10 World Champions The Rock Wrestled Once

by John Bills

1. Bret Hart

The Rock was still Rocky Maivia when he took on Bret 'The Hitman' Hart for the first and only time, an Intercontinental Championship match on RAW that saw a newly-heel Hart tear Rocky limb from limb. Maivia was able to escape with his title, but only because Hart was blinded by anger and wouldn't stop beating the ever-loving sh*t out of the rookie.

This was an immense night for the then-WWF, as the night began with Bret re-uniting Owen Hart and The British Bulldog to set in motion the sequence of events that would culminate in the Montreal Screwjob later that year. Bret was looking for his third Intercontinental Championship, but the truth is that Bret had no interest in the IC belt. His focus was purely on beating down another American Hero, and he was half-successful here.

I say half-successful because the crowd had no real interest in Rocky by this point. The match ended when Hart put Maivia in the figure-four around the ringpost, refusing to let go until Stone Cold Steve Austin came down to ringside to stomp a mudhole in the Hitman.

Stone Cold coming to save The Rock - now there's a thing. Of course The Rock and Austin would face each other on many occasions, which unfortunately can't be said for Rocky and these 10 men.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.