Ranking Who Was Really The Man In Wrestling Every Year 1990-2020
24. 1997 - Bret Hart
The ratings were more cosmetic than they are now, post-rights fee, in an era in which house shows and pay-per-views were still of vital importance.
There was no real 'Man' in the U.S. in 1997 (Shinya Hashimoto remained the top star in the east), since Hulk Hogan wrestled infrequently on pay-per-view, and top babyface Sting didn't wrestle at all from January until December. The WWF, meanwhile, was only re-approaching the big time.
Factoring in everything else without the intangible, definitive Ace, Bret Hart was the Man on aggregate: he helped make a megastar with wrestling's greatest ever storytelling performance at WrestleMania 13. He ascended somewhere close to national hero status in Canada, when at Canadian Stampede his arrival was greeted so thunderously that the hard camera shook. It wasn't just a home nation thing, either; Hart was the #4 draw worldwide, and, post-Montreal, the #1 talking point.
And, after years of...acceptable output on the stick in the babyface role, Hart mastered the mic game with a legendary series of scathing heel tirades