Face Vs Heel: Bret 'The Hitman' Hart

5. Feuds

Bret Hart Faces The One Opponent Good Enough To Lace His Boots
WWE

Face:

Every Bret Hart programme was rich due to his involvement in it, but the heights he reached with rivals during his Intercontinental and WWE Championship stints had those belts mattering more than ever before.

Being a "fighting champion" made him a great target for heels, and got them more over as a result. Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Davey Boy Smith and others took runs at him and were made men after the fact. His legendary feud with sibling Owen really exploded in their failed bid to win tag gold. WrestleMania X's booking of his loss to his younger brother in the opener and glorious WWE Championship win in the headliner stands up as tall as the ladder match also on that card as another reason to reappraise WWE's leanest years.

Away from the gold, his years-long beef with Jerry Lawler consistently reheated the cartoonish 'King' as the biggest b*stard ever born, and he got impossibly good stuff from a 1995 spent working with a psychopathic presidential candidate, a ninja, a dentist and a pirate.

Heel:

Small but perfectly formed, Hart's entire heel stint in 1997 was triggered by his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin. In terms of match and angle quality and longterm significance, it could be objectively and subjectively argued as the best in company history.

His feud with Shawn Michaels could never deliver a fake fight as good as the real hatred, but The Hart Foundation's war on The Undertaker, The Patriot or absolutely anyone that espoused American values saw him sink his teeth into television mini-series with Rocky Maivia and Vader that were as worthy as his pay-per-view programmes.

Winner: Face

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett