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But all good things must come to an end, and after losing their second tag title to the Nasty Boys at Wrestlemania 7, Bret and Neidhart decided to go their separate ways. There was no heat, it was simply a realization that they had accomplished all they could as a team and it was time to find out what they could do as singles competitors. Though Neidhart quickly found himself spending more time in the announce booth than in the ring, the summer of 1991 saw Bret launch the beginning of what would become one of the most successful singles careers of the decade.
Part I: Going It Alone
Following Wrestlemania 7, Bret set his sights on winning the Intercontinental Title, and with his new finishing hold, the Sharpshooter, began racking up wins against many competitors he may have seemed overmatched against mere months earlier such as Haku, the Warlord, and the Barbarian. To attain his goal of winning the IC Title, however, Bret would have to defeat the current champion Mr Perfect, a man he had had many matches with in the past but had yet to score a decisive victory over.
Summer rolled around, and Bret decided to sit backstage and scout Perfect one night as he defended the title against Davey Boy Smith. Davey Boy dominated Perfect with his overwhelming power and appeared to be well on his way to winning the title when he found himself being tossed to the floor where he was attacked by Perfect’s new manager, the Coach. Bret decided to even the odds, and came out to ringside to chase off Coach and give Davey Boy a level playing field. As the match progressed the ref got bumped, and then a series of events led to Bret attacking Perfect in the ring as the referee came to and disqualified Davey Boy for outside interference.
Bret had inadvertently cost Smith his shot at the IC Title by getting involved in the match, but doing so had thrust him into the title picture, leading to a Perfect-Hart match for the IC Title being signed for Summerslam 91 in New York City. For his part, Perfect didn’t seem to take the match or Bret very seriously, seeing this as just another routine title defense. Bret, on the other hand, was prepared for the biggest match of his career, as not only was this his first singles PPV match and his first high profile shot at a singles title, but it was in the WWF’s home arena of Madison Square Garden, with his parents and several other family members in attendance.
The bell rang and Bret came on strong. He was clearly prepared for most of what Perfect was going to throw at him, countering nearly every move Perfect attempted. Perfect sensed that he was in danger of losing the title and tried to leave the ring and take the countout loss, but Bret followed him into the aisle, tore his singlet open, and tossed him back in the ring. Perfect regained control as the match progressed, but his confidence became severely shaken when Bret kicked out of the Perfectplex, becoming one of the few men to ever do so. Perfect continued the assault, but Bret caught his leg on a legdrop attempt and twisted him into the Sharpshooter. Perfect, with nowhere to go and a bad back injury already hampering what he could do in the ring, submitted. Bret was victorious and was now the Intercontinental Champion, and celebrated by going out to ringside and hugging his parents, who had supported him every step of the way.
Part II: Facing Adversity
After winning the IC Title, Bret set out on an ambitious schedule that would see him take on all comers. Over several weeks, he fought and defeated names like IRS, the Warlord, and Col Mustafa. One week on Superstars Bret was scheduled to face the Mountie, but the match would be non-title. The Mountie asked Bret why this wasn’t a title match, and Bret simply responded that the Mountie had done nothing to earn a title shot, and he didn’t give title matches to jailbirds, in reference to the Mountie spending a night in a New York City jail after losing a Jailhouse Match at Summerslam. This just infuriated the Mountie, who attacked Bret, threw a bucket of water over him, and zapped him with his electric cattle prod.
If the Mountie’s goal was to get into Bret’s head, he had done so as Bret was now out for revenge and requesting matches with the Mountie instead of the other way around. They were on opposite sides of an elimination match at Survivor Series 1991, but they didn’t end up in the ring together for any significant length of time. After several more weeks of playing cat and mouse, Bret signed to defend the IC Title against the Mountie at Royal Rumble 1992, but as luck would have it, the Mountie got a match with Bret two days before the Rumble as well, and even though Bret was suffering from a severe fever, he defied doctor’s orders and went ahead with the title defense. Unfortunately for Bret, his weakened condition allowed the Mountie to defeat him for the IC Title. The reality of the situation was that Bret’s contract had come up, and rather than risk the Intercontinental Champion going to WCW with the title, the decision was made to take the title off of Bret at the earliest possible opportunity.
Bret did sign a new contract with the WWF, but by that point the title had made it’s way from the Mountie to Roddy Piper, who had substituted for Bret at the Royal Rumble and defeated the Mountie. Now in order to regain the title, Bret was placed in the unenviable position of having to not only face a good friend in the ring, but a friend who had not suffered a pinfall loss in nearly a decade.
Pending a rematch with the Mountie (which Piper won), a Piper-Hart match was set for Wrestlemania 8, and although they were good friends, Bret made it known that it was all about business, and when he looked across the ring at Wrestlemania, Bret was going to see just another opponent. Piper, for his part, let Hart know that no matter what, he was going to do whatever he had to do to retain the only title he had ever held in the WWF, no matter how dirty he had to fight to do so.
Hart’s confidence level was high going into Wrestlemania. He was back at full health and had avenged his earlier loss of the title by beating the Mountie in several matches around the WWF loop. The match with Piper started off friendly enough, but once Piper suckerpunched Bret to get the advantage, the friendship went out the window. The match continued going back and forth, but mostly saw Piper pounding Bret into oblivion, busting him open with a bulldog and causing him to bleed profusely. The referee got bumped late in the match and Piper grabbed the ring bell, clearly intending to nail Bret with it. Instead, he hesitated, and even though he had said he would do anything to retain the title, he couldn’t bring himself to finish the match this way. He tossed the bell aside and instead locked Bret into a sleeperhold, but Bret walked up the turnbuckles and kicked backward, rolling over Piper’s shoulders and scoring an unbelievable clean pinfall win over Hot Rod.
Piper was shocked at the loss, and as the referee went to present the belt to the new champion, Piper snatched it out of his hands. He stood menacingly over Bret with the belt in his hands, but instead of attacking Bret he helped him to his feet, strapped the belt around his waist, and raised Bret’s hand in victory. As Piper disappeared into semi-retirement, Bret embarked on his second reign as Intercontinental Champion.
Part III: Family Feud, Part I
Now that Bret was once more the Intercontinental Champion, he returned to his life of endless title defenses. Over the spring and summer of 1992, Bret fought and defeated men like Rick Martel, Repo Man, and another former tag wrestler who had recently embarked on a singles career, Shawn Michaels. Shawn had challenged the winner of the Hart-Piper match, and received several title shots over the next several months. Most of those matches were ladder matches, a concept Bret had brought to the WWF from his home territory in Calgary, and even though he came out ahead every time, the matches with Michaels were so close that it seemed inevitable that the two would face off for the IC Title at Summerslam.
However, in a surprising turn of events, it was announced that Davey Boy Smith, not Michaels, would get a shot at the Intercontinental Title at Summerslam, which would be held at Wembley Stadium in Davey Boy’s home country of Great Britain. After the match was signed, Bret publicly acknowledged for the first time that Davey Boy was his brother-in-law, having married Bret’s sister Diana. This added dimension caused a rift in the Hart family with everyone seemingly picking sides, but nobody was caught in the middle more than Diana, who was put in the unenviable position of watching her brother and her husband fight it out for the Intercontinental Title. She did say that their competitive rivalry had helped both of them improve as wrestlers, but she just hoped that neither man would be hurt and the family would reunite after Summerslam.
In a totally unprecedented move, the advertised main event, a WWF Title Match between Randy Savage and the Ultimate Warrior, actually went on in the middle of the show and Bret and Davey Boy closed the PPV, the first and only time an IC Title Match main evented a WWF PPV. That alone made the match special enough, but it was nothing compared to the ovation Davey Boy received from over eighty thousand of his fellow Brits as he made his way to the ring. Bret, on the other hand, received a resounding round of boos, which was to be expected but seemed to take Bret aback nonetheless.
Years later, Bret would reveal that Davey Boy had blown up within minutes of the match starting, and Bret basically wrestled himself for the remainder of the match. This may have been one of the most impressive feats of all time because not only does Bret consider this his best match ever, but it was voted almost unanimously as Match Of The Year for 1992 in nearly every poll there was, a match that still stands as one of the best of the decade. Bret and Davey Boy went back and forth, and at one point Bret had Davey Boy in the Sharpshooter, but Davey Boy somehow held it together and made it to the ropes. Davey Boy regained control and hit the running powerslam, but Bret kicked out at 2, shocking Davey Boy. After over 20 minutes, the match finally ended when Bret attempted a sunset flip, but Davey Boy hooked Bret’s legs and cradled him for the win.
Although Bret had wrestled one of the best matches of his life, he lost. Still, it had been a clean victory and the better man had won, and as Davey Boy stood in the middle of the ring holding the belt that he had ironically been cost a shot at a year earlier by the very man he had just beaten, he extended his hand to Bret in friendship. Bret hesitated before trying to leave the ring, but was stopped by a loud round of boos from the crowd. He tried to leave a second time, and was met with more boos. Sportsmanship won out in the end, and Bret shook the new champion’s hand, then have him a big hug. An emotionally overcome Diana then came into the ring, with all three embracing in the ring to the delight of the rabidly cheering fans, and the last thing we saw as Summerslam went off the air was Diana raising both men’s hands.
The family feud was over, much to the relief of everybody involved, but though Davey Boy was the new Intercontinental Champion, Bret’s future seemed less clear. After the family rift that had resulted from the match, Bret had no desire to get back in the ring with Davey Boy anytime soon. With the Intercontinental Title off limits for the time being, where would Bret go from here?
Epilogue
Bret’s unclear future was made clear thanks to an unexpected turn of events, as Ric Flair, who had literally just regained the WWF Title from Randy Savage, suffered a head injury and would need to be off the road for a while, and that meant he would have to drop the WWF Title. The WWF’s choices were limited: Savage was about to go back into semi-retirement and was not seriously considered. The Ultimate Warrior was unstable at best and soon left the WWF altogether, taking him out of the running. Hulk Hogan was in the middle of an extended break from the business and was unavailable to carry the title. The Undertaker was, storyline-wise, not in a position to win the title at that time either.
So WWF brass decided to take a huge risk basically on a whim and put the title on Bret Hart one October night in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Bret has gone on record as saying that would have never happened had the political vultures had time to shoot it down, but the decision was made and Bret was now the WWF World Champion, becoming only the second man to win the WWF Tag Team Title, Intercontinental Title, and WWF Title over the course of his career. Immediately after winning the title, Bret began referring to himself as “The Best There Is, The Best There Was, And The Best There Ever Will Be†and proclaimed that he would be the fightingest WWF Champion of all time, taking on all comers at anytime, anyplace, to prove that he was the greatest. The challengers lined up almost from the moment he won the title, waiting to test exactly what the young new WWF Champion was made of.
Next: The Heartbreak Kid! Stu Carapola can be reached at stupwinsider@yahoo.com.
