Ranking 10 WWE Matches That Turned Wrestlers Into Superstars
2. Stone Cold Vs. Bret Hart - WrestleMania 13
The double turn: The rarest, most difficult angle to pull off in wrestling. Doing a full 180 on two characters at once is like navigating landmines in a swimming pool full of spaghetti. It's messy stuff.
But to watch the Stone Cold/Bret Hart double turn is to witness pure genius and grace at work. Coming into the match, Austin's unfiltered brashness was beginning to catch on with crowds, whereas the once-venerable Hitman's virtuous schtick had grown stale. You could feel the love starting to dribble over to Stone Cold in the months leading up to WrestleMania 13. This match broke the dam.
The match itself brimmed with wrestling psychology, but had little in the way of innovation. It was one part brawl and one part torture, with Austin clobbering away at Hart before Hart started dissecting Austin's oft-injured knee. The ending is all that really matters.
The image of Austin trapped in the Sharpshooter, blood streaming down his howling, bug-eyed face, is still one of the most iconic of his career. It's a visual that compounded fans' empathy and adoration with each passing second, right up until the Rattlesnake passed out on the canvas from the pain. Once the bell rang, there was no denying that Stone Cold had just rocketed up the ladder.