Date: July 11th Many wrestlers through the years have mentioned how much they enjoyed wrestling Bret Hart. For one, they knew he was a true ring technician, and he could be trusted to have a good match. That made their jobs easier, as opposed to working with someone who wasn't very good, which meant that they would have to work harder to make for a passable match. Also, Bret never had a problem with giving plenty of offense to his opponents, helping to make them look good, even when he was going to win the match. That last point is especially important here for this match with the 1-2-3 Kid. As mentioned earlier, Kid was really starting to come into his own by the summer of 1994, but was he viewed as being anywhere near Bret's level? Of course not. Bret was the WWF Champion at this point, and the title was on the line here. The biggest compliment you can give Bret and Kid here is that everyone watching this match as it happened legitimately thought, at multiple points, that Kid was going to win the title. He looked like he belonged. He looked like he was a main event player. He looked like he was going to be a huge star, win or lose. The story here, through a nearly 30-minute match, was fantastic. Bret had to switch his style up a little bit, as the beginning came across as him underestimating Kid's abilities and fortitude. He began wrestling with a more aggressive style, almost bordering on heel-ish at times, just to counter. Bret, like his brother in an earlier entry, wasn't often bigger than his opponents, so he got to do and try different things here than he could have with, say, Yokozuna or Diesel. All these years later, this match is, at worst, still the fourth or fifth best match in Monday Night Raw history.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
