http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFUD2SdWyE8 In the mid to late eighties, Bret the Hitman Hart was making a name for himself as a super-worker in the WWF while running as half of the heel Hart Foundation tag team with his real life brother-in-law Jim the Anvil Neidhart. Rather like Cesaro and Ziggler today, it was considered that Hart could make a silk purse out of a sows ear with practically anyone ironically, an attribute that would slow his ascension to main event status, as he was considered too valuable in his midcard role to elevate. However, on November 11th 1987 in Seattle he would have probably his highest profile singles match to date: a fourteen-minute barn burner with the Macho Man Randy Savage taped to go out on Saturday Nights Main Event on November 28th. At the time, it was rare for a pro wrestling show to go out on a commercial network (in this case, NBC), and most weekly programming just featured big stars squashing jobbers. SNME allowed pay-per-view quality matches to go out on primetime television, and the two phenomenal workers had laid out what they considered to be a great match to take advantage of Harts opportunity. So, naturally something got in the way: in this case, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, and his propensity to change plans on the fly. An hour beforehand, McMahon told them that he wanted a slower, less exciting match than they had planned, instead building a story around the heel Harts focus on wearing down babyface Savages ankle. When the Hitman objected that itd take all the speed out of the match his biggest break to date he was told it was up to him to figure something out. Hart and Savage were probably the best workers in the company at the time and put on a killer show regardless. However, before Hart got a chance to begin working the foot, he was thrown off the ring apron to land badly on his own right foot, cracking the bone in his heel (around 2:15 in the above clip). The Hitman was forced to limp around for the rest of the match on a legitimately bum hoof, until the point that, around eleven minutes in and having yanked off Savages left boot, he would smash the unprotected foot against the ring post and inadvertently crack Savages own heel, at around 9:25. The Macho Man wouldnt need to remember to sell the foot from then on in, as the two men went for another three minutes with identical injuries before the babyface countered a slam into a roll-up for the win. Its hilarious that in a match built around working the foot, an angle forced upon them at the last minute, both men would legitimately break their heels by accident especially given Harts pride over his safety record in the ring.
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