Bret Hart won the WWE Title by defeating Ric Flair on October 12, 1992, capping off a fruitful career that also saw him capture the Tag Team Titles and the Intercontinental Title. His initial championship reign would last 174 days.
The Hitman recently spoke with The Ringer about Survivor Series 1997 and what McMahon told him after he won the WWE Championship for the first time.
“When I became champion, Vince gave me a lecture on it one time, saying, ‘You’re the champion. You call the shots. No one tells you how to wrestle. You’re the guy that tells everyone else how to wrestle.’ And I made that my new rule. For a long time up until that, I always had to incorporate some other wrestler’s ideas into my match to make him happy. Now I could tell people, ‘No, we’re not going to do that idea. We’re going to cancel that because it doesn’t make any sense, but we’re going to do this instead.’ And nobody would argue with me anymore. I became a very detailed guy and I think just the passion and the workrate that I brought to wrestling is finally being appreciated today.”
Hart also discussed how he thinks his matches hold up better to today’s style than other wrestlers from his era:
“When you go back and you watch these old matches over and over again like people do today, I think my matches hold up better than any wrestlers that I can think of. I was a perfectionist in the ring and I was an innovator. I was not a thief. There’s a lot of thieves out there that steal ideas from other wrestlers.”
“If you watch my matches back, I think you see a psychology and a logic that’s always there. The matches just seem real. You don’t have to see me wiggle to move into the right place, or if I get knocked over the top rope, I’m always in the right spot at the right time. The timing and the ability to be a great wrestler has often been misunderstood or underappreciated. We don’t get credit for being great athletes and we don’t get credit for being great actors when in fact we’re probably a combination of them both in full motion.”
