Face Vs Heel: Bret 'The Hitman' Hart
5. Feuds
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