important nights of Bret Hart's career. Gotta tell you, I cannot believe what I just saw. Oh, and please tell me why. Why this despicable life? Why what? Why what? I don't understand. You want to know why?
01:44:12
Speaker
Bret Hart, you're nothing but a selfish person. I went in there in a tag team match for the biggest match of my life. It was a dream come true. I thought I had the best partner in the world. My own brother, but you're too selfish. Like I've said all along, your ego is too big. You only worry about yourself, Bret.
01:44:29
Speaker
You don't care about me. Unbelievable in front of your entire family. I don't care about anybody. I was concerned about myself and my whole family. The biggest opportunity in my life. I had a chance, Brett, and you stripped it away from me. You took it away from me, Brett, because you're too selfish. All you had to do was just tag me. My head was there. Just tag me. I knew your leg was bad. I was aware of that. Just tag me. But you're too selfish.
01:44:57
Speaker
You just want to put your sharp shooter on. I could have won the match. I don't need you with a bad leg doing a break. You're too damn selfish. And that's why you're sitting there with a bad leg. And that's why I kicked your leg out of your leg.
01:45:13
Speaker
Absolutely. Legendary line. That's why I kicked your leg out of your leg, dude. Owen had, dude, he was star-crossed man. Obviously he botched that line, even though it ended up being so famous. And then, you know, he gets the big win at our next pay-per-view, and he's got like a freaking boogie hanging out of his nose as he celebrates.
01:45:34
Speaker
But we'll start off with the tag team match, man. I'll tell you, dude, as a kid, I remember buying this paper, getting my parents to buy this paper view. Even though, even as a nine-year-old dude, I should have fucking seen the heel turn come from a mile away. I'll tell you, dude, seeing Brett back in the tag team division and teaming up with Owen, I was capital M fucking marking out thinking they were going to beat the Quebecers and be like this unstoppable tag team.
01:46:01
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely had the setup of being just absolutely fantastic in a great run. But like you said, dude, the Owen Hart promo at the end of this just, I mean, me and you recite this numerous times a year. You're too damn selfish. All you have to do is tag me in. Me and Tina use it around the house, dude. You know why you didn't clean that toilet? Because you're too damn selfish.
01:46:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's just fantastic. Kicked your leg out of your leg. Absolutely phenomenal.
01:46:39
Speaker
Yeah, man. And a good match too, dude. You know, Brett had the knee injury, you've sewn it the whole time. It's a really, really fun tag match all the way through. I mean, dude, the Mounties don't get enough credit for me. I love them. I thought they were great together, honestly. I feel like that's probably, for me, one of the most underrated tag teams ever.
01:47:04
Speaker
They get no credit. Yeah, Dr. Joe was awesome. And he was Pierre in the Quebecers. Then he goes on to be Jean Pierre Lafitte, who was really, really cool for the short run he had in WWE. And dude, he's still a big time wrestler on the NBC Now. He's PCO. Yeah, it's insane. That was 30 years ago, dude. We're talking about something that was 30 years ago, and he's still wrestling to this day. He's an absolute brick shit house, by the way. Good God.
01:47:29
Speaker
That's a scary dude. I wouldn't want to run into that dude in a back alley. But yeah, I feel like they don't get enough credit for what they did. This is a really good match. I mean, even before the Owen shit happens, this match is really good.
01:47:45
Speaker
I feel like the ending adds to it too, just the fact that he just collapses rather than tagging Owen. I feel like that adds, it already built in the storyline for him and Owen. He has something to call back on. This was so well booked at the time and yeah, I loved it.
01:48:04
Speaker
So what do you think, man? Was Brett too selfish? Oh, 100%. All you have to do is tag him out and go lay on the outside, but he's just too damn selfish, man. He's the only heart that he cares about as himself. See, dude, I disagree, man. Obviously, I'm a Brett apologist, but I feel like Brett knew that every time Owen had a chance to shine at the biggest moment, he choked it away, dude.
01:48:28
Speaker
Aside from the opening match of WrestleMania 10, which we're going to get to next, when did Owen not choke it away when he had a big opportunity? Yeah, man. Owen definitely had his shortcomings.
01:48:39
Speaker
Yeah. Before we get to the rumble, let's talk about the gear, dude. Brett's rocking all black gear with the splatter paint on it, dude. It's never been done in figure four, man. I thought this is one of Brett's biggest nights of his career. And to me, this is my all time favorite gear that he wore. Why the fuck have we not gotten this as our action figure yet? Because it would tell us to damn selfish. That's why. Damn selfish.
01:49:07
Speaker
All right, let's go to the rumble. Brett comes out at number 27, limping out. Huge baby face pop, man. Like the crowd is going absolutely berserk. And he ends up tying with Lex fucking Luger. Now, shout out to Lex Luger, man. He's never been known for his technical acumen, but they executed the finish of this. Absolutely perfect, man. I mean, to this day, you still can't tell who hit the ground first. You could even say it was excellently executed.
01:49:37
Speaker
Easy for you to say. Not really, apparently. Apparently, four bush lights is my number to call it. I guess we're done for the night.
01:49:46
Speaker
I finished up that smoothie that we talked so much about. I'm doing a Corona in live right now. One thing with me about Corona's, dude, as much as I love Miller Lite, I think Corona is my most slammable beer. I feel like every anytime I pop the top on one of these, I'm drinking in like five sips, dude. So we'll see how we progress through the mid 90s here. Not well. I got a feeling it's not well.
01:50:09
Speaker
But what's kind of your take on the finish of the 94 Rumble? I mean, cool at the time. I'm never a fan of a tie, obviously. I don't agree with it. But I mean, for this particular Royal Rumble, I understand why they did it.
01:50:26
Speaker
They I think they were just I think they were hesitant to push Lex, but I just I think it was like a It was like a straight-up like live focus crew man like they could see who got the bigger pop and you know poor Lex dude It's not I I really felt like they set him up to look like a chump because it's not even close man once they got him You know when they're the refs are taking turns holding up arms
01:50:48
Speaker
It's a way bigger pop for Brett. And Lex's defense, the crowd already got to see Brett be the sympathetic baby face, getting sent out on a stretcher. So they kind of set up Lex to be a fucking failure in that moment. I feel like a lot of the stuff WWF did to Lex Luger set him up for failure, just the way he was booked. And I mean, the dude looks like a million dollars.
01:51:12
Speaker
Just in his work was good enough man. He was he wasn't great, but he was good enough in the ring Yeah, it was passable You know I mean that's what you have to say about a lot of guys in the 90s their work was passable for him to to be a champion It's just I don't know man There's a lot of stuff and rumors that go around about Lex about the 90s and all that stuff and obviously did a lot of shitty stuff, but I
01:51:35
Speaker
I don't know. I just I feel like he was set up to fail a lot of times. They made him look like a straight up idiot when it's SummerSlam 93. He beat you, goes in by DQ, but goes on to celebrate like he won the championship. You get the balloons dropping and you know, all all the other baby facers coming up to celebrate with him. It's like what
01:51:52
Speaker
hell yeah his moment is winning DQ against Yoko Zuna and they treated it like he just fucking won the world championship pretty fucking sad like I said the other reason it doesn't age as well is because nowadays like there wouldn't even be any question you would just do a triple threat match right like Brett Lex and Yoko in a in a triangle match but
01:52:12
Speaker
they did this super convoluted setup where it was a coin toss to see who got to wrestle Yokozuna first and whoever lost the coin toss would fight another opponent you know Brett would be facing Owen which happened or Lex would be fighting Ludwig Borga like it was just it was just the most like complicated setup you could possibly have yeah and it didn't like you said it didn't need to be could have easily done a triple threat match and it would have been great
01:52:37
Speaker
But yeah, still a great night for Brett. One of the, you know, probably one of the most, you know, four or five most important nights of his career before we get to the next pay-per-view. So before we get to, you know, he fought two matches on this one. We'll first start with the match against Owen Hart. Now this is widely regarded as the best opening match of WrestleMania of all time. And some people describe it as the best opening match of any pay-per-view.
01:53:04
Speaker
Just a straight up technical masterpiece he has against Owen to kick off WrestleMania 10. This is the greatest opening match of WrestleMania history. It's not even, I don't even think it's debatable, honestly. I mean, Brent and Owen, obviously they had a ton of rapport and
01:53:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's just a phenomenal match. And I love this match. I mean, I don't really think we need to go on about this too long because just how good it is. But just go watch it. Yeah, exactly. We don't we don't need to describe it for you guys. We don't need to be Vince McMahon and Savage calling the match like just go turn it on and watch. It's a great match.
01:53:43
Speaker
Yeah, and with the, and you know, Owen gets the win with the, what's that called? The victory roll, right? He stops the victory roll, gets the pin, and it just sets up some great storylines for the next few months. And none of it would have been possible without the main event.
01:54:00
Speaker
WrestleMania 10 stands to be one of the greatest challenges of my entire career. Cuz I was robbed of the World Wrestling Federation title one year from WrestleMania. I got what it takes to get past Yoko Zuna. I'm gonna fight fire with fire. You are just another opponent and I will wipe you up. You're looking at the World Wrestling Federation champion.
01:54:23
Speaker
All right, here we go. Our final match, the Hitman, Bret Hart, and of course, Yoko Zuna. Bret Hart, you're gonna have to deal with the fact that it's no longer a matter of you trying to win the title. It's a matter of you trying to keep yourself in one piece. He's gonna cheer you up and spit you out, Hart, and your career may be over at the biggest WrestleMania of all time. I can't wait to see it happen.
01:54:51
Speaker
No, go sooner, going up. This is it. The Hitman Brando artist not moving. Wait a minute, he's losing his powers. He just lost his balance on the road. What? He hit his head. One, two, three. No. No. We have a new champion. No way. Right. Somehow he's done it. Here's the new World Wrestling Federation champion. Maybe what is happening?
01:55:21
Speaker
Unquestionably, feet on the side, a friend that hit man hard, who has done the impossible. This says it all. This says that I am everything I said I am. The best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. The excellence of execution.
01:55:42
Speaker
Jordan, you gotta talk for a minute, dude. Dude, this match itself is not like anything groundbreaking. Obviously, we don't need to dwell on it too much, but Piper added something being the guest ref. Yes, dude.
01:56:00
Speaker
Also, Burt Reynolds is the ring announcer, dude. Burt Reynolds actually did a fucking bang-up job as the ring announcer on this one. Burt Reynolds, aka Turd Ferguson. Yes, he definitely added something to this. But yeah, dude, Piper added a lot to this, and I like the finish. I know a lot of people don't. I just think the finish is cool, because that was the problem with Yoko Zuna, dude. It wasn't believable that a lot of people could beat him. He was a beast. He was a perfectly booked
01:56:26
Speaker
Monster he moved well in the ring like it's not like he was just a stationary big dude Like he could move and it just wasn't believable for a lot of the smaller guys to beat him So I love the way they finished this match
01:56:40
Speaker
Yeah, we actually talked about in the last pod, coincidentally enough, my son Brett, five years old, I had him watching the, he wanted to watch the Sean and Razor ladder match because he'd heard me talking about it. And he kept WrestleMania 10 playing and I was in our office, you know, slash podcast studio slash workout room here in our house.
01:56:59
Speaker
But he's still watching mania in the living room. And at the end of the Brett and Yoko match, I hear this audible, yes, like when Brett got the three count. And I've said it before, man, whatever the kids react to, that really tells you what's over and what's not in pro wrestling. And the fact that with no preconceived notions on what that match is going to be, you got an audible yell out of him when Brett got the three count. It just tells you what a great little underdog story it was in this little 10-minute match.
01:57:27
Speaker
Um, you know, they finally gave Brett the moment that he deserved being, you know, standing tall at the end of WrestleMania. Obviously that's really like the biggest honor you can give a wrestler that shows, you know, how much faith they have in you. If you're the guy that's, that's there holding up the belt when the, you know, the little trademark copyright logo thing comes up on the screen.
01:57:47
Speaker
And just a fun match, man. Like I said, you nailed it, dude. Roddy Piper being there added a lot. Burt Reynolds did a good job as the guest ring announcer. I fucking love WrestleMania 10, dude. It's probably my favorite wrestling show of all time. And it's just a perfect way to end it.
01:58:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's like you said, it just it had so many high moments on WrestleMania 10. It's it's definitely a show you want to go back and watch again and again. And it starts phenomenally and it ends phenomenally like they just they they killed it man. The execution was there on this one.
01:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, go back and watch them in. It's just a fun show. You got Brett and Owen with his technical masterpiece. Crush and Macho Man have a fun Falls Count Anywhere match. The mix tag between Bam Bam and Luna Vachon against Dink and Doink is fun. Even Goddamn Man on a Mission against Quebecers is a fun match. Yeah, and then obviously we'll get the Creme De La Creme, Razor and Shawn in the ladder match.
01:58:45
Speaker
dude, that between that and the Owen match, the Owen and Brett match, I just, it's like wrestling porn almost like yes. I mean, if you want to watch like a good ladder match, like you want to like see what a ladder match should look like, watch that match.
01:59:04
Speaker
that to me is the standard of what our ladder match should look like like yeah it was great there was no i mean there was some real there were some high spots in it but it was nothing like insane it was just it looked exactly like what a if if
01:59:19
Speaker
you boil down what a ladder match is right you need you can use a ladder as a weapon and you need to be the first guy to climb it and get to the belt, it was the best example of that a lot of ladder matches nowadays have a lot of shit that if you really think about it hard, it's like why the fuck would you even try to do that if you're taking all the time to set up this convoluted spot you could have just put the ladder in the middle of the ring and climbed up and got the belt, that is the
01:59:40
Speaker
the best way to describe it is the ladder was part of this match it wasn't the match though like now the ladder is the match like when they do ladder matches now everything has to be off of a ladder or onto a ladder like the ladder definitely had its moment in this match but it wasn't like the the star attraction of this match like them wrestling was the star attraction of this match
02:00:03
Speaker
Definitely one one unique thing for gear on this one Pratt was rocking like a long trench coat if you go in this match He didn't he came out for the main event just in his gear. No glasses No, nothing, but that opening match he comes out with this. This was the only event he had it It was this leather jacket that goes down to his freakin knees like like Morpheus from the Matrix
02:00:23
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not a gigantic fan of this look. This is not really doing it for me to be completely honest. I just don't know why. Like I said, maybe he thought since the Undertaker missed a show he needed to give him a little nod or something. I don't know. How do you feel about wearing the Undertaker's trench coat and hat? He's like, well, I don't feel well about wearing any hat, but I'll wear his trench coat.
02:00:44
Speaker
All right, going on to King of the Ring 94. This is Brett's first title defense on pay-per-view with the second ring. He's actually facing the intercontinental champ Diesel, which is pretty ironic, because remember, his first defense on his first title ring was also against the IC champ, which was Shawn Michaels at the time. This match, it kind of is what it is. Brett's got some really nice gear. It was actually the inspiration for the first Bret Hart Ultimate Edition figure back in series two of the Ultimates.
02:01:13
Speaker
Not a whole lot to say though. This was kind of just random, you know, baby face undersized guy against heavyweight match. The big thing on this one was that the Jim the anvil turned heel after this match when he didn't say Brett from being beat down against HBK and Diesel.
02:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, there's one thing I want to say about this match, and it still amazes me to this day, is how much chemistry Brett had with almost everybody he worked with. I mean, Diesel's not exactly like an agile heavyweight. He has his moves and stuff and he does what he does, but dude, Brett can make anybody look good. This isn't a great match by any means.
02:01:49
Speaker
And the purpose of it was basically for anvil to turn heel, which I was fine with. But yeah, I mean, this is definitely not one I'm going to recommend that you go your way to watch. But yeah, they'll have a better one down the road about a year and a half from this one. But is that another Bushlight? Another Bushlight. Hell yeah. But but yeah, Brett definitely had a knack for bringing out the best in his opponents.
02:02:13
Speaker
All right, moving to Summertime 94, this is another classic. This is one that's in my Magnificent Seven. It wasn't the main event of the night, because obviously we had to have the Undertaker versus the Underfaker going on last, but in the co-main event, he defends his World Championship against the newly crowned King of the Ring, Owen Hart, in a steel cage match.
02:02:35
Speaker
To me, this is the best cage match ever. It's in the classic big blue cage, which I love. And the other thing I like about this is that they really, both wrestlers had a sense of urgency that at every possible chance, they attempted to escape the ring. Like a lot of times you would see it where, you know, guys wouldn't even really try to win the match until the last, you know, until 12, 13 minutes had gone by. But these guys from the ultimate opening bell were going to try to climb over. And it just led, like I said, it just went a sense of urgency to the match and has a lot of really awesome spots.
02:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't have a ton to add to it. The match is just it's phenomenal. Like you said, it's it's definitely up there for best cage matches ever. Crowd is completely hot for this match. The ending of it with Owen hanging upside down from the cages. Brett climbs out is just such a cool image. And yes, I mean, dude, that's the thing is I feel like they focus so much more on the end image.
02:03:29
Speaker
in the 90s like just just the end of this match like just seeing Owen dangling by his legs from the cage and then watching Brett hit the floor it's just such a cool image and i feel like they lose a lot of that now um yeah dude that's a very good point i feel like i feel like a lot of these big matches from like the early to mid 90s even into the attitude era at least the early portions of it
02:03:52
Speaker
I feel like I can remember like move for move the finishes to these matches. Whereas like if you ask me the specific finishes to pay pervious from a year ago, like I'm totally lost. Dude, that's because they wanted you to remember like how these ended and
02:04:08
Speaker
When your favorite person wins the title, they want you to like recall how the last couple of minutes went and what the last image of that match was. I just, I feel like they've gotten so much away from this and it's, it's just such an easy thing to do. I feel like, and I just don't think they do it as much as they should anymore.
02:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think Pat Patterson is missed. You know, Brett's talked about Pat Patterson was kind of his book, like his agent that booked the specific matches and was just really, really good at crafting the specific finishes to these matches. And, you know, I know Tyson Kidd does a good job from everything you hear backstage now, but they're definitely missing some of the truly iconic finishes nowadays. I feel like the problem too is
02:04:53
Speaker
everything is compared to the early 90s and late 90s attitude era. And there's no way you can ever duplicate from 90 to 99 ever again. Like, for sure, I feel like everybody's trying to catch that lightning in a bottle again. And it's just impossible to the roster was just so stacked at certain points during the 90s. And then obviously you have the attitude error where it's just a completely stacked roster. They just had so many more like,
02:05:21
Speaker
huge names at that time that they could use all the time. I mean, you look at just the emotion connection, dude, like I feel like, I mean, outside of like, Roman Cody, like Sammy Zane, and maybe Seth, like who in WWE, does the crowd really get up for nowadays? It's because they build nobody up, dude.
02:05:41
Speaker
No, the crowd doesn't have a reason to connect with you now. Like in the nineties, that was like their focal point. Like they did superstars, they did interviews and stuff. Like you got, it felt like you got to know the wrestler back then. I feel like they're so far away from that now. Like they don't care if you know who Matt Riddle is or whoever Randy or whoever you want to say. I just, I were so far from that now and you have your four main guys and that's all you got.
02:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, 100% man. Let's go to a truly polarizing match in Brett's history, Survivor Series 1994. Really, really fun event. But Brett is defending the World Championship against a newly heel, new gimmick as the psychotic dementia
02:06:29
Speaker
version of Bob Backlund there in there in a submission match where you can also have your second throw in the towel and Bob Backlund second was Owen Hart and Brett had the bulldog. It's a quick synopsis basically the match ends with
02:06:46
Speaker
Bob Backlund has gotten Brett locked in his deadly cross-faced chicken wing finisher. Brett's not submitting, but due to some outside the ring hijinks, the British Bulldog gets straight up fucking knocked out, like sales run into the steps like nobody ever has in the history of the biz. And Brett convinces, excuse me, Owen convinces Brett's, Brett owns mom, Martha, to throw in the towel for Brett to give Bob Backlund the championship, man.
02:07:14
Speaker
I'll take your thoughts on this from Ferris Jordan for it before I offer up mine. So first of all, I remember watching this live as a kid. I hated Bob Backlund at this time. There was nothing appealing about him whatsoever. He was just a hateable, hateable heel. He did one of the most worthless finishers of all time for me. I don't get it. I mean, I can suspend disbelief, but whatever.
02:07:41
Speaker
I don't like this match at all. Personally, I just, I feel like throwing in the towel is such a gutless way to end a match. Brett was in the chicken wing for 10 minutes. I should tell you how worthless that hold is. Um, I don't know, man. And when this night started, I thought there was zero chance Bob Backlund was winning this match. So him taking the title off
02:08:03
Speaker
Brett, to me, diminished the title a bit, because I don't feel like Bob Backlund was big enough to have the title at this point. I know his history and how big he is in wrestling history, but I don't know, dude. We're 20 years past that, though, by the time this match takes place. Yeah, late 1994, I'm not looking at Bob Backlund as a contender for anything, let alone the world title. So I hate this match. I'm just not a fan at all of this one.
02:08:33
Speaker
I will say, as a kid, I fucking hated it. As a young adult, I fucking hated it. As I've gotten a little bit older, it's grown on me. I feel like with some tweaks, it could have been a lot better. I don't think Brett should have been. I think the cross-face chicken wing should have lasted like three or four minutes, man.
02:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think if he's in that hold for three or four minutes and they tell the same story with with Martha throwing the the talent cuz I do think that was a cool cool finish right with Owen like, you know crying and convinced his mom throw the belt in like that was cool, but
02:09:05
Speaker
the execution of it, like the 10 minutes, first off, it made Bob Backlund like a chump because it's like, dude, you got this guy and you're finished for 10 minutes and he's not passing out or, you know, submitting. And then it also made Brett look weak where like, dude, how are you in this hold for 10 minutes? Can't figure out a way out of it. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like it was one of those finishes that made both guys look weaker just in the execution of it. But I've grown to like it a little bit. I do think it was a pretty good story. And Bob Backlund did have a cool character, but
02:09:31
Speaker
has not aged well at all, mostly because it was less than a week after this match that Diesel straight up squashes Bob Backlund in less than 10 seconds to win the championship. Yeah, I mean, that's part of it too is so we're supposed to believe that Bret Hart, who is this technical wrestler, can't find a way out of this broke ass.
02:09:51
Speaker
modified sleeper hold like come on man like i can suspend disbelief but dude them laying there for basically 10 minutes just kind of killed this match for me
02:10:03
Speaker
Yeah, they should have just they should have tightened it up a little bit. And I think it would have been passable. But yeah, weird story. We'll say SummerSlam Night or Survivor Series 94 all time event t-shirt. I'm really hoping one of the various bootleggers will remake that shirt because I've come close to pulling the trigger on it a few times on eBay. And I just I can't go above like 300 bucks for a wrestling t-shirt. That's like my cap. And that seems that the price of getting in the game on that shirt seems to be closer about 550 or so.
02:10:30
Speaker
To me, getting the chalk line shorts is probably as close as I'll ever get to getting that shirt. The chalk line shorts, I still like them a lot. I mean, they hold a special place in my collection for me because I mean, at least I have something from that event, even though it's not from the actual event.
02:10:47
Speaker
So Sheena, Sheena's helped me out on the search for that. A person reached out, dude, how tantalizing is this? You can see the guy, he's setting, it's a kid, man, a Hispanic kid, sitting in the front row wearing that shirt, and he actually reached out to Sheena, because Sheena had done a couple posts, seeing if anybody had that shirt for sale, and he told her he still has his shirt from that event, dude. And I've gotten Sheena to reach out to him a couple times over the years, saying, dude, how much do you want?
02:11:17
Speaker
It'd be awesome having that shirt anyways, but actually having that shirt and knowing it's one that's like on camera the entire time would just be crazy. That kid ain't ever selling or that guy ain't ever selling that shirt just so you know.
02:11:28
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I think I got Sheena to offer up to like 450 and he still wouldn't budge off of it, man. So may need to reach back out. It's been a while since I hadn't really thought about that till just now. Yeah, time to go. True. Let's go to a Royal Rumble 1995. So this is an interesting event. It's Diesel's first defense of the world championship and he's going up against Bret Hart. And the match ends in a no contest. It's basically just the schmaz of all schmaz's.
02:11:55
Speaker
Brett gets diesel in the sharpshooter and you have Owen Hart and a few other heels come in and interfere and fuck up the match. It was either a ref bump and nobody saw it or another ref came out and restarted the match but the match keeps going. Diesel ends up hitting Brett with the jack knife and then Shawn Michaels and a few other heels come out and start working over diesel and eventually the refs just like fuck it and they ring the bell and end the match.
02:12:22
Speaker
And Kevin Nash has been on record as saying that he thought that this match and this finish basically killed the momentum for his run and basically put like a fucking low ceiling on the entire reign of diesel, man. What's your thoughts on the Royal Rumble 95 Schmaz of the Hitman versus Big Daddy Cool?
02:12:40
Speaker
I'm not going to lie to you, there's going to be a good stretch here of matches of breaths that I don't really enjoy. The ending of this match still to this day, I don't like. I get it from a booking standpoint, but it definitely killed Diesel's run. We needed a definitive finish here.
02:13:01
Speaker
I don't know, man. I just, I don't like when matches ended in no contest. I get the point of it. It's just, it's not for me at all. There was just no reason to put Brett with diesel, dude. Brett still should have been focused on Owen. I agree, man. I think they did a big disservice to Kevin Nash because Kevin Nash is awesome, dude. Like he's, I mean, obviously he's a little bit limited being a big man, but I think he's super charismatic and a pretty good worker for his size.
02:13:29
Speaker
And yes, sadly, I got to agree, man, they kind of cut the legs out from underneath them with with the way they did him on his first paper he was chant. It's sad, man. It really did screw diesel over so bad. But yeah, just not a fan of this one at all. All right, I just popped the tip the top on a sequence.
02:13:50
Speaker
Not didn't pop the tip, that'd be painful. I popped the top on a sequinched sour, dude. So this is one of our staples in VA, man. But unfortunately out here in Oakland, Tennessee, believe it or not, we don't have access to a total wine or anything like that. I grabbed a six pack of these when I went down to Texas for work a couple months ago. And still working on those. So yeah, we're getting deeper and deeper into the buzz as we get deeper and deeper into Brett's pay-per-view career.
02:14:19
Speaker
That's exactly what we're looking for. Let's go to WrestleMania 11, the I Quit match against Bob Backlund. Now I was, because I love our listeners and I love the Foley fam, I did not pull any audio drops from this match because
02:14:36
Speaker
We talked about at WrestleMania 10, Roddy Piper adding so much to that match being the guest rep. Everything he added in WrestleMania 10, he took away from the match at WrestleMania 11 times infinity. I hate this match. This is definitely, if this isn't Brett's worst match, it's definitely in the top three. I mean, the only note I had for this match is there's literally nothing about this match that I even remotely enjoy.
02:15:06
Speaker
Yeah, don't put this on your Bret Hart watch list. It would have been just a standard bad match if it would have been just a ref in there, but Piper just takes it to the depths of fucking hell by every 30 seconds. Do you quit? What do you say? What do you say? Like, I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to give the fucking referee a microphone. Yeah, it definitely takes away from the match and God, dude,
02:15:36
Speaker
I remember watching this match live and just thinking, what the hell are they thinking? Like, what was the purpose of even having I mean, Piper even being in there was stupid. Honestly, it's just
02:15:50
Speaker
I don't think we need, we don't need to go on about this match. In the matches defense, in the matches defense, you could say, what the hell were they thinking about all of WrestleMania 11? I mean, it takes place. Think about this dude. WrestleMania 11 took place in Hartford, Connecticut at the convention center, which was attached to a shopping mall. You know, you've heard the grandest stage of them all. This was at the grandest stage of the mall. It was attached to the mall in fucking Hartford, Connecticut.
02:16:15
Speaker
Main event is Lawrence Taylor versus Bam Bam Bigelow. Some of the other matches on the show is the Allied Powers, Lex Luger, and Davey Boy Smith against the Blue Brothers. This is just a piss poor card, man. I think we're gonna do a total WrestleMania countdown sometime in the future on Pod Warriors. This one's definitely in the mix to be the worst of all time. Oh, 100%. This entire show is garbage. You could just throw this one away and no one would notice.
02:16:45
Speaker
Let's go to the next pay-per-view, the debut of the In Your House concept. This was really revolutionary at the time. This is the first time that WWE had dipped its toes into the monthly pay-per-view game. Basically, In Your House started off as a really cool concept where it was cheaper pay-per-views that happened in between the big shows. They were only 20 bucks and they were two hours long. I love the In Your House concept, man. It made for a ton of just really fun watches. Yeah, they were really well done.
02:17:14
Speaker
The only thing that I'm gonna say, I have a little bit of beef within your house, pay-per-views, is a lot of times there was throwaway match, a lot of throwaway matches on this, a lot of one-offs and stuff like that. Very cool concept, but a lot of times it failed to deliver.
02:17:32
Speaker
I love the set design too, man. If the next Crowdfund, I have zero hopes that that's what it is, but if the next Crowdfund was like an in-your-house stage design, name your fucking price Mattel and I'm paying it. Yeah, 100%. It would be awesome. These left a lot to be desired is basically how I word it.
02:17:52
Speaker
But going back to Brett being the first, you know, he had the first Iron Man match, first ladder match. He was the first entry in the first Royal Rumble. He was their Undertaker's debut. He's in the first match at In Your House, and he's wrestling Hakushi. He ends up doing another double feature, basically the same gimmick they ran at SummerSlam 93. They do it the first In Your House video where he wrestles Hakushi and Jerry Lawler. The Jerry Lawler matches whatever, but the match with Hakushi is kind of like a hidden gem as far as WWE pay-per-view goes.
02:18:21
Speaker
Yeah. Um, Hakushi, he definitely had some interesting matches and some good matches. And this is, this is one of them. It was, it was fun to watch. Uh, yeah, the wall or one is completely worthless. We don't even need to discuss that one.
02:18:37
Speaker
Do you think that there'd be missed the boat on Hakushi? Cause I feel like he was really, really awesome for what he was back there in the early nineties and a little bit ahead of his time. Dude, he had an awesome look. His moveset was good. I, there was a lot of things to like about him. I just, I feel like they didn't know what to do with him. You know, I mean, and I, I still feel like that was a lot of their problems in the mid nineties. They really didn't know what to do with the middle of the card guys. Like they knew what to do with the top guys and how to book them.
02:19:05
Speaker
but I feel like they failed in a lot of them made card guys on what they were doing with them.
02:19:10
Speaker
Yeah, it seemed like if you weren't at the tippy top of the card, you were just kind of cannon fodder for the bigger stars. But yeah, I'm with you, man. Hakushi was freaking awesome. I'm hoping somehow he gets on some sort of legends deal and we'll get some figures to him, dude, because there's never been any like mainstream Hakushi figures. I know that he's a legend in Japan and he's had a few, he's basically like the equivalent of the undertaker over there. And he's had some figures in Japan, but we are greatly missing out on any North American Hakushi figures. Yeah, absolutely.
02:19:40
Speaker
Alright, let's go to King of the Ring 95. This is the only gimmick match of this to my knowledge. The Kiss My Foot match against Jerry Lawler. Oh my god. I mean, why is this even necessary to be completely honest?
02:19:56
Speaker
All I can remember about this match is Lawler taking his boot off and the announcer's talking about how bad his feet smell and stuff. And it's just like, dude, why is this? Why are we even doing this? Like, this is so stupid. I told you this stretch of brand matches here is.
02:20:13
Speaker
Not it for me. It's pretty bad. Yeah, the middle of 95 is bad. I don't even really remember the match that much. I remember all the vignettes ahead of it where Jerry Lawler was stepping on cow shit and pig slop and stuff like that to get his foot nice and tuned up for this match.
02:20:31
Speaker
I don't even remember that. I think that's about all we need to say about this match.
02:20:47
Speaker
The black with the the skulls the wings logo and he would rock this it basically every big event from here on out Going to summer slam 95 So obviously Jerry Waller loses the kiss my foot match gets a little bit of dental disease from From the hit man. So who's he bring in his own personal dentist Isaac? Yankum DDS. Oh Boy now we're really on to something
02:21:16
Speaker
I, it's not a great match, but there's a spot in this match that I still think is one of the most dangerous spots I do in wrestling. I don't do it very often, but
02:21:26
Speaker
when Brett's head gets caught between the top and middle rope. How do you even have faith in someone to do this right without breaking their neck? Just after feeling the ropes and the metal is in them. There's no way I would even remotely consider doing this. Yeah, it's brutal, man.
02:21:52
Speaker
Really, really, really painful looking spot, man. Obviously, this is really mostly historically significant because it's Glenn Jacobs debut on pay-per-view. He would go on to be the Fay Diesel and then obviously Kane, one of the truly iconic characters in wrestling history. So it's fun. Again, another historical footnote for Brett. Kane's first ever pay-per-view match was right there against Brett back in summer slam, 95.
02:22:20
Speaker
Alright moving on to in your house now this is a match I love dude I'm hoping, I'm hoping you're with me man this is where Brett starts to kind of break out the doldrums of mid 95 dude he's going up against you know we talked about him. He was, he was one of the Quebecers back in 1994 but now he's the pirate Jean-Pierre Lafitte he going to be PCO.
02:22:39
Speaker
He had stolen Brett Hart's leather jacket and they have a match at the September 95 in your house that to me fucking rocks, dude I love this match Brett's pissed off man. It's it's like a little bit of a brawl I think this is another one of those hidden gems kind of the same as the Hakushi match that is just awesome and really just shows how talented of a guy that you know PCO slash Jean-Pierre Lafitte really is
02:23:02
Speaker
Yep. So my notes for this match is I think this match is a bit underrated as far as historical historical significance. Um, this is definitely one of the better matches for Lafitte in his career. The one thing I did note about this match when I was watching it.
02:23:18
Speaker
Dude, Lafitte relied on the top rope a lot in this match. I think he went up to the top rope like five times in this match, if I remember right. Yeah, he was definitely trying to be unique as like a bigger guy that they could fly around and was comfortable doing that kind of stuff. Yeah.
02:23:35
Speaker
This is, this match has like, it's such an overdone move now, man. And nine times out of 10, it does not have the impact that it should. Go watch Brett suicide dive from this match, dude. The suicide dive he pulls off of this should be like the textbook for any wrestler coming up the ranks, man. It's like, it looks reckless, but also like painful for the guy receiving the movement. Too many times to me, the suicide dive just looks like a flying push.
02:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, dude, this is actually what it's supposed to look like. I get why they do it the way they do now, because they don't want...
02:24:07
Speaker
to risk injuries and stuff like that. But yeah, this is how this move was intended to be done, not this bullshit of put your hands out and the other guy catches you and this is what it's supposed to look like. You know, to me, the three best modern suicide dives, I think that my third one's going to surprise you, but to me, the three best suicide dives of the modern era are Samoa Joe, Darby Allen, and Sasha Banks.
02:24:34
Speaker
Wow. Definitely. Go back and watch Sasha Banks, dude. Sasha Banks always sells out on her suicide dives and looks like she's damn near about to break her neck. Well, she doesn't really give a shit about possibly hurting someone. So that's really not that surprising, is it? I mean, I don't know why you're saying this. Like, I should be like floored that Sasha Banks would do a good suicide dive. Samoa Joe does. I personally, I think he does the best one just because of his size and how much emphasis he puts into it.
02:25:03
Speaker
Like, he doesn't give a shit when he does one. Like, he's gonna put his body on the line when he does a suicide dive. Yeah, you gotta sell out, dude. It's gotta look a little bit reckless, man, and yeah, he does a good job with that. Darby Allens is just such a crazy athlete, man. I really don't feel like he gets enough credit for just, like, how fast he is and how twitchy he is as an athlete. Like, Darby Allens looks crazy, but yeah, like I said, Sasha Banks always look kinda reckless to me. Seth Rollins has a good one, too, but I think he's a notch below the three that I mentioned.
02:25:32
Speaker
He definitely uses his hands a lot more now too, which I get, they don't want him to get hurt, but. Yeah, you gotta go, dude, it's really almost heartbreaking to watch, dude. If you go back and watch like 2015 Rollins, like the difference between him like before and after the big knee injury he has is just really dramatic. Yeah, it's, it definitely, he tuned down his style a lot from that moment on and he needed to.
02:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, he truly has never fully recovered. He never got back to where he was before that.
Survivor Series 95 & Impactful Matches
02:26:05
Speaker
But let's get back to Brett. Survivor Series 95. I love this match. This is another one that I've, if you look online, there's a lot of different opinions on this match. Some people think it was a little bit too slow in plotting. I think this match fucking rocked it. It was, you know, him and Diesel, they had the match at King of the Ring 94, which ended in a schmaz. They had the match at Royal Rumble 95, which ended in a schmaz.
02:26:29
Speaker
And so this time it was like we're going to have a finish on this one. It was no DQ. So, you know, you're going to winner.
02:26:35
Speaker
It's Brett versus diesel for the world championship. And it's a, it's a brutal, brutal brawl, a lot of violence, especially considered it was 1995. And Brett comes out as the champ. I love this match, man. What's, uh, what's kind of your thoughts on this one? Um, this is by far the best Brett and diesel match for me. Um, Brett sold like a million dollars in this match, the spot where he goes through the table off the, off the apron.
02:27:03
Speaker
was absolutely unheard of at this time. So really cool, cool moment in the match. And usually I don't love the small package finish, but this one was executed the right way. So I didn't mind it. Um, yeah, I like this match a lot.
02:27:19
Speaker
Yeah, in his book, he talks about that he was ironically, or not ironically, but surprisingly enough, man, the table spot, he was inspired by Sabu of all people. He said that he had been seeing some of the stuff that Sabu was doing on the Indies and thought that he could bring that to WWE. Because again, we've mentioned it numerous times before in the pod, the first that Brett was a part of, this was really the first table spot. Hulk and Earthquake kind of had a half ass table spot at SummerSlam 90.
02:27:47
Speaker
But this was the first one that straight up was kind of like akin to the modern table spots we've seen. And yeah, Brecco's smashing through that Spanish announce table. Plays possum to lead to the small package finish and just a great match dude. Like I said, it was a little bit slow compared to most hardcore matches nowadays, but still some really good spots. Brett tying up diesel with the camera wire and stuff in the corner was really cool.
02:28:14
Speaker
And, uh, and Brett had a great look too. He's rocking the all pink. This, uh, another notable, um, thing gear wise is this was the debut of the velvet jacket that he would wear. So this was kind of his look all the way through rustling into 12. He had dished the leather jacket and he was rocking this like velvet jacket that looked like something from like the Beatles, like Sergeant Peppers and the lonely hearts club with all these crazy like lace loops and stuff on it. Um, I'd be down to get a figure of this look as well. Yeah, this is definitely a cool look and.
02:28:42
Speaker
Like you said, him wearing the velvet jacket was different than anything we had seen before from him. Like I said, I like this match a lot, so getting gear from this match would be very cool. Yeah, like I said, definitely Diesel and Brett's best match they had ever.
02:29:00
Speaker
This, this match is definitely nostalgic for me. We had my 11th, this was on my 11th birthday. This match took place and I had like a sleep, you know, my parents let me have a sleepover with two, you know, my two of my best friends came over and watched the paper with me and my little brother. And it was a school night, you know, it was a Sunday night. So that was like, just, you know, if you're a kid from the 90s, you know, that was like super rare and just such a neat thing to be able to have a sleepover on school night.
02:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, everybody crashed and you know my mom dropped everybody off at school in the Jeep Grand Cherokee that Monday morning. What a special moment when you're just a little slap nut.
02:29:40
Speaker
Yeah, man. All right, let's go to the next month, dude. I fucking love this match also, dude. This is in your house, Seasons Greetings, December 1995. It's the rematch from SummerSlam 92, Brett and the Bulldog. And just like at WrestleMania 8, Brett gets split wide the fuck open and bleeds all over the place. Yeah, and Vince didn't approve of this blade job either, so it makes it much more impactful. My first note, this is the best match ever at in your house, right?
02:30:10
Speaker
It's close. I think it's it's in the mix. I think we're going to get to one a little bit later, and I think tops it, though. It's definitely close. Yeah, I would say this is the best one on one matching. I'll give you that, dude. I want to spoil what we're going to cover later in the pod. But yeah, I would say this is the best one on one matching in your house history. OK, that's fair.
02:30:31
Speaker
maybe that's kind of what i meant by that but yeah it's just this is a great match dude him and bulldog just i mean they knew how to put on a good match but yeah finding out that vince did not want uh them to do a blade job this match is hilarious
02:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, obviously the bar for this was set incredibly high by their classic of Summer Slim 92 that we talked about, but this match is amazing, dude. Again, this is, you know, AEW could take note from this dude that, dude, less is more when it comes to the blood, dude. If you do it every single week, every single show, it gets watered down, but if you only get blood every once in a while, it really fucking stands out and it adds to the match. It's got to matter. I think that's the biggest thing, like,
02:31:15
Speaker
There's moments to do it and there's moments not to do it. And I just feel like when you make it matter, it's just it makes it so much more special when it actually does happen.
02:31:26
Speaker
Yeah, go back and watch this one. Like I said, it's not a whole lot. This is a good one. Yeah, it's hard to really describe on a podcast. You just gotta watch this one, man. Just take our word for it. Go back and watch the main event of the December 95 in your house. Let's go to the main event of World Rumble 96. This is the Undertaker and the Phantom of the Opera Gear. He's got the mask on and he's fighting Brad. This is another fun match that Diesel ends up interfering to kind of fuck up the ending.
02:31:54
Speaker
I, I, this is just a really slow match for me and I feel like it went on way too long personally. I mean, I don't, I don't think it needed the time that it got. Um, and as always a DQ finishes, it is what it is. I mean, I, for the storyline purposes, it made sense, but I don't know what it is. Just kind of this being this long and then ending in a DQ finishes kind of.
02:32:20
Speaker
This is still, you got to remember prior to really January 1997, Undertaker is still wrestling the zombie style. He is still, even after he came back from, you know, getting killed in 1994 in Jogozuna.
02:32:36
Speaker
He was still wrestling the zombie style where he doesn't really sell anything and he just plods across the ring man So it's it's probably kind of hard to understand for people who are more used to the modern-day Undertaker where he's got that kind of like MMA style and has a lot more movement to him But he was still deep in the zombie gimmick at this point. Yeah, and that's part of it. It's just
02:32:58
Speaker
I don't like the length of this match. It did not need as much time as it got. This would be the last appearance of the mask for the Undertaker, so a little bit of historical significance there. I always dug the mask, man. I thought that was a really cool look, even though it only lasted about a couple months. Yeah, it was neat.
02:33:15
Speaker
All right, going to the in your house from February 1996. He's in the big blue steel cage against diesel. We see we see the Undertaker pop up from underneath the ring to drag diesel down and let brick at the escape for the the wind. And what is that? What's your thoughts on this one? Yeah, this is not going to be in your top 10 cage matches ever. That is by far the moment of this match. But I feel like we need to open the question here.
02:33:44
Speaker
So if Diesel got pulled through the ring, didn't his feet touch the floor first?
02:33:49
Speaker
Ooh, wow. I have never even thought about that dude in fucking 26 years of analyzing and watching this match. That thought has never crossed my mind. You may be onto something there, dude. This is definitely super hokey, man. It was all kind of just to set up diesel and undertake our mania. This was really more of an angle than a match because everybody knew we were getting Brett and Sean in the main event. If you've listened to any shooting interviews, Kevin, they actually said that this was his last straw in WWF because
02:34:19
Speaker
It ended with, you know, Brett was kind of already going for the exit whenever Diesel got dragged down to, you know, underneath the ring with the Undertaker. Originally, the layout was that Brett was supposed to hit, or excuse me, Diesel was supposed to hit Brett with a jackhammer. And that's when Undertaker would make his appearance. But Brett didn't want to take Diesel's finish because he thought that it would make him look too weak as a champ. And, you know, Vince ended up siding with Brett and Kevin Nash said that that was his last straw with WWF. Yeah.
02:34:49
Speaker
Um, as people's time winds down in WWF, you can definitely tell the way they're used. Um, we'll get into that later. Um, well here coming up, cause I got some thoughts on Brett's last couple of matches and just how he was used. And Vince is definitely a petty dude. Like if he knows a hundred percent you're leaving, he's gonna make you look like shit sometimes. So.
02:35:16
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think Nash had already had his mind up made by now and no fault to him. You know, WCW was offering some crazy guaranteed money for way less shows. So if I'm going to get paid more for less work, yeah, I'm taking that deal nine times out of 10. But I think he likes to use this story as it's kind of just like something to help him keep the moral high ground, even though he knew he was already leaving anyways. Oh, this is definitely his crutch for why he left, even though this is not the reason. But
02:35:44
Speaker
I get why he does it that way. I mean, you always got to make yourself look better, right? Like when you quit a job, you got to make, you got to make it look like you had to quit. Yeah. One thing he said that he pitched that Vince thought was going to be too hokey is that when he got dragged down from the ring, when he came back up, he was going to have all gray hair.
02:36:05
Speaker
I personally would have marked out for that and I give that idea two thumbs up. What's your thoughts on that idea? That is phenomenal. I've never heard that. That is phenomenal. Yeah. He said he pitched at the Vince that whenever he came back up, he should have had it. Not the whole thing gray, but basically he should have had a big shock of like silver hair through the middle of his head. You know, they could have just done some spray paint down underneath the ring.
02:36:28
Speaker
Dude, imagine how that would've looked. There ain't no lights under there. It'd have just been everywhere. I think it would've been fucking awesome, dude. I would've marked out big time for that. You don't think they could've done his whole head while they were under there? I don't know. I mean, maybe, dude. He comes up. I think it was a good idea. There's silver spray paint all over his forehead.
02:36:51
Speaker
I think it was a good idea by old big sexy man. That's great. All right, let's go to WrestleMania 12. 3600 seconds, 60 minutes, one hour.
Iron Man Match & Legacy
02:37:05
Speaker
In WrestleMania lore, these numbers mean one thing. The Iron Man match.
02:37:14
Speaker
While WrestleMania 12 heralded the debut of Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H onto the grand stage, it is the legendary 60-minute Iron Man match that elevated WrestleMania 12 to the pantheon of greatness. Two superstars, one singular goal, to be champion.
02:37:39
Speaker
Shawn Michaels was controversial with a boy who dreamed to be the best. Brett the Hitman Hart, a proud champion and rightful heir to the Hart family legacy.
02:38:05
Speaker
On this night, the genuine animosity between these men proved to be the inspiration for a masterpiece. In a match decided by most falls in an hour, shockingly, they were none.
02:38:20
Speaker
With 30 seconds left, a shot shooter should have been the end. But the man who would become Mr. WrestleMania would not let his dream die. In sudden death, the heartbreak kid would find
02:38:55
Speaker
The boyhood dream has come true for Shawn Michaels. Voted the greatest WrestleMania match of the last millennium by the WWE Universe, the Iron Man match and WrestleMania 12 are forever synonymous with greatness.
02:39:15
Speaker
All right, similar to WrestleMania 11. This is a polarizing match for sure. It's been in the conversation here a lot the last couple of weeks due to the MJF Daniel Bryan Iron Man match. I'll start, man. I hated this match as a kid just because one, I think whenever they announced it, I was expecting like a lot more falls and a lot more drama and action.
02:39:45
Speaker
I've gotten older though, you know hearing Brett talk about this match He and he's described this as his he thinks this is his best performance ever Going back and watching it as a more mature wrestling fan. I've appreciated it more and I think it really is a truly great match But I still hate the finish just because I feel like in kayfabe dude, they should have outlined the rules ahead of time like if it was gonna go to sudden death and
02:40:11
Speaker
There shouldn't have been a stop at just 60 minutes. It should have kept on running Brett should have kept the sharpshooter on Sean. And we see what happens. I hate that. Like, you know, it doesn't make any sense to me that Brett had to release the sharpshooter and then come back and keep the match going, man. And for that reason, I do think that that Brett got screwed this match.
02:40:33
Speaker
So, I mean, this is obviously highly regarded as the best Iron Man match ever. To me, the first 20 minutes of this match were a bit too slow, especially after just watching that MJF and Daniel Bryan match.
02:40:50
Speaker
I mean they literally wrestled for 60 minutes and I feel like the first 20 minutes takes away from this one and yeah like you said the rules were not outlined properly then stopping the match made no sense considering it was tied because it wasn't going to be a draw. I feel like those things take away from it a bit it's still a phenomenal match don't get me wrong and like you I hated this match when I was a kid I just
02:41:16
Speaker
Dude, an hour for a wrestling match when you're a kid, when your attention span is, it's very short, right? So this being this long of a match, I feel like for me, I didn't enjoy it just because of that reason. And once you got past like 35 minutes, you kind of realize like, okay, there's not going to be any falls here.
02:41:37
Speaker
yeah that that definitely takes away from it a lot i mean i get that what what they were going for but they were just basically showing us on a 60 minute match that these guys really are equals and this is the way we want to make it look but yeah i don't i don't know man it's a great match don't get me wrong it's one of the best iron man matches ever top two with the one we just saw a couple weeks ago but
02:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it definitely has some issues with it for me. So yeah, it's an acquired taste. I feel like it's like it's like the the hazy IPA of wrestling matches. That's a good way to word it. It's just, yeah, it's just one of those things that you either love it or you hate it more or less.
02:42:24
Speaker
So Brett ends up losing the strap and taking a eight month hiatus from WWF, but he comes back in a big way at Survivor Series 96.
Classic Matches & Double Turns
02:42:33
Speaker
He's going up against the hottest new heel in the company, Stone Cold Steve Austin. And what I think is just a freaking classic match at Survivor Series 96.
02:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, do we really need to say more? It's Bret Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin in a match. Who didn't think this was going to be great? This is right when Austin is starting to ascend to the top of the card. I love the face in this match callback to the WrestleMania 8 match. I think this is great. I feel like the ending of it was phenomenal.
02:43:09
Speaker
The match itself was really fun to watch a great match. It's not these two. It's not their best match, but still a really solid match. Yeah. And as far as like technical ability, this is, man, they have another classic that we're going to talk about a couple of months from now. This is awesome. But this is just a great technical showcase. And if you want to see what Steve Austin could do prior to his big neck injury, summer so many seven, I think this is the best match to see it in. Yeah, 100 percent.
02:43:39
Speaker
What are your thoughts on the orange and blue trim that Brett added to his gear for this match? I like it. I think it's cool. I felt like it added something to Brett where it wasn't just pink, black and white. I don't know why he only did this one event. He never brought this back after this one show. Yeah, I don't get that either because I thought it looked cool personally. I thought it was a good look. I was happy when they did this figure. I thought it's a great look.
02:44:04
Speaker
Yeah, I don't get it, man. They did some weird stuff with him with his gear and stuff. Yeah, I feel like maybe Vince or somebody else put the kibosh on it because it did look really good for this one show, but we never saw it again the rest of his time.
02:44:19
Speaker
Alright so going to the, so that match with Steve Austin was to determine the number one contender to the WWF Championship. Sid and HBK wrestled in the main event at that same Survivor Series show and Sid got the dub. Brett wrestled Sid at the December 1996 in your house and lost after some interference from Shawn Michaels. This match kind of just was what it was man, you got a whole lot to say about this one.
02:44:44
Speaker
No, and that's basically what I was going to say is this match was basically just used as a setup for Sean instead of month later. Yeah, not a bad match. But yeah, my notes, it says, like a lot of in your house matches, it's just kind of there. Yeah, that's funny. Because that's basically what you said.
02:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's about the best way to say it, man. Rumble 97, this one was fun, dude. This has one of the all-time great Brett Austin moments where, you know, Steve Austin's kicking ass the first half of the Rumble. He's dumping folks. He's, you know, getting the moments where he's just solo in the ring. And then finally, Brett Hart's music hits, and we get just a great reaction of Steve Austin just, you know, shitting bricks as Brett's making his way to the ring.
02:45:26
Speaker
So reading about this now like that Brett was originally supposed to win this match until Russo changed it. See this is where to me and we're going to get into his match at WrestleMania which phenomenal but
02:45:43
Speaker
I feel like at this point, they had kind of a feeling that Brett could possibly leave, which is why they didn't do this. Maybe I'm completely wrong on that. But just the way he was booked in this last year, starting here, while really started in your house the month before, I just feel like they still want him to be
02:46:04
Speaker
a big name on the card and obviously do big things but I feel like they knew they had like an ink link of what was coming. I don't know if Brett talked about it or somebody got wind of it but I just I feel like you could see the writing on the wall for Brett in WWF.
02:46:21
Speaker
Yeah, it seemed like you know, he had a few moments, you know, he's not a few few peaks left, but but yeah, definitely I remember I kind of had like one arm behind his back that whole last year and in WWF man, I do like this rumble dude, I think this is a really fun rumbling. I love the finish with
02:46:37
Speaker
Austin got dumped but the refs were distracted because Terry Funk and Mick Foley were brawling so hard on the outside. Austin gets back in to kind of delve them off and lead into the Brett storyline of everybody screwing Brett. Yeah, it was definitely an interesting rumble to say the least.
02:46:57
Speaker
So the controversial finish to the rumble had led to the booking of a final four match between Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bret Hitman Hart, Vader and Undertaker. Basically it was Steve Austin against the three people that got cheated out of the finish of the rumble with Bret, Vader and
02:47:15
Speaker
an undertaker. And this was going to be a match in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the February in your house. And it was really, really interesting rule. So it was you could be pinned or you could be done over the top ropes. It was like kind of like a match and about a Royale combined between these four. And it was originally going to be to determine who was going to fight for the World Championship at WrestleMania. But
02:47:38
Speaker
that Thursday night before this pay-per-view was famously when Sean, he'd lost a lot of things over the last few years, but most importantly, he lost his smile and he forfeited the belt. And so this match ended up being for the world championship. And I think this fucking rock dude leading to Brett winning
02:47:54
Speaker
the World Championship for the four times. You know, you had said that you thought Bretton Bulldog at December 95 was the best in your house match. To me, this is the best in your house match of all time. And this this fatal four way, this fatal four way, a jest match against these four guys.
02:48:10
Speaker
Dude, this was such a cool idea for a match, and I know I speak for everybody, but usually when they do these kind of like one-off matches, a lot of times they don't live up to the hype. This absolutely lived up to the hype. Just such a cool way to do it.
02:48:30
Speaker
I wish like if we'd have like controversial finishes at Royal Rumbles, we would get like a one off match of this at whatever they do in February, whether that's a
02:48:42
Speaker
the hell they just do elimination chamber. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I used to have fast lane back in the day. Yeah. I would, I would love to see them do this match again. I thought it was awesome. Towards the end of the match, you could definitely tell Austin's knee was bothering him a lot. Um, but yeah, this is just, this was a really fun match to watch. And you're probably right. This is probably the best in your house match ever. It's just, it's a fun match to watch.
02:49:07
Speaker
I think this was Vader's peak in WWE as well. You know, he gets his eye busted open. So he's bleeding, but he looks like a fucking badass the whole match. Yeah, dude, Vader. It's a shame he never got his due because what an absolute fucking tank.
02:49:22
Speaker
Yeah, I love Vader. He's the man, dude. Unfortunately, Brett will lose the belt the next night to Sid, but that would lead to our next event at WrestleMania 13. Imagine that for over a decade, you have fought to reach the pinnacle of your profession. Then you walk away. When you return six months later, nothing is the same.
02:49:47
Speaker
I've been screwed by Shawn Michaels. I've been screwed by Stone Cold Steve Austin. You scratch my back and I'll stab yours. There is no respect. Everybody in that dressing room knows that I'm the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. Even your fans have changed. At the heart of this change is a man that spits in the face of your every accomplishment.
02:50:12
Speaker
Ever since you came back, you ain't done nothing but cry. He has attacked you physically and verbally. If you put the letter S in front of Hitman, he's had my exact opinion of Bret Hart. This man mocks your legacy. Bret Hart on his best day can't lace my boots. I will beat the hell out of Bret. And that's the bottom line. Injustice after injustice has forced you to snap. Frustrated into the...
02:50:42
Speaker
Now the finger is pointed at you. You're the one who's changed. They say your ego is your enemy. There is only one solution. You must make Austin beg for mercy. But what if Stone Cold Steve Austin wins? What becomes of Bret Hitman Hart then?
02:51:08
Speaker
To me, this is the greatest match in the history of professional wrestling, man. Even aside from the double turn and everything that went into it, I think just the in-ring action is crazy. The mix of technical wrestling plus brawling is just incredible, and the finish is amazing, man. I don't know, man. I love this match with all my heart, and I think it's the greatest of all time.
02:51:33
Speaker
So this to me is what you show someone when you want them to see what a perfect match looks like. The booking, the flow of this match. To me, this is, it's definitely in the top five of the most iconic images ever from WrestleMania when Stone Cold is in the sharpshooter and he's bleeding from his head, trying to reach the ropes. Like, I mean, we got the blood from Stone shirt out of this match, like,
02:52:01
Speaker
This, this match is perfect. It's just made Steve Austin, dude. I mean, it absolutely made Steve Austin who ended up being one of the biggest baby faces of all time. Yeah. There's, I mean, we don't need to go on for an hour about this. Everybody that likes wrestling has seen this match. It's just, it is really literally, I talked about wrestling porn earlier. This is the definition of wrestling porn. Like if you want to see two guys at the top of their game, wrestle, this is what you're going to show people. This is just phenomenal.
02:52:32
Speaker
Yeah, if you're a youngster just coming up, go watch this match. And if you dig in the archives of Steve Austin's podcast, he's got basically where he does the audio commentary as the match is happening and it's incredible. So just check this out. Like I said, there's absolutely nothing me and Jordan could say that would do justice to it.
02:52:51
Speaker
an insane match that leveled up both guys. It set up Brett for his last little run there in WWE, and really it set up Stone Cold for the babyface run of the cinch man with what he did going all the way, basically from the time of WrestleMania 13 up until he retired. The next month in your house Cold Day in Hell, they main evented in your house. It was a match to determine the number one contender
02:53:15
Speaker
It's still a fun match. It pales in comparison to both WrestleMania 13 and survivor series 96 It was really just a way to get over the newly formed Heart Foundation the machines in the schmaz Where Owen and the Bulldog come in and interfere and Steve Austin wins in DQ to get his first title shot Like I said, it's still a fun match But really not a whole lot to mention outside of the WrestleMania 13 and survivor series match You got any thoughts on the on the cold day and hell event Jordan nothing man. This it just was what it was and
02:53:44
Speaker
So Brett takes a little time off after this with an injury, and we come back at the Canadian Stampede, where the fully formed 97 Heart Foundation, Brett, Owen, Bulldog, Anvil, and Brian Pillman take on Steve Austin, Goldust, Ken Shamrock, and the Legion of Doom, and a fucking all-timer of an event.
02:54:08
Speaker
Yeah, for a match that you can tell was just kind of thrown together as a lot of in your house matches are absolutely incredible. I actually went on when I went on coming down the aisle with J-Bone, me and him did this match because I just love this match. So many good people in this match. And yeah, it's just it's just a fun match to watch the crowd is into it the whole time. And yeah, I love this match.
02:54:34
Speaker
Yeah, we'll go back and watch the entrances, dude. The pops for all the Heart Foundation members are incredible. When Brett comes out, it's just crazy. Just the all-timer of a hometown pop and just a really, really fun match. It was such a fun dynamic there in 97 where the Heart Foundation were the biggest heels in the States, but were the biggest babyfaces everywhere else they went.
02:54:54
Speaker
I will say if they would have done a one on one Brett and Austin match, I feel like the pop from the crowd would have been 10 times what it was just because I mean, it's just those two guys wrestling the whole time. But I still enjoyed this a lot.
02:55:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's always watered down when you when you include everybody else. SummerSlam 97. This is where we went after the Canadian Stampede. This is Brett versus the Undertaker with HBK as the guest referee. You know, a lot of shooting games between Brett and Shawn Michaels ends up with HBK accidentally hitting Undertaker with a steel chair and Brett getting the wind to become a five time WWF champion. Tynehoke Hogan for the all time record at that point.
02:55:38
Speaker
Brett talked in his book about he thought that the ending, even though it was a fun, unique ending to the match, he felt like it straight up killed his heat because he had been the number one heel in WWF up until that point, but with Shawn hitting Undertaker with a chair, he felt like it straight up stole all of his heel heat.
02:55:56
Speaker
What do you think, Jordan? Did the ending of this match kind of kill Brett's last couple months in WWF? 100%. There is one thing I want to note. This is top five in event posters for me with Brett Hart standing in the foreground with Taker in the background surrounded by the purple smoke. Absolutely phenomenal. I actually have this shirt. I just... I love...
02:56:21
Speaker
It is a cool match and the pay-per-view itself is cool. But yeah, this was the downfall for me of Brett after this match. We're gonna talk about these next three shows and this definitely takes a steep off-a-cliff dive. Yeah, I thought the match was pretty fun, but yeah, like you said, man, it just...
02:56:47
Speaker
It gave all the heat to Sean off the ending right like bread had been such a hot heel and it seemed like he was completely fucking nuked after this man with With Sean being the guy to hit Undertaker in the head with the chair and then they meet they just gave so much since in Shawn after this
02:57:03
Speaker
Well, the next pay-per-view ground zero, he's defending against the Patriot dude, Sean and HBK, Eric, excuse me, Sean and the Undertaker in the main event, just a grudge match while Brett is defending the world championship against the Patriot in the mid card. Like how do you explain that? So this is what I mean, like.
02:57:23
Speaker
This, I mean, if this is not foreshadowing them telling you that Brett is on his way out, I don't know what is. First of all, the Patriot, what the fuck are we doing? I don't even know. RIP, Dale Wilkes. Whatever, I just, I don't know, man. You have to know that you're nearing the end of your run when you're wrestling the Patriot as the champion on the middle of the card. Why not put, yeah, I mean, you could have put Shamrock or anybody in that spot.
02:57:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's not good. This is a really low point in Bret Hart's career for me as this night and everything that follows it. And the next month at In Your House Bad Blood, again, Shawn is on top, wrestling undertaker in Hell in a Cell, which is an absolutely fucking incredible match. But Bret, as the world champion, is in the mid-card, tagging with the British Bulldog against the Patriot Invader in a flag match.
02:58:20
Speaker
I mean, it's cool seeing him in the bulldog tag, but he's the champion of the company and he's not even in a title match at one of your shows. I mean, imagine being a fan and going to this show and the main event completely overshadows everything else on this show as it should because the main event is absolutely incredible.
02:58:44
Speaker
I just, I think what happened at summer slam is like you said, Sean got all the heat and he, he went straight to the top of the heap. I mean, he was at this point, he's not even a champ and he's a bigger draw than Brett right now because of all the heat he got off that match again.
02:59:02
Speaker
They do so much right and then they fuck it up in one fell swoop and Sean getting this hot completely fucked Brett. I feel like that toppled with what's going to happen with the next pay-per-view just killed the last six months for him for me.
02:59:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Even though Brett got the belt, Sean was the one that got all the juice off of that, uh, that SummerSlam main event. And that leads us into Survivor Series, 1997.
The Montreal Screwjob & Aftermath
02:59:37
Speaker
Look at this. Oh, you're kidding me. Michael, are you going to take me, Brett Hart, with a sharp shooter? Yes, he is. Are you kidding me?
02:59:55
Speaker
I think I'm keen, I know I'm sexy, I've got the lift, they tried to pull out the ball, I've got the move, they remove her, I said she... What happened? Her heart gave up in a certain manner! I don't know what you guys are gonna hear, George Michael is the sexy boy!
03:00:30
Speaker
This crowd is living. And Bret Hart is standing in disbelief.
03:00:45
Speaker
The Montreal Screwjob, probably the most famous wrestling match in history. I'll go ahead and start, man. The biggest thing for me, dude, I love this match. The match all the way up to the ending was fucking awesome to me. There was so much realism in it. I still mark out when I watch it today, but I remember being 12 years old
03:01:09
Speaker
And, you know, this was what I asked my parents to give me for my birthday. All I wanted was to have Survivor Series 97 on pay-per-view. And I remember watching it and just being like, you know, like I said, I was working out. I thought I was like, this shit is real, dude. These guys are really fucking fighting right now, going through the crowd.
03:01:25
Speaker
and everything. It was so intense, man, and just had a level of realism to it that I had not seen before in all my pro wrestling fandom. I'll do it up to the ending, man. And even though the ending pissed me off at the time, it's kind of aged well for me. Where are you at on the Montreal Screwjob, Jordan?
03:01:49
Speaker
So like I said about the last couple of shows, I feel like WWE booked themselves into a corner here. Um, Brett was so beloved by so many people. Um, Sean just had absolutely nuclear heat. He was on top of the world at this point. I feel like as time has gone on, I kind of feel like
03:02:14
Speaker
There's more to this story that we haven't gotten and we probably never will get, unfortunately. I feel kind of like Vince tried to take the heat off of Shawn winning the title here and tried to put it on himself more than anything. So part of me feels like it's a work.
03:02:37
Speaker
But I mean, dude, the end of this match like Brett was obviously fucking pissed and he mouths WCW and spells out the words with his hands. Like I obviously everybody knew he was leaving, right? I mean,
03:02:54
Speaker
maybe he was pissed about the way it was gonna end so that's why it just got it was so nuclear hated by him but the match itself is great the ending sucks obviously we all know that but maybe it doesn't like maybe maybe this is how it was supposed to work i mean i don't know i
03:03:16
Speaker
I just, the way the last eight months that we just talked about went, I just could not see a scenario where Brett was going to stay there personally. Um, the summer slam event just took so much away from him. I just, he was the champion and he didn't even feel like he was in the top five of WWE at that point. And he was the champion and that's not a knock on Brett. It's just,
03:03:42
Speaker
wrestling WWE was just so much different at this point. I mean, dude, taker was huge. Sean was huge. Austin was huge. And Shamrock dude, it just he kind of got lost in the shuffle a bit. Unfortunately, I mean, Austin just got over so much. And a lot of that was due to Bret Hart. I mean, that WrestleMania match got Austin so over, there was no turning back.
03:04:06
Speaker
Just they could have turned him face, but I don't think it would have mattered man I just I feel like he just kind of got lost in the shuffle a bit Dude, I you can't take the words out of my mouth man. Like as the years have gone by I Really believe in my heart a horse that this was a work dude and how to shoot man. I just You know, if you think about it, it was the perfect
03:04:32
Speaker
Ending for the hitman character because he just he really was gonna be like a man at a time in the attitude era dude He wouldn't have fit in with what was going on storyline wise it just you know Even though there was would have been some cool matchups to be had his character just didn't fit with the attitude era And he got to go out on top right he never lost clean he got to go out, you know without really jobbing to anybody and
03:05:01
Speaker
to me is in my fandom, the three people that care more about pro wrestling and kayfabe than anybody else are Brett, Sean and Vince McMahon. So if there were three people that were going to carry out a work to this magnitude, it would have been these three. I agree. Yeah, it's just like I said, it's unfortunate that this is the way it ended, but
03:05:24
Speaker
Looking back on it. I don't mind it as much as I used to honestly I mean the match itself is phenomenal if you cut out the end And yeah, you're right dude, it was it was time for him to go He was not gonna fit in the attitude area at all. I just I don't know where Brett would have fit in there I feel like he would have got lost in the mid card honestly, and that would have been a shame for him and
03:05:47
Speaker
Dude, Austin and the rock were taking over the WWE, no matter what happened after this point. I mean, it was going to happen. Like you just aligned the way it worked. Austin was already so over. I just, I don't know, man. I just don't feel like there's any turning back from WrestleMania 13 on. It just, it happened so fast.
03:06:07
Speaker
Yeah, it was Austin and rock and an undertaker taking his character to an even like darker place And triple-h taking the DX gimmick to an even raunchier place, dude. That's kind of where they were going I just feel like this this was like the perfect storyline ending for the hitman
03:06:23
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's, it sucks. And I mean, still, you're going to always look back at Brett's WF run as very favorable, um, from his time in the hard foundation to him being on top of WVUF with the title. It just the last year, dude, I just, I said it.
03:06:43
Speaker
when we started talking about this last year, it just, it's not the same. You can tell, I mean, yeah, he was the champion twice, but you could tell it wasn't the same at this point. Like him winning the belt was more of an achievement, like a career achievement than it was a note of him being on top of WF. I just, yeah, it was never the like most significant thing storyline wise, man. As much as I love that, that Survivor Series 96 to 97 story arc.
03:07:11
Speaker
Yeah you know ninety four is definitely the peak of bread the hitman heart and wwf but it was still you know still fun and he said it was great seeing that the heart foundation back as a faction and you know it's kinda all came from a down here survivors 97 the crazy thing is if you believe it to be a shoot right like i think me and jordan both on the record now is at least
03:07:34
Speaker
Entertaining the possibility that this was just all the work all along and it was all kayfabe if it's a shoot it really is kind of crazy and tragic that you know Vince McMahon put all this heartache in the side between these two guys Brett and Sean who just Absolutely could not coexist when if you think about it, you know Brett's gone in November and then after March 98 Sean's gone for four years dude both as much you know as much oxygen as both these guys took up in the main event scene of WWF where
03:08:03
Speaker
within four months of this match, they're both gone. Yeah, that's really crazy to think about.
03:08:12
Speaker
It's just yeah, and Sean and Brett were the top of WWF I mean, it's just it is absolutely insane to think how this last year of Brett's run win and what happened to WWF after this I mean, I feel like everybody I mean obviously Brett's WCW run didn't and the way we all wanted but I think it all happened for a reason honestly, I feel like I
03:08:40
Speaker
Yeah. Vince just, he was torn, man. Like you said, I just, I don't think he knew which way he wanted to go. Um, Sean was back. That was like his, his toy again and his new toy. And he, he wanted him to be on top of the world and it's understandable, man. It just, it's the way wrestling is, right? Like a lot of people don't even get to the top of the mountain. And Brett was definitely on top of the mountain for a couple of years. And it was a, it was a fun run and it was fun to talk about.
03:09:10
Speaker
Definitely. You ready for some listener mail? Yeah, absolutely. All right, time for listener mail. Jordan, do you want to kind of switch it up and take lead this time? Yeah, let's do it. I think some of these questions are going to be more directed at you, considering you're the Bret Hart aficionado of this crew. All right, let's kick it off with Bret Sharrow. What are some memorable or your favorite Bret Hart promos of all time?
03:09:36
Speaker
So again, Brett, I think he was always a solid promo, not a spectacular promo. There's three to me that really stick out and resonate all these years later.
03:09:46
Speaker
The one he did, and they were all kind of in the last year, they're WWE ironically enough. So he had a really good one right before he wrestled Steve Austin in his return match at survivor series 96. He talked about how even though it's not a church that to him Madison Square Garden was holy ground, which makes sense because Brett and the heart foundation always, you know, had a lot of big moments there in Madison Square Garden. And for whatever reason, it seemed like outside of Canada, New York was the other place that Brett was just
03:10:13
Speaker
crazy over. And so that one was really cool. Um, I love the work he did the raw after WrestleMania 13, where he reunited the heart foundation. Um, you know, Owen heart and the British bulldog were actually tag team champs at the time, but they were also feuding. It's pretty cool storyline. And they were having a one on one match and Brett came out and breaks up the match and just goes on like a five minute monologue. Um,
03:10:36
Speaker
talking about what the fans have done to their family. And Owen Hart is just classic. I don't know how Brett didn't start laughing because Owen's just hamming it up, acting like he's on the verge of tears when Brett's talking about all the stuff he did for him when Owen was a little kid. You remember that one, Jordan? I do remember that. I don't remember it word for word like you do, but I definitely remember it.
03:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, go back and, uh, go back and watch that one, man. It's great. And then, um, the one he did before WrestleMania 13, after he got cheated and lost the steel cage match against Sid for the championship, where he just went off talking about, you know, frustrated, it's not the goddamn word for it. You know, that
03:11:15
Speaker
Sean Michael screwed me, Stone Cold Steve Austin screwed me, that goddamn Gorilla Monsoon screwed me and was just going on and on. Basically he really hit his breaking point for all the bullshit he dealt with in the last year or so in his career. So I think those three men are probably my three favorite Brett Provosts.
03:11:34
Speaker
I got nothing to add to that because I only remember one of them. So we'll just move to the next question. James Cody Canterbury. What part did Goldberg play in the Montreal screw job? So he didn't have a direct hand in it, but I think his general presence was already being felt in the world of wrestling. And I think him just kind of being alive, man, like cause the screw job, dude. It's similar to, um,
03:12:00
Speaker
If you ever watched the Muppets take Manhattan, not the original one, it was like I can't remember exactly what it was called, but it was basically a sequel to the classic Muppets take Manhattan that came out in the mid 90s and Kermit was kind of having a depressed period in that movie.
03:12:16
Speaker
And he started thinking he never should have been born. And he imagined what life would look like if he hadn't been born. And it showed five years in the future, which was 2002 at that point. And it showed the New York City skyline. And sure enough, the World Trade Center was still there. So if you run it back, that basically lets you know if Kermit the Frog was never born, 9-11 would have never happened. And I think that the Montreal screw job is kind of the same thing if Goldberg had been a thing.
03:12:45
Speaker
So you're saying Goldberg virtually kicked Bret Hart in the head during this match, is that what you're saying? Yep, exactly. Yeah, Goldberg caused the Montreal screw job just like Kermit caused the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Okay, I get the... I don't get it at all, but okay.
03:13:01
Speaker
Did you, were you at all expecting to hear a Muppets reference and or a 9-11 reference on this podcast? I'll be honest with you, I didn't think either one of those were coming with that question. I knew this was going to be a smart-ass answer, but I didn't expect it to go that deep. So well done, Seth.
03:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's what you guys can expect on Pod Warriors Day. We're taking you guys down rabbit holes, surprises around every corner. Alright, Tony Barker's got a couple for us. If the unthinkable happened and Bret Hart was indeed christened as Cowboy Bret Hart when he arrived in the WWF, what do you think his ceiling would have been and could he have had any of the success he ultimately achieved?
03:13:41
Speaker
I don't think he would have had as much success. I do think he would have eventually ascended to being a main eventer, but it would have been a much longer, a much longer run. You know, Brett really, there wasn't a whole lot of character to the hit man. He was just himself for the most part. I think if he's playing a gimmick like that, I think it would have taken a while.
03:14:01
Speaker
But I'm a big believer that eventually the cream always rises to the top and Brett would have found his way to the main event, but it wouldn't have been, uh, it would not have been quite the direct line he had from going tag team intercontinental championship, world championship picture, and then staying in the main event for pretty much the rest of his time there.
03:14:17
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you. I feel like his character, him being the hit man, definitely had a huge part in his career just because of who he was. I don't know if the cowboy gimmick would have necessarily got over the way hit man did, but I mean, like you said, it wasn't going to change his wrestling style and the way he wrestled. So eventually who would have found his way? It probably would have just took a little longer than it did at the way it was.
03:14:42
Speaker
If Bret Hart never went to WCW and the screw job never happened What do you think Brett's role would have been and who would you who would you have liked to see him? feud with Dude, it's hard to say man. It's really because
03:14:59
Speaker
You can't say straight up that Brett wouldn't have worked in the attitude error because honestly like the attitude error it really kind of they were already planting the seeds for that shortly after he left after WrestleMania 12 you know in 96 and 97 they were really getting a lot more edgy.
03:15:14
Speaker
I think the edgy stuff, Brett could do. I think towards 98, 99 and 2000, really the peak of the added era, there was a ton of comedy though, right? Like the Austin McMahon stuff, that stuff was straight up like slapstick comedy. And there wasn't a lot of like serious storylines. They'd get serious in the matches and have some brawls, but I think the storyline stuff, it's just hard for me to picture Brett fitting in that way, man. I'm sure he's good enough. I'm sure they could have made it work.
03:15:43
Speaker
They could have had, you know, some more, some more run with the whole Heart Foundation gimmick. I think that still could have worked. But Brett was just always so serious. He always took himself so seriously out there in the ring that I think some of the comedy stuff would have been tough for him to to blend in. I can't really put my finger on exactly how that would work. Now, opponents wise, man, two guys that I would have loved to see him work with.
03:16:06
Speaker
would be Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar, man. If he makes it another five years, you know, if he goes, assuming that he never gets the big injury like he got from Goldberg at the end of 99 and he can wrestle into the year 2002, I would have loved to seen a Brett and Brock match. I think that would have just been tremendous.
03:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, I would have liked to see him work with the rock as well. I just I feel like those two would have had some good chemistry in the ring in the attitude era. But like you said, I don't know how well Brett's personality would have fit in during that era just just based on what everything we know now and what it was. It's just
03:16:45
Speaker
I don't know, man. It's hard to imagine Brett being in a comedy match or anything like that. So I think all things considered, I think him going to WCW really was the best thing for him, even though it ended poorly with Goldberg. But I mean, he got paid and he won the world title.
03:17:05
Speaker
Yeah, won the world title had, you know, had some good matches with Booker T and, um, and with, with Chris Benoit. And like I said, I think those three years kind of set him up for a really, really comfortable life after wrestling. He was doing good in WWF, but it wasn't nothing like.
03:17:20
Speaker
that money. I mean, he basically got close to $10 million for three years of work there with WCW. And for all intents and purposes, it seems like Brett's done a good job saving his money. I know he's probably still making a killing on merch and stuff, but he's not had the sad life that, unfortunately, we see so many of our favorite wrestlers from the 80s and 90s live after wrestling. He's not having to do the Ric Flair thing.
03:17:44
Speaker
you know shucking and jiving and basically pimping himself out to cash checks like Brett kind of shows up to stuff when he wants to show up that's why it's kind of special when you do get a chance to go you know get an autograph or meet him because he's not at every single one of these conventions um yeah like you said man it's in a lot of ways dude we mentioned it earlier in the pod the Montreal screw job was kind of like the perfect ending for Brett and WWF man as much as it sucked and pissed people off and for years it made me mad but you know taking a step back and looking at it like
03:18:13
Speaker
You know, everybody knows he didn't lose. Like they had to cheat to get the belt off of him. And he kind of got to walk out of there with his head held high, man. I think, I think in kayfabe, I don't think you could have booked a better ending for Brett in WWF. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent with you. So, uh, one more from Tony Barker. He says in your opinion, was Brett in fact too selfish? Yeah, we talked about this one. I think I asked Jordan that same question, man, when we did there earlier.
03:18:41
Speaker
I think he was, man. And he probably just didn't trust it, Owen, even though we'd come to find out Owen would typically lay an egg when the lights got the brightest. Yeah. All right. We got one from Kenden Hill. If you could have 86 to 97 Brett fight anyone on the current WWE roster, who would it be and what type of match would it be?
03:19:05
Speaker
I think I'm still going Brock, man. I said I want to see it in 2002, and Brock is still awesome, dude. I kind of want to see... I kind of want to see Brock and Brett Hart go at it like no DQ, man. Like, so that way Brett can get some weapons and kind of even the playing field. But yeah, I think Brett and Brock would just be incredible.
03:19:24
Speaker
I'm going to go him and Rollins, honestly. I think him and Rollins would be a really fun match. I mean, they both worked a quicker style. So I just feel like they'd have a lot of chemistry in the ring. As far as type of match, I'd be fine with just a one on one match between those two guys. Honestly, I think it would, it wouldn't need all the shenanigans and outside stuff. So I'd be fine with just a one on one match between those two. Yeah. Rollins has a lot of similarities to HBK as far as in-ring style goes also.
03:19:53
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. That'd be like peanut butter and jelly, man. The way those two guys would match in the ring. Yeah. Our buddy Zach Hertzler's got a couple. Heart Foundation versus the bloodline at Mania. Who do you have winning? Dude, I got to go the bloodline, man. The supporting cast behind Roman. I'm assuming we're going, we're going to keep Sami Zayn in the mix and we're going straight up. Usos, Sami, Solo and Roman against, you know, five on five against Brett, the annual Bulldog.
03:20:24
Speaker
Owen and Pillman. I think the Usos are the deciding factor, and I think they win it, man. I mean, Solas Koa is a beast. He could neutralize the Bulldog. Sami Zane and Brian Pillman is probably a wash. I think the Usos are just going to crush Owen and the Anvil, and they'll be able to help Roman beat Brett.
03:20:46
Speaker
I was going to say, well, there's only one heart foundation member left. So I think the bloodline probably wins. But I agree with your assessment. Anvil and Owen are not holding a candle to those. So, so I just, I feel like that's the, where the mismatch is stands. So, and Pillman was a shell of himself in ring by the time the heart foundation for him, he was really more of a manager than a wrestler at that point. Yeah.
03:21:15
Speaker
What Brett entrance gear do you want in figure form that we haven't gotten yet? That's a really good question. I think go back to that SummerSlam 90 him in the end with those black and pink jackets. I'm probably the wrong guy to ask this because any Brett figure that gets released without the jacket I'm finding one of the figure clothing custom people and getting it made man. But one thing I've never gone and done is get the
03:21:45
Speaker
get the Heart Foundation jackets going for him in the anvil. So I'll go summer slam 90. James Cody Canterbury answered his question and said, mayhem 1999. I'd have to go back and look, man. I don't remember that one.
03:21:58
Speaker
In WCW, I mean, and to be honest, dude, I really do not like Brett's WCW run outside of a few bright spots. I remember him always rocking this, the plain leather jacket, dude, like that jacket he was wearing basically throughout 97. I don't remember him mixing it up too much, but I'll go back and check out and see what he was wearing at Mayhem 99.
03:22:17
Speaker
Okay. Johnny JB hit us. The question thoughts on Brett versus Owen at WrestleMania 10. We, we already went through this about how much me and Seth Wolf love this match. So, um, I don't think we need to spend a ton of time on it. Do you want to hit on anything? So no, just, you know, like I said, I appreciate the question for sure, Johnny, but yeah, we, we said everything we need to say everyone show it's, uh, definitely the best opening match of WrestleMania ever. And arguably the best opening match of any pay-per-view of all time.
03:22:47
Speaker
Brian Toppley hits us with, all of Brett's history is a race except for one match or rivalry if match is too hard to choose. What stays?
03:22:58
Speaker
So I said, you know WrestleMania 13 against Austin was my all-time Favorite match but I don't feel like I feel like you got to have the backstory for that match to mean so much if if it's you know in a time capsule by itself I don't know if it works as good because it was rude the match was great does read the double turn that made it so compelling if I had to just pick one and
03:23:21
Speaker
I think I'm going summer slam 92 against the bulldog man I know that's a weird choice because he loses the match but I just think that match is just a technical masterpiece there's no real backstory all the backstory you need for that match you're gonna get from the announcers just knowing that these guys are brothers-in-law fighting for the Intercontinental Championship and it's just a perfect match so I'd say summer slam 92 with the
03:23:44
Speaker
with the bulldog. How about you, man? I think I'm going to go with rivalry and I'm going to go with his rivalry with Sean. I just, those matches are just all so good. I mean, those guys had such chemistry in the ring. Like I said, they were equals in earlier in the show. I just, I feel like those two just always had such good chemistry that I think I could watch them wrestle 200 times and never get tired of it. So that's who I would pick. Great choice.
03:24:11
Speaker
Okay, Sam Rosenthal, if there was one Brett match you could have seen live, which one would you pick? And then did either of you ever dress as him for Halloween?
03:24:23
Speaker
I've never dressed as him for Halloween. I think the hair was just so unique, man. I think that would have been just a bridge too far. I don't know how I would have pulled that off. I think any kind of wig set up just would have been goofy. If I could be for any match, I think the screw job, man, you know, obviously it's in the mix for the most historically significant wrestling match ever. So it'd be cool to be there for that.
03:24:46
Speaker
I love that matchup before the finish day, like the way they're brawling through the ring, it just had an electric feel to it, man, like that. And the audience just seemed super charged. So I would have loved to have been in the building for the Montreal Screwjob. I'm going to go Owen and Brett at WrestleMania 10, just because that means I would have been in the building for Razor and Shawn as well. And it's in the garden, like how much bigger can it get? So I think I would go with that.
03:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, great pick. WrestleMania 10 is a much better choice. Survivor Series 97 is basically shit outside of the main event. Yeah. Where would Brett be on the disgruntled old wrestler rankings? That's from Sam, bro.
03:25:29
Speaker
He's up there dude, he's mellowed the last couple years man. He's definitely mellowed the last couple years have been a little bit more open to embracing the Modern generation of wrestlers and I think a lot of guys that are breaking in right now man are like just It seems like Brett's kind of had a little bit of a renaissance with people coming in The last couple years I think AEW
03:25:52
Speaker
has really shown a lot of love to Brett, man, the way they work and stuff. And just for whatever reason, it seems like that roster, you got a lot of Brett fans and Brett disciples up and down it. You remember, Brett was actually the guy there to unveil the AW Championship way back on Double or Nothing 2019. So that's still a most wanted figure of mine, man, the AW Brett from when he came out that night. So I think he's mellowed out a lot, but for a time there, like 2015, 2016, he was probably number one with a bullet.
03:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Like dude, he had a problem with almost everything WWE related for at least a couple of years. So he was, he was definitely number one. Like you said, he's mellowed out a lot. And I think as he's gotten older and I mean, less and less of his people are still around, you know, I'm not trying to be morbid, but I mean, I think, I think that mellows you out a lot on life. Like I think you kind of kill the grudges that you had and you just kind of move on. So.
03:26:51
Speaker
He you know, it's been basically like swept under the rug of history now, but 2016 Brett started his own podcast I want to say it was called like the sharpshooter podcast It was him and his son blade doing a wrestling podcast together and it only lasted like six episodes and Brett pulled the plug on it because he said he felt like he was just it was just too negative he felt like he was just being too negative on
03:27:15
Speaker
You know the current products and stuff because that's what it was They were really for whatever reason they didn't dig into like Brett's archives and stuff This was before the whole Conrad Thompson like podcast revolution It was just Brett given his thoughts on the weekly WWE TV and he just said that he felt like it just turned into a platform where he was just being overly critical and stuff on the the modern day wrestlers and he didn't want to be that person and he actually cancelled his own podcast because of that and
03:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, he he definitely had his fair share issues there. So also from Sam Bro, who currently is closest to Brett style? That's a good question, man. Closest to Brett style, dude. So I would say the revival, man. I think that's who as far as like the entering work, like
03:28:07
Speaker
You know, being stiff, you know, you always got that you could brawl in your back pocket, but you really try to just be technical and make everything matter. I see a lot of shades of Brett's work in the revival. Obviously, you know, we know Dax slash Scott Dawson, whatever. I just call him bald, you know, bald revival or FTR bald and FTR hair is how I tell them apart because it's a pain in the ass keeping their names straight between NXT and AW.
03:28:33
Speaker
But yeah, I see a lot of shades in Brett of those guys. As far as main eventers, man, CM Punk, obviously he was a huge Brett disciple, so he had a lot of callbacks to Brett back when he was still doing his thing, but who knows if that bitter bastard's ever coming back again or not. Yeah, I agree with everything you just said on that one. One more from Sam Bro, big dog question. What is the best Brett Hart figure ever?
03:29:01
Speaker
Favorite is without a shadow of a doubt his first Hasbro figure. That's like That's my all-time favorite wrestling figure I played it I was so excited when I saw it was coming out then actually get it at you know Toys R Us
03:29:15
Speaker
And just played played with that thing like crazy man like I just I had so much fun playing with that little you know that little miniature version of a bright heart so that was definitely my favorite obviously it's not the best though there's been plenty of great bright figures come along since then if I had to pick one that stands out head and shoulders above.
03:29:33
Speaker
I would say the defining moments man the first one that Mattel did way back in the I think was here the second or third series of defining moments figures The packaging is just beautiful. It perfectly captures 97 Brett and the all-black singlet with the soft goods leather jacket and Yeah, man, I think that's the one
03:29:53
Speaker
I was going to go with defining moments, but we can't have the same answer. So I'm going to go with the ringside exclusive one, the pink with the pink jacket and stuff. I just think that figure is phenomenal. It's just so well done. Um, and I'm, I'm really happy they're re-releasing it in ultimate edition forms or everybody else can get it. So.
03:30:12
Speaker
Yeah, we'll see what that ultimate edition ends up looking like once it's in hand. It's definitely got potential to be the best ever. I may do a little figure surgery, man, and take the head sculpt off that ringside one and throw it on that ultimate edition, man. Because I think that head sculpt still holds up. Obviously, it's not true FX. It's not going to be as razor sharp as the new ones. But we went on and on last night talking about the issues Mattel's had. Again, Bret Hart's face just right. So sometimes those older scans work out a little bit better.
03:30:40
Speaker
I know it seems like it's been a long time, but that was still tonight there, bud. Well, it wasn't last night, that was tonight. I guess. Well, I've blown it now, dude, so we can break K-fabe. If you're still, if you're listening to this point of the podcast, you're about three and a half hours in, so I totally just blew it, man. MJF, I'm not, dude. I totally just blew our fucking gimmick. We ended up taking a pause from the cause last night and decided, because you guys did go all out on
03:31:10
Speaker
on sending us, you know, just some really awesome listening mail. We knew we wanted to spend some time and didn't want to rush through it, but it was about one o'clock in the morning. By the time we wrapped up survivor series, 97 talk, and we're looking at a stack of questions and Jordan made the call call the audible to let's just putt and do it the next night. So yeah, I don't want people to think I got fucking dementia or something, dude. So we'll just, we'll go ahead and just fucking call it a shoot, man. This is actually the night. This is, we started on Tuesday night and we're into Wednesday night now on recording this thing.
03:31:38
Speaker
It's the pod warrior screw job. I blew it, man. I was too damn selfish. I'm going to kick your knee out of your knee. All right. Uh, we got one coming in from Tyson, Neil Trevino, TNT and T dino might, uh, what would Brett's career be? And WCW of Goldberg hadn't kicked him in the head. WCW was already a flaming coffin on roller skates heading downhill at the point that happened. So.
03:32:08
Speaker
His shit in WCW would have been about what it was, you know, fucking various flirtations with the NWO, going back and forth between heel and face and occasionally having a decent match up until, you know, they got bought out. Basically, I mean, WCW only lasted like a year and change after that happened for Brett anyway. So I think it would have kind of just ran its course. I don't think he would have been, I don't think WCW's fate would have been any different if Brett didn't get hurt.
03:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, basically, like you said, a year after this, it died anyway. It was basically a cardboard ship out to sea at this point. So I don't really think it would have mattered either way. And Brett had already done what he was going to do in WCW at that point anyway. Yeah, he's been champ. He had a really, really emotional match to tribute Owen Hart after Owen Hart tragically passed away. I will say this, man, assuming they can let bygones be bygones,
03:33:00
Speaker
the invasion would have fucking cracked if Bret Hart is the leader of it dude like imagine Bret Hart's coming back leading this faction to go against this guy and this company that fucked him over like dude sign me up man that would have been incredible yeah that would have been awesome that would have completely changed the invasion angle angle completely so oh yeah uh Brian Vermeer asks what is Bret's best feud story wise
03:33:30
Speaker
I think it's got to be this story with Owen Hart, you know, coming up as a little brother. They have basically a three year long period where they're feuding on and off. Owen, they were never outside of each other's orbit, right? Like something, you know, they obviously they, they moved on to different people, but they were always around each other. Um, and then ultimately reuniting and having just a really, really fun, entertaining run back together that last year. So I think his story with Owen, um, is the one.
03:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I just that story had so much depth to it. And like you said, they're they're brothers. So that's already tied into it. But yeah, it's just fantastic. John Swallow hits us with did Brett screw Brett? Thanks for the question from our fellow from our fellow pod foundation member. Definitely check out coming down the aisle podcast. I don't think he did, man. I think he held his ground. And I think history is kind of sided with Brett. He definitely
03:34:29
Speaker
probably could have handled that situation. So again, I told you guys when we talked about it on survivor series 97.
03:34:36
Speaker
I think the whole thing was a work, the more I think about it, man. I think it's just the biggest work ever. And Brett, Sean and Vince are the only three people in on it. But let's assume it's a shoot. Brett could have handled the situation with a little bit more finesse, but he was bad against the wall and it was personal, man. And I think he just kind of had to stand his ground. And yeah, he did end up screwing himself over, but I think he was in the right, even though that's how it ended up playing out.
03:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I just, I mean, Brett, Brett was who he was. And like you said, he's going to stand his ground no matter if he thinks he's wrong or not. It's just, he's just a proud guy. And I mean, history has really, uh, I think it's been kind to Brett. Honestly, I feel like, yeah, people appreciate him more now than they did back then. Honestly.
03:35:24
Speaker
Yeah, and he didn't, he just didn't want to lose to Sean, dude. And according to anybody back in that time, Sean was just an insufferable prick, man. Like Brett was on record, dude. He said that he offered to drop the belt to Undertaker, Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock. He said he'd lose the belt to whoever they want him to lose it to. He just did not want to lay down and do the job for Sean Michaels because he knew that Sean would be unwilling to do the same for him.
03:35:48
Speaker
Yeah, Sean didn't really hit his good guy phase until he came back after that four year layoff and found Jesus.
03:35:57
Speaker
And then wrestled with God. So yeah, it's, I agree. I just, I mean, everything you hear about Sean is he was just a prick back then. And I mean, dude, when Marty Gennady has some negative things to say about you, you know, you gotta be kind of a dick. So if I'm hard, you know, he's got the moral high ground on you. I never said that. Don't let's not take it too far. Uh, James Cody Canterbury had one more. He said is the photo associated with this post, his most iconic look.
03:36:28
Speaker
I don't know for his most iconic look man because he's got There are so many similar looks he had we you know We talked about that all throughout the show man how he kind of just it was constantly evolving dude I think like if you just tell me Bret Hart I'm probably picturing and the all-black from 97 man It seemed like that's what he was wearing for most of his big matches down the stretch. So I think the all-black Singlet is his most iconic look for me
03:36:56
Speaker
I'm going with the old black wrestling singlet with no pants or anything from Canadian Stampede by far his most iconic look. Brett Vermeer hits us with, did Brett really have sunny days?
03:37:13
Speaker
I don't think so, man. The reason I say no is because, you know, when definitely a huge character fall that Brett had that he's admitted to is he was not faithful to his wife. If you read his book, Hitman, my real life in the cartoon world of pro wrestling, he details in the book, you know, different times that, you know, he cheated on his wife with, you know, groupies or whoever.
03:37:40
Speaker
And he's very frank about, you know, him and Sonny were good friends. He was like a little bit of a mentor to her, but like, you know, she would play with his kids and stuff. And I just felt like if there was some truth to that, he would have admitted in this book because he admitted cheating on his wife with other people. And him and his wife at the time already split at that point. So, and we know pretty much everything that's happened in wrestling for the most part. So if it would have happened, if it really happened, I think it would have come out by now. So I don't think he had Sonny days.
03:38:09
Speaker
Let's be honest though, 80s and 90s wrestlers, a lot of those guys didn't have sunny days. I mean, the majority of the people that were in a relationship ended up ending it because they cheated or drugs or something along those lines. So 80s and 90s wrestling was not kind to these guys. No. Or like Steve Austin, just beat the shit out of your wife twice.
03:38:30
Speaker
Yeah. And look how much everybody loves Austin now. Dude, Steve Austin is definitely somebody that's lucky he came up when he did. Could you imagine if that came out now, man? He's like an all-timer, dude, of somebody who... And I'm with it, man. I think he's admitted that he was going through a really fucking rough patch in his mental space at that time. And we've heard nothing negative about him since that.
03:38:57
Speaker
2004 2005 time frame so I do forgive him for that man, and I could I can accept him and still be a fan of his with a clear conscience, but With just the culture how it is now like dude if that if something like that happened I like if it came out that Roman Reigns beat the shit out of his wife dude like he'd be canceled We'd never see him on TV again. Yeah, he'd he'd be shot out to the moon and Never returning. He'd be in parts unknown with Ultimate Warrior Yeah, Steve Austin is very fortunate that it was kind of
03:39:27
Speaker
the internet wasn't as fucking intense man to see to take people down whenever whenever all that shit happened. All right, we got one from Jason. It's either Koenig or Koenig. Sorry if I bush your last name. I can't I can't remember what it is. What would it take for you to rock jorts like Brett?
03:39:49
Speaker
Maybe in another like five years, I'll be there, dude. I'm still at the age where I'm holding on to a little shred of being cool. That's one thing that it's really like never come back all the way, dude.
03:40:02
Speaker
I don't know, man. Like I said, give me another five years and I'll rock some Levi George like the hit man. I mean, we all rocked him in the 90s. That was all. Yeah, definitely. It's first day of school. I'm rocking some fucking George that go down slightly past my kneecap and like a Reggie Miller replica jersey. Some Tommy Hilfiger George with the carpenter style. Yeah, that's what it was. Yeah. And the little the little carpenter loops got the Tommy Hilfiger on it. So everybody knows you fucking stunt. I'll never forget like
03:40:32
Speaker
Looking back on it, what the hell were we thinking? I wore some Tommy Hilfiger overalls the first day of school. Like, what the fuck were we thinking? I mean, that did not have been cool at all. Looking back, I'm glad my parents didn't let me get it and there's no pictures that exist. But I remember being obsessed with wanting to get a pair of jinkos, dude. Like, I wanted fucking jinkos so bad for the younger listeners. I think jinkos are actually fucking back. They're making them again. But jinkos were these just
03:41:01
Speaker
gigantic fucking jeans dude like you know they were just like super, it was like a fucking bucket that's how wide like the legs on these jeans were and they'd always have like some crazy patch on like the back of them of like a dude doing graffiti or something just search JNCO man you'll see what we're talking about dude and like all like you know like all like the fucking troublemaker kids like they're really really fucking cool kids dude we're wearing these it wasn't like a preppy thing but like
03:41:26
Speaker
Like you said, the kids that were from the wrong side of the tracks were wearing these things, and they would typically end up being the cooler kids, right? And I remember just begging my mom to get it, and my mom's like, no, Sethi, these are gonna look stupid. And even though my mom's not any kind of fashionista, she was 100% on point, man. The Jinkos were fucking ridiculous. Yeah, that is not a good look at
Podcast Format & Listener Engagement
03:41:48
Speaker
all. They're basically parachute pants except in jean form, not good at all.
03:41:54
Speaker
All right, we got one more from Tristan Stewart. What match of his would you say is overhyped in your opinion? Or if you don't have one, name one that's underappreciated. Overhyped Brett match, man. That's tough, dude. I feel like I feel like they're all either like properly hyped or.
03:42:16
Speaker
or under hyped man I know you were a big fan of it did I actually don't love the first survivor series match with Shawn Michael's man I think that had more to do with the bill than the actual bell to bell action on it but I just that match felt very cool to me they feel like there was like no heat it was just
03:42:33
Speaker
a match for a match sake, man. I know a lot of people like you like really, really love that match, but it's still a good match, man. Don't get me wrong. It's actually still a really, really good match, but that one is not like a super memorable one. Like that's way down the list if I'm like firing up the peacock and I want to find a Brett match. So I'd say Survivor Series 92.
03:42:53
Speaker
I think that's a good choice. I got nothing for this one. I just, I don't know, man, we went through all these matches and I, for the most part, enjoyed them. I hate the Bob Backlund matches, but that's just because I don't like Bob Backlund. That really has nothing to do with Brett, so. I think pretty much everybody hates those. The WrestleMania 11 one is universally despised and the Survivor Series 94 is kind of like a mixed bag. Yeah, that's it.
03:43:15
Speaker
All right. Thanks again, guys, for the listener mail. And thank you if you stuck with us all the way through, man. This is definitely one that's probably meant to be listened to in sections. I don't think anybody's going to sit down and go three and a half hours plus on one podcast. But this was an idea of mine. Jordan, salute to you, man, for buying off on this. It was a lot of fun.
03:43:34
Speaker
And now we know if we need to, man, we could crank out three hours on a podcast. So we got a lot of great Pod Warriors ideas in the hopper. We're gonna keep bringing you these special episodes, trying to hit about one every month or so where we just pick one topic and go freaking deep on it, man. It's a lot of fun. And like I said, these are shows that you can go back and listen to and they're not gonna age. So if this is your first time tuning into a Pod Warriors show, all you gotta do is go to the Chick Foley show feed. We made it really easy for you.
03:44:02
Speaker
Um, just like WrestleMania, man, we number all the pod warriors episodes, so they kind of stand out in the feed. So, uh, definitely encourage you to go back and check those out and give us some feedback. Let us know if there's one from the, from the back catalog that you found that, uh, that you enjoyed.
Closing Thoughts on Bret Hart's Legacy & Personal Anecdotes
03:44:16
Speaker
As always Jordan, I'll turn it over to you for some closing thoughts on this episode. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. No closing thoughts from Jordan today. This is a setup. So this is, this is your Bret Hart baby. I'm glad you had me on to speak a little bit about Bret Hart, but you get to give closing thoughts on the Bret Hart episode.
03:44:33
Speaker
All right, I appreciate that, man. I just love Bret Hart, man. I love what you stood for as a character. I love the way you carried yourself, the look, the presence, the matches. I was just thoroughly entertained, and that's what I still go back to, man. If I'm
03:44:49
Speaker
you know, got a few cold ones in and they'll got nothing else going on on a Friday or Saturday night. I'm firing it up and I'm watching summer slam 91. I'm watching, um, you know, survivor series 95 against diesel and finding a Brett match. And, and I've never ever been disappointed, man. I,
03:45:04
Speaker
as he's just, you know, an awesome guy. I was lucky enough to meet him at WrestleMania 31, which thank you, Jordan, for encouraging me and Sheena to go to that. And it was awesome, dude. Lived up to the hype, man. He was just super gentle guy, man, very friendly. Took the time to talk to me and Sheena. Gave Sheena a free autograph on the low. And that's just a, you know, a really, really special memory for me, getting to,
03:45:26
Speaker
Getting to meet him, and I just encourage any wrestling fan, man, go back and watch this guy's stuff, dude. It holds up. It definitely holds up, and it's just a shame that the monthly pay-per-views didn't start up until really his last two years in the company, because there's not a lot of Bret matches, man. His run was pretty short, dude. If you think about it, his run as a solo star was six years, dude. It was 1991 to 1997. It was nine years ago when Seth Rollins turned on the shield, and just think about the runs that Cena and Orton have had.
03:45:55
Speaker
In the grand scheme of things, dude, Brett's solo run was really just a shooting star across the WWE universe, but the stuff that he put there on film, it holds up to this day, and I encourage you guys to go watch some Brett and let us know what your favorite match is. It's really, I gotta say, man, he's the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, and I hope that we have excellently executed this episode of the Pod Warriors.