Why Bret Hart Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin Transformed The Wrestling Business
25 Years Later: Deconstructing the most important match in WWE history.
WrestleMania season has become the preserve of the WWE writer looking for a creative shortcut.
The show's grandiosity overwhelms wrestlers to such an extent that their minds turn to mulch under the figurative weight of the pressure or literal glare of the big sign hanging in buildings.
It's justifiable to an extent, but like most of WWE, WrestleMania is now both overwrought and underwritten. It's he place where everything can change for a performer (and securing an evocative legacy is as real as it gets in the content super-service age) but the most important wrestling shows - by any name - are the ones with the most important wrestling matches at the forefront.
Bret Hart Vs Stone Cold Steve Austin is the most important wrestling match.
It's perfect by all the truest definition of that term. It's also an exhilarating, violent and believable brawl. It boldly combined the competitiveness of real sport with the overblown drama of entertainment in a near-perfect cocktail of Vince McMahon's vision of what all of this was once supposed to be.
And yet, it subverted old tropes, zapped raw nerves, and executed an era-defining double turn that drove WWE's business and brand to inconceivable heights. The line can still be drawn from McMahon's broke organisation to Nick Khan's billion dollar spreadsheet 25 years later. It's another reason why this most recent anniversary is more significant than a typical round number celebration.
This is why it transformed the wrestling business.
10. Best Laid Plans
Most wrestling fans are proponents of long-term booking and the advantages therein. The opportunity to travel through a well-crafted arc between two competitors is absorbing as a viewer, and usually aids an extremely satisfying culmination.
However, not unlike the genesis of Steve Austin's breakthrough itself, the WrestleMania 13 submission match became one of Vince McMahon's happiest accidents. Despite the outstanding contest between the two for Bret's 1996 return at November's Survivor Series, the rivalry was never intended to extend too far into 1997 as all energies moved towards the colossal rematch between Hart and Shawn Michaels.
Amongst a myriad of differing options (including at one point, a proposed hair vs hair ladder match) the Bret/Shawn tussle was definitely, definitely the design. That was scuppered when Michaels infamously surrendered his title and WrestleMania payday in February, citing a knee injury amidst strong suspicious he was ducking the high profile loss to the Hitman.
With tempers still frayed between Hart and Austin, the Submission match was hastily tacked on to the card only three weeks out from the 'Show of Shows'.
Reminding Vince McMahon that necessity is the mother of invention, he'd adopt more ingenuity towards his entire product off the back of this roaring success.