During a recent appearance on CBC Radio’s Q Podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart commented on his double turn with Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13, how he reacted to the match, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On pulling off a double turn with Steve Austin during their match at WrestleMania 13: “It was very unheard of. What we were trying to do was maybe never tried before quite the way we were doing it. [Austin] was the meanest bad guy in the company that was becoming so popular because he was such a good bad buy that his momentum was starting to shift and the fans were starting to cheer for him. You could see that in how it was happening. At the same time, I’m this hero that’s been a hero for too many years now, or at least that’s the way it was interpreted, and I’m gonna slowly evolve into a bad guy. We’re gonna basically, within this one match, switch places. He’s the bad guy and everyone hates him, and by the end of it, they’re gonna hate me and loathe me even though I didn’t do anything wrong other than trash this guy. And the bad guy is gonna be the hero. It was such a beautiful match. It was so much fun for me to play the part. Steve Austin was in his prime, and I was in my prime. There’s nothing in there you would want to take out. Every move is so intense and powerful. One move adds to the next move and next, and it’s this constant building of a story and shifting of where the good guy can go too far, and the bad guy – it’s like cheering for the shark in Jaws, and the shark doesn’t quite pull it off and becomes the hero.”
On his reaction to the match and the psychology behind it: “I knew. I could read it and could tell. I don’t take anything away from Steve Austin who’s a great wrestler, but I think that match was a Bret Hart match. That was me sitting down and telling him what we’re gonna do, and him saying, ‘Okay, I love it. I love the story we’re telling.’ And I’m like, ‘Then that’s what we’re gonna do, and you’re gonna be surprised at the end because the fans are gonna love you, and they’re gonna hate me.’ It was just someone knowing how to read the auidence before you get there. It’s funny because when I think about that day, I remember Steve Austin showing up and we went out and sat by the ring area. Both of us are like, ‘What are we gonna do?’ We just wrestled a few months before in a big match and thought we used up everything. And it was an I Quit Match, which was a big hindrance because you need pinfalls to have a good match. So we took out one of the main ingredients to having a great match. It’s who gives up and who surrenders, and there’s less moves you can do with meaning. It’s limiting.
“So, we were both kind of like how this match was gonna be very good. I just remember laying it out to Steve, and I related it to a school fight. I remember telling Steve, ‘It’s like two guys at school having a fight after school. You’re the badass guy that came into my school and everyone has been building to this moment where we’re gonna fight after school. I’m the hero, and you’re the bad guy, and this is how it’s gonna shift.’ I remember a school fight when I was a kid where the guys fought and everyone thought one guy was gonna win and the other guy was gonna lose. In the end, it was the other way around. The guy that won became the bad guy and people didn’t like him because he won. They felt sorry for the bad guy for losing. I remember relating it in the same kind of psychology to Steve and we pieced this match together. It was just a masterful story in that sense. It’s a beautiful, violent – I would say for someone that’s never watched a wrestling match or watched any of my matches to watch that match. It’s a masterful match, and there’s not one wasted move in it.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
