10 Most Notorious Bret Hart Urban Legends

5. He Was Supposed To Win WWE Title At WrestleMania 13

Story: One of Bret's most famous matches was the Ironman match at WrestleMania 12 where he lost the WWE Title to Shawn Michaels in a match that went 61:52, which is the longest in WrestleMania history. A year later, the plan was for them to do another match this time with Shawn putting over Bret in the main event. That's the story according to Bret. That WrestleMania 13 match didn't happen because Shawn "lost his smile" less than two months before the big show and claimed he was too hurt to compete. He forfeited the WWE Title. Bret ended up winning it at the Final Four PPV in February 1997 and only held onto it one day. Then he had a match with Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13, which many consider to be one of the best matches ever (it really is) while Shawn missed the show completely. Two months later Shawn was back looking like he wasn't hurt at all. According to Bret, the plan was for him to win the battle royal at Final Four 1997 to earn the title shot against Shawn since it was basically a replay of the Royal Rumble, which ended in controversial fashion. Then Bret would go on to beat Shawn, possibly in a ladder match, at WrestleMania 13. Why People Believe It: Bret's been an honest guy for a lot of his career, so if he says it was in the plans then people are going to tend to believe it. From a storyline perspective, it made a lot of sense too. Should We Believe It: Yes. It definitely sounds like that was the plan because the winner of the Rumble was supposed to get a shot at the title and when they did the Rumble finish with Austin winning in controversial fashion it was done to set up the next PPV. For Shawn to give up the title due to injury, which didn't require surgery, was very shady. That was one of those moments that really set Bret off in terms of his anger towards Shawn.