Posted in: Peacock, Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: bret hart, ken shamrock, steve austin, Stone Cold, Wrestlemania, wrestlemania 13, wrestling, wwe, wwf

It's Been 25 Years Since The Greatest WrestleMania Match Ever

A wrestling event can be remembered fondly by fans if there was one unforgettable match on the card, even if the rest weren't great.  This is what happened on March 23, 1997, at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago for WrestleMania 13.  The card was pretty uninteresting down to the main event of The Undertaker vs Sycho Sid, but there was one match that had some fire behind it and it wouldn't disappoint.  It was the ultimate match of the best feud in the WWF at the time and one that would plant the seeds for not only the company's biggest boom period ever but their biggest and most profitable star ever.  And he was the heel going into it.  Let's take a look back at "Stone Cold" Steve Austin versus Bret "Hitman" Hart in a Submission Match from WrestleMania 13.

One of the things that fans need to remember is that there wasn't the stress of wondering if Austin and Hart would work well together on a big stage, as they had already had an absolute show-stealer at the 1996 Survivor Series.

They continued their war through the 1997 Royal Rumble, where a cheating Austin would steal the victory from Hart.

Leading up to WrestleMania 13, something interesting would happen with both superstars.  Austin, while being just as ruthless and out of control a heel as ever, was so bad that he was becoming cool.  The kids who rooted for wholesome good guys like Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart were now teenagers and had grown tired of the act.  They wanted something edgy and aggressive.  Austin, with his rebellious attitude, foul language, and his look of black leather, earings, and steel was just the sort of rock star antihero teens and college-age fans were seeking.

For Hart, he was starting to feel the opposite effect.  To young kids and international fans, he was still their hero.  But to everyone else, the tide was turning.  After taking an eight-month break from TV after his WrestleMania XII Ironman Match against Shawn Michaels, Hart returned to a changing WWF.  Edgier, darker characters were starting to creep in and a more lawless and rough environment was forming.  Hart spoke out against this, pleading with fans and officials alike to see his right way of doing things.  This started to create a more unlikeable Bret Hart on TV, one who complained and lashed out often.

Things just further intensified between the two, with Hart becoming more and more enraged and Austin antagonizing him more and more.  The two would settle things in a Submission Match at WrestleMania 13, with UFC star Ken Shamrock as the special guest referee.

What unfolded 25 years ago tonight at WrestleMania 13 was pure magic, beginning to end.  Opening with a great Austin entrance, with a glass pane of his iconic "Austin 3:16" image shattering in the entranceway to go with the sound of glass shattering in his entrance music.  Hart followed, walking over all the pieces of broken glass, almost symbolizing him walking through the wreckage in the company that Austin had created.

As soon as the bell rings, it's on.  Austin immediately tackles Hart and pummels him and for the next 30 minutes, fans were treated to wrestling storytelling and intensity at its absolute best.  You see Austin push the envelope further and further and Hart meeting him at every point, giving in to his rage and hate, something we weren't accustomed to seeing from him.

They brawled all around the ringside area and into the crowd, using chairs, electrical cords, the announce table, and the ring bell. Through the chaos of this violent match, the hallmarks of a great Bret Hart match are still present.  He's still focused on targeting a weakened limb of his opponent, in this case, the braced knee of Austin.  He puts it in holds, wraps it around the ring post, and eventually beats it with a chair.  The key here is escalation.

Hart tries beating Austin his way, as he had in the past, but it's just not working here.  Tonight at WrestleMania, Austin won't quit and everyone notices.  So he escalates things to Austin's level, using weapons and showing zero remorse.  People can accept that behavior from Austin, as he's just a bad dude doing bad things.  But Hart is supposed to be a hero and a hero never gives in to their darkest compulsions and they certainly never give in to their enemy's.  But Bret Hart did here and you could hear the fans noticing as the match continued.

Hart eventually bashes Austin in the head with the ring bell, causing him to bleed profusely.  This was planned by Hart and Austin, without the knowledge of Vince McMahon, who was very against blood at the time.  They lied to him the next day and swore it just happened accidentally.

The inclusion of blood and especially that much of it was paramount to the match's success.  Austin had been presented as this unrelenting, cold-hearted monster up to this point.  But seeing him wounded and wounded badly at WrestleMania 13, it made him human.  It was the famous quote from The Merchant of Venice encapsulated in an image.  No matter how the company had presented Austin or how he had presented himself, he was indeed a human being, given to the same pain and fragility we all were.  And Austin gained humanity in the audience's eyes, Hart lost his.

As Austin bled worse, Hart got more and more savage, blistering a clearly weakened Austin with chair shots, even as he was laying on the mat.  And then came time to finish him, as this was a Submission Match, after all.  He locked Austin in his Sharpshooter, a submission hold that had never been broken and specifically focused on a man's knees.  Austin was helpless.  It was like watching a matador playing with his already badly bloodied and defeated bull opponent.

But then something happened.  As blood poured down his face like a stream down the side of a mountain, Austin started fighting back.  He screamed in pain as he forced himself up from the mat.

WrestleMania 13 was in Chicago, one of the smartest wrestling cities in the world.  They knew who this man was.  They knew this was the Steve Austin from WCW who had limitless potential but was held down by bad management and fired over the phone by Eric Bischoff while injured.  They knew this was the Steve Austin from ECW who captivated fans with uncensored shoot promos where he detailed his anguish and frustration with a business that didn't respect him as much as he respected it.  Stone Cold was the final form of all of those Steve Austins and they knew Steve Austin.  And now, they were rooting for him.

You can see the crowd screaming for him, screaming with him.  He broke the Sharpshooter, something no one else had ever done.  But Hart just locked it right back in and even though he gave it one more go, screaming literally through the blood falling down his face in one of wrestling's greatest images ever, eventually, it was too much.  He was indeed human, after all.  Austin passed out from it all and the bell was rung, but the important thing left in everyone's mind was that he did not submit.  There was no quit.  He was literally willing to die before he'd quit.  It was like something out of Rocky.  It was a powerful message.

After the bell, Hart grabbed a chair and again went to work on Austin, earning loud boos from the crowd, despite his entering to cheers.  Austin, meanwhile, once helped to his feet by referees, was given a standing ovation.  They had pulled off the greatest double-turn in wrestling history.  But not to lose his edge, Austin gave a ref a Stone Cold Stunner on his way out.  The WrestleMania crowd continued standing and cheering until he was in the back.

There are very few perfect wrestling matches.  Matches that are flawless in their execution, their excitement, their action, their storytelling, and in the impact it has on an audience.  This is one of them.  It earned a perfect five stars from Dave Meltzer and was named "match of the year" by numerous publications.  But maybe most importantly, it created a new kind of hero for WWF fans.

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin was never going to be a clean-cut good guy, but he was someone fans could relate to.  Every fan has felt wronged or ignored and maybe became an angrier version of themselves as a result.  We all suffer hardships and feel disrespected sometimes.  We've all been hurt.  But the important thing is we keep going, no matter the problem or the wounds we've suffered.  Austin was a very human character.  An antihero because of his jagged edges, but one whom we could maybe see ourselves in and whom we respected.

The Attitude Era would be dominated by human stories and characters.  Antiheroes, underdogs, and outcasts while in the audience, there were people who could see themselves in each of them.  This match at WrestleMania 13 told a human story with human characters, both for the good and the bad in them.  It was all understandable. Great wrestling, like anything else, is great storytelling.  Bret Hart and Steve Austin told a truly great story 25 years ago today.

WrestleMania 13 is available to stream on Peacock.

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