10 Biggest Wrestling Hometown Pops EVER
2. The Hart Foundation In Calgary - In Your House: Canadian Stampede
It’s one thing to get deafening cheers as an over babyface but to get one of the biggest positive reactions of the year as a heel is something else entirely.
WrestleMania 13 famously featured almost certainly the greatest double-turn in the business. It swapped the alignment of Stone Cold, allowing him to begin his ascent to the top, and Bret Hart, whose act needed a refresh. Later that year, the Hitman adopted an anti-American persona as part of the Hart Foundation stable. Every week Hart would talk smack about the United States and bathe in the boos.
However, he was still and would always be Canada’s golden boy and the WWE knew it. So when In Your House: Canadian Stampede rolled around, they lent into it. A video package starts the event discussing the company’s “shades of grey” characters and the “paradox” this show would represent.
Embraced as hometown heroes, every member of the Hart Foundation - Bret, Owen, Neidhart, Davey Boy, Pillman - was met with main-eventer level cheers. The Hitman’s entrance in particular was deafening and it continued into the 5v5 tag match against various American superstars.
Bret never badmouthed his home country and this, and Calgary in particular being the home of the Harts, meant that the crowd had no reason not to cheer so loud that the hard-cam shook.