Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Bret Hart

Bret Hart

Born:
07/02/1957
,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Birthname:
Bret Sergeant Hart
Height & Weight:
6'0"
,
235 Ib

Titles Won:

  • WWF Championship (5 times)
  • WCW World Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
  • WWF Intercontinental Championship (2 times)
  • King of the Ring (1991, 1993)
  • Royal Rumble (1994) – with Lex Luger
  • Second WWE Triple Crown Champion
  • Fifth WCW Triple Crown Champion
  • WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2006)

A member of the Hart wrestling family and a second-generation wrestler, he has an amateur wrestling background, wrestling at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal College. Along with his nickname “The Hitman”, Hart was known by the monikers “The Excellence of Execution”, “The Best There Is, The Best There Was and The Best There Ever Will Be” and “The Pink and Black Attack”. Hart joined his father Stu Hart’s promotion Stampede Wrestling in 1976, and made his in-ring debut in 1978.

He gained popularity and championship success throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), where he helmed The Hart Foundation faction. He left for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) following the controversial “Montreal Screwjob” in November 1997, where he remained until October 2000. Having been inactive from in-ring competition since January 2000, owing to a December 1999 concussion, he officially retired in October 2000, shortly after his departure from the company. In a publication that year, WCW described Hart as “universally respected by other wrestlers”, and “perhaps the greatest pure wrestler ever to lace up a pair of boots.”

He returned to sporadic in-ring competition in 2004 and 2006, and in 2010 with WWE, where he won his final championship, headlined that year’s SummerSlam event, and served as the General Manager of Raw. He makes occasional appearances for WWE, who has described him as both an “innovator of offense” and “arguably the greatest technical wrestler in WWE history.” The promotion has also described Hart as one of the biggest names in the history of the business, and perhaps the most popular in the world by the mid-1990s.

He headlined WrestleManias IX, X and XII, and participated in the headlining matches of the 1997 and 1999 editions of WCW Starrcade – as a special enforcer in the former. Hart has held championships in four decades from the 1970s to the 2010s, with a total of 32 held throughout his career, and 17 held between the WWF/WWE and WCW. He is a seven-time world champion, having held the WWF Championship five times and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship twice.

He spent more time as WWF Champion than any other wrestler during the 1990s, with a total of 654 days as champion, and was the first WCW World Heavyweight Champion born outside the United States. He is also a record-tying five-time WCW/WWE United States Champion, and the second WWF Triple Crown Champion and fifth (with Goldberg) WCW Triple Crown Champion.

Hart was the first man to win both the WWF and WCW Triple Crown Championships. He is also the 1994 Royal Rumble winner (with Lex Luger), and the only two-time King of the Ring in WWE history, having won the 1991 tournament and the first King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1993. Steve Austin, with whom Hart headlined multiple pay-per-view events as part of a critically acclaimed rivalry from 1996-1997, inducted him into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006.

Notable Feuds: vs Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, Owen Hart, Mr Perfect, Diesel, British Bulldog

Notable Matches

vs Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XII

vs Steve Austin at Wrestlemania XIII

vs Steve Austin at Survivor Series 1996

vs British Bulldog at Summerslam 1992

vs Owen Hart at Summerslam 1994

vs Owen Hart at Wrestlemania X

vs Mr Perfect at Summerslam 1991

vs Mr Perfect at King of the Ring 1993

vs Chris Benoit on Nitro, October 4th 1999

Other Notable Achievements

WWE United States Championship

WWF Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Jim Neidhart

WCW United States Heavyweight Championship (4 times)

WCW World Tag Team Championship – with Goldberg

NWA International Tag Team Championship (Calgary version) (5 times) – with Keith Hart (4) and Leo Burke (1)

Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship (3 times)

Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship (6 times)

Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame

WWC Caribbean Tag Team Championship – with Smith Hart

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