Legacy Comparison: Shawn Michaels vs Bret Hart

May 2024 ยท 6 minute read
Mulkeymania, i'm a mark not a smark. A smark is much different than a mark.

Hitman's legacy was hurt in WCW if you favoured WWE over WCW plain and simple. It wasn't hurt if you favoured WCW. What did you expect him to do, just show up in WCW and have the World Title handed to him on a platter? Hitman could bypass the entire WWE roster of the time to win the title, but in WCW there was 20 guys all vying for a title held predominantly by Hogan or other NWO members. He had to wait a while, that didn't hurt his legacy one bit.

I was there and watched every Nitro too. There are so many memorable Hitman moments for me and Bret isn't even one of my favourite wrestlers as he is a lot of fans here. From delivering Hogan's head in a box to him, from turning heel by helping Hogan win the title from Savage, to some of his classic matches with Sting, Luger, DDP, Savage etc etc. I do remember watching a really shitty match between him and Hogan but it was definitely memorable because i don't remember it ever happening before. I remember wondering for a year whether or not Hitman was NWO or not and I had a feeling that we never saw the big Hitman Hogan match because they were waiting for the right time for Hitman to throw Hogan out of the NWO and officially become their leader. There was the time that Hitman was in Toronto and Goldberg speared him and was unconscious in the ring and Hitman quit and left. There was the Hitman's world title match with Chris Benoit that he dedicated to Owen. There was his three victories over Goldberg, there was Hitman's turn to the NWO, there was Goldberg's kick to the head that injured Bret Hart, there was even the Hitman showing up in a desert 8 months later hitting Goldberg over the head with a shovel. I could keep going but those are, in order, my favourites. Hitman was in WCW for a mere two years and was hurt at least a full half year of that time. Still, he accomplished more there than he could in WWE with their shitty roster of WCW throwaways and WWE deadweight.

Bret Hart has wrestled epic matches and beaten legendary champions and company front runners like Bruno Sammartino, a 2 time 12 year champion (who first won the WWF title in 1963..the SECOND all time WWF champ won the title off the first guy who only had it for three weeks.) So he essentially beat the first and longest reigning champ ever. He beat the next long term champ WWE created in Bob Backlund who was a 5 and a half year champ from 1978 to 1983. The next long term guy Hogan wouldn't let either Hart of Michaels beat him and no one else but Warrior and Jacques Rougeau. But Bret has beat every other legendary champion still wrestling during Hitman's career. He's fought classics with and beaten the champ of all champs Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan's arch nemesis Randy Savage, the Wrestlemania King Undertaker, the almost never defeated Roddy Piper, The Rock (who has beaten Hulk Hogan fair and square in the center of the ring), WCW's franchise Sting, the 178-0 guy Goldberg (3 times i might add), Lex Luger (a guy who has also beaten Hogan, Savage, Sting, Flair etc), WWE's saviour Steve Austin who revolutionized wrestling entertainment in the late 90s, Yokozuna (who was at the time basically invincible), Owen Hart, Curt Henning, Kevin Nash, Triple H (who holds the second most world titles in history), Vader, Scott Hall, DDP, Chris Benoit, Davey Boy Smith, (don't know if he ever beat him), Ricky Steamboat, Ted Dibiase, Jerry Lawler (a 30 time USWA champ) and lastly perhaps the guy who will arguably go down in history as having the greatest legacy: Shawn Michaels. I mean, really, who else was there really for him to beat. The Miz? Vinny Mac? He beat them too! Unfortunately Bret never got the chance to faceoff with Jericho (although he did a few months ago), Kurt Angle, Edge, John Cena, Randy Orton, Brock or Batista. They'd all be great matches. Cena, Orton, Jericho and Angle are guys Shawn has faced that Bret didn't but they are not yet as legendary as Bruno, Backlund, Sting or The Rock.

Bret has put on classic matches and beaten the best of the past, the best of his generation, and has beaten guys from his generation that are still wrestling classics with the guys Hitman never had the opportunity to face. Shawn had the benefit of wrestling the guys of today and is fresh in fans memory, not to mention the fact he was given one of the two best ever sendoffs a wrestler has ever had the luxury of having in calling it a career.
Bret's legacy wasn't tarnished by his WCW run. His legacy would be even stronger had he not gotten hurt and been able to finally beat Hulk Hogan and fight the top guys of the past decade he never had the chance to. It would also be stronger if he had of had the proper sendoff in 2000.

Bret is the best, it's close because you could argue Shawn is better from the viewpoint of entertaining inside and outside the ring. Back to Bret though, his WCW reign did not hurt his legacy. WCW gets this bum wrap because its gone now and Vince has rewritten history. Anything any wrestler did in WCW is discounted in this day and age, fans of today don't even know who Randy Savage is or how significant he is and they don't count the later accomplishments of old WWE guys in WCW. It's like everything they did outside WWE didn't count and only their WWE related achievements are measured up against the achievements achieved only within WWE. It's a classic example of how WWE has rewritten history to boost its own legacy and discount anything in the past that was better. And that's what drives me nuts, reading shit about WCW tarnishing guys legacies. It's such utter bull, the only people who think shit like that are WWE loving knobs with short term memories. I'm sorry Mulkeymania, it is what it is. Contrary to popular opinion, Bret had a solid two year run 'wrestling' in WCW. Entertainment-wise, he didn't exactly light anything up or outsell the big guns. He was overshadowed by wrestling's greatest and so would have Shawn had he been in WCW. But at least Bret was able to face off with the best of the best of his era and prove he was arguably the greatest of all time when it came to carrying 5 star matches against ALL of wrestlings' legends and winning almost all of those matches. It is easy to forget the importance of WCW with the passage of time and especially with all the anti-WCW bull of the past decade. If anything, it's this 'easy to forget' attitude of older fans influencing Shawn Michaels-obsessed younger fans that will most hurt Bret's legacy. The fact that he hasn't really wrestled an epic match in almost 11 years and didn't get the sendoff Shawn Michaels did 10 years after.

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