10 Reasons Bret Hart Was Better Than Shawn Michaels

9. Hart Was Also On Top When It Mattered Most...

Bret Hart won his first WWE Championship in 1992, after he defeated Ric Flair for the belt. This made Hart one of the then-WWF€™s major stars. Following the brief (and decidedly half-assed) return of Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania IX, Hart was finally crowned as the WWF€™s rightful king one year later at WrestleMania X (1994) after he vanquished the monolithic Samoan pseudo-sumo known as Yokozuna in order to become the WWF€™s main man. From there, Hart took on all comers and toured, to paraphrase Spinal Tap €˜the world and elsewhere€™ as the global face of the biggest wrestling company on earth. He did a great job and worked as hard as Humanly possible for the business/company that he loved. In return, WWF fans embraced Hart like no star since Hogan. Only a truly foolish person would say that €˜The Hitman€™ didn€™t draw as Champion. So, Bret was a consistent, main event level star from 1992 until 1997. Michaels, on the other hand, didn€™t win his first World Championship until 1996 and spent his first two championship reigns ducking and dodging opponents he didn€™t especially want to lose to/work with. He avoided Vader at the 1997 Royal Rumble (preferring instead to face Sycho Sid) and then rather pathetically vacated the title rather than do the honours for Hart, even though Hart had put Michaels over convincingly for the belt in the first place. After that, the belt rattled around between Hart, Syd, The Undertaker and Michaels, before finally settling around the waist of HBK once again. By WrestleMania XIV in 1998, The Austin era had officially begun and injuries would unfortunately then sideline HBK for several years. Of course, Michaels would return in 2002 and finally live up to his massive potential as a bona fide WWE Legend. From there, he enjoyed an 8-year run that eclipsed his previous tenure by many miles indeed. However, it should be noted that the WWE of the 2000€™s featured a superb roster and benefited from a major boom period in wrestling overall. Even though Michaels held the World Heavyweight Championship during this time, he was never again crowned as the top man in the company. He was a major star, of course, but not the top of the card, feature attraction that Hart had been in his prime. Instead, Shawn Michaels was an attraction amongst attractions, as opposed to the sole star of the WWE show. Still, this period stands out as the best chapter of Michaels€™ professional career and his work during this time was absolutely superb. Could Hart say the same? Still at odds with Vince McMahon personally and suffering an agonizing rehabilitation following his stroke, €˜The Hitman€™ was done and dusted as a wrestler by this time. Any comparisons would therefore be flatly unfair. Had Hart€™s injury at the hands of a brash and inexperienced Bill Goldberg not taken place, perhaps he could have returned to the WWE and enjoyed a late-career renaissance similar to Michaels€™. Who knows? In any instance, the point still stands that Bret Hart spent more time as the sole occupant at the top of the WWE Mountain than Shawn Michaels ever did.