WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart continues to share some of the most detailed and candid stories from his legendary career, and during a recent appearance at the Johnny I Pro Show, he reflected on one of his most celebrated matches: his Intercontinental Championship bout with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper at WrestleMania 8 in 1992.
Hart recalled meeting Piper just two weeks before the event, where the two began mapping out the match that fans still regard as one of the greatest in WrestleMania history.
“I remember we were in Halifax and we actually first time we saw each other was about two weeks before WrestleMania. And we were always buddy buddy, but we sat down in this restaurant and I remember he goes, ‘So, what do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I got some ideas and stuff, but I—’ I remember I said, ‘Well, what do you want to do?’ And I remember in that moment I was like, ‘What if he tells me a lousy idea? Do I have the guts to say, that idea sucks?’ I remember he said, ‘You tell me what you want to do.’”
Hart said Piper then laid out the entire framework of the match, and to his relief, it matched exactly the story he had already envisioned.
“And he started telling me the match. And he laid out the whole match—like, let me put it this way: Roddy had the exact same match that I did. Not necessarily the moves, but the story. We could put the moves in after.”
Hart confirmed Piper was responsible for the now-iconic finish, where Hart counters Piper’s sleeper hold into a pinning combination.
“The finish—the ending of the Roddy Piper match—is Roddy’s ending. I remember that was—he said that’s—he goes he watched it done, he watched that finish at a match somewhere, and he goes, ‘That’s how I want to have my last match in my career or something.’ It was a really special ending that he had found or seen done or done somewhere, but that was how he wanted to go out. He goes, ‘I want you to do the um—you know, where I push off with the sleeper and fall back on him and all that and roll over and pin him one, two, three.’”
Hart praised Piper for being the rare veteran willing to elevate younger talent at the time.
“And I was like, ‘Great. I love it. This is the exact same match.’ That’s the thing I was going to say: Roddy laid out for me basically the same framework of the match that I had in my mind. And when Roddy started talking to me, it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s such a relief,’ because it’s like we’re on the same page. Roddy knew how to make a hero. And I was trying to, you know, in those days trying to climb up to the next level, and Roddy was really the first guy to reach down and pull someone like me up to the next level and pass that torch.”
Hart didn’t hold back when comparing Piper’s generosity to other top names of the era.
“In contrast to guys like Jake Roberts and Hulk Hogan, who never passed the torch to anybody. All they did is take and take and take and never ever help anybody—two of the biggest pieces of sh*t in wrestling.”
Hart’s WrestleMania 8 classic with Piper remains one of the most respected technical and psychological showpieces of its era — and his latest comments reinforce just how much Piper contributed to making it unforgettable.
