Ranking EVERY WWE Champion From Worst To Best
12. Bret Hart
Bret Hart was never a particularly strong domestic draw for WWE, and though it can be argued that he was a figurehead during WWE's darkest financial depths rather than being responsible for the decline, the fact remains frustratingly in place.
The other way to spin that is to ask this; could anybody other than Bret Hart have been in that spot and kept the company afloat?
Hart's work was so exemplary, his commitment to the cause of professional wrestling so profoundly fantastic, that those that stuck around for the barren years were distracted from noticing how small and empty the venues suddenly were. With eyes glued to action in the ring, it was easy to ignore the basketball hoops in the background, and a Bret Hart match was as adhesive as North American pro wrestling got in the mid-1990s. So much so that, for a generation of fan, no one superstar looked better with the "winged eagle" belt than 'The Hitman' himself.
Muscled behmoths Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and Ultimate Warrior wore it well, but none of them held, desired and subsequently elevated it quite like Bret Hart. The only exception, oddly enough, was fierce rival and contemporary Shawn Michaels.