10 Wrestlers Who Proved Their Worth In A Crisis
6. Bret Hart
Bret Hart and Hiroshi Tanahashi are remarkably similar.
Both were technical geniuses with the ability to, yes, execute everything perfectly in great pro wrestling matches seamless in their internal logic. Both played ostensibly cool characters undermined, endearingly, by certain quirks (Bret's insistence on cramming a "The" where it didn't belong; Tana's air guitar bit). Both made a nemesis (Shawn Michaels, Katsuyori Shibata) they loathed for their poor attitude. Both nemeses were cooler.
And, like Tanahashi, Bret Hart was also tasked with leading a promotion at its lower ebb.
Tanahashi fared better, but Hart's influence cannot be traced directly; his legacy has been laundered almost. Bret was the (best) professional wrestler tasked with steadying the sports entertainment monolith, teaching the remaining fans its language, sweeping their legs out from under them and sending them crashing head-first into lifelong obsession. Hart made hardcore fans of a generation, and proved his worth by drawing sufficiently in a promotion mired by scandal, a badly unfashionable level of buzz, and its perception as the leader of a deplorable industry that insulted the intelligence of the public to con them out of money. Hart was such an artist that it's almost strange to consider that the broad WWF was his home - but that's how good he was.
Before the relationship deteriorated, Hart made a wrestling fan out of Vince McMahon.