AEW analyst and WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross spoke about the match that put “Stone Cold” Steve Austin on the map, as he wrestled Bret “Hitman” Hart at WWE WrestleMania XIII in 1997 in a bloody “I Quit” match. Ross says the match was the most “well-executed” bout he has ever seen on the most recent episode of Grilling JR.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Jim Ross on where Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin ranks among the best matches he’s called: “At WrestleMania, I can’t think of anything that topped it. It would be sitting in the one hole or 1A. Rock and Hogan was a great attraction. We talked about attractions and the difference in being an attraction wrestler and being an every day, in the lineup guy. I don’t know what it would be. I thought Taker and Shawn at WrestleMania 25 was really good. The star of WrestleMania 18 was the crowd. They created the environment that those guys were smart enough to embellish what they were hearing. They fit into the crowd’s enthusiasm. This was a different animal. This was a wrestling masterpiece. If you’re a talent watching our podcast, you can learn a lot from watching this contest. It’s a great teaching tool. If you’re a worker in today’s marketplace, this match at WrestleMania 13 still stands the test of time, and it would improve your game if you studied it and understood why Steve and Bret were doing what they were doing. It was really tremendous to me.”
On Bret and Austin pulling off the double turn: “I got in the wrestling business in 1974, but that was the exclamation point on the whole damn story – what Bret did after the match was over. That completed the double turn. If you’re wondering where in this match did the double turn take place, in reality from my judgment, it was the masterful work of Bret Hart after he had gotten the win. I thought it was perfect. That was where the double turn was completed.”
On how it was the most well-executed match he’s seen in his career: “We all knew we may never see something as perfectly executed again in our careers. To this day, I have never seen a match that was better executed in my entire career than Bret and Steve. It was perfect. I don’t know what they could’ve done any different to make it any better. You could always go back and say, ‘Man, they could’ve done that.’ There was never a disconnect. Again, it was an incredible performance we could all learn from.”
