WWE: How Bret vs. Owen Hart Ushered In A New Era Spotlighting Athletic Competition

Credit: WWE.com

WrestleMania X

The lead up to the tenth WrestleMania event that took place in New York’s Madison Square Garden centered on the rising tensions between Bret and Owen. Bret’s status as a solo competitor was on the rise and Owen was jealous and feeling more and more ostracized as he competed in his brother’s shadow.

Owen perfectly established himself as the polar opposite of Bret’s straight-arrow, no nonsense, all-around good guy character with a sneaky, conniving weasel persona of his own that fans just loved to boo. For as dirty as Owen’s character could be, he was able to imbue it with just enough of his signature charm that you almost wanted to root for him to win.

The two brothers from Calgary, Alberta, Canada squared off in the leadoff match of WrestleMania X, and they set the bar high for the rest of the night. Owen antagonized his brother throughout, but Bret endured. Each brother excelled at what he did best and the memorable match ended when Owen beat Bret cleanly after a roll-up pin.

Owen celebrated after the match, as only he could, but his joy was short lived as Bret would go on to capture his very first WWE championship later on that night in the main event. Things were seemingly set up perfectly for the brothers to duel for the WWE’s top prize, but that scenario never materialized.

Regardless, WrestleMania X was a massive night for WWE. With Hulk Hogan’s recent departure for the WWE’s direct competition over at World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1994, it was McMahon’s first WrestleMania without his longtime cash cow. For the first time in nearly a decade, WWE’s future did not hinge on putting Hogan over at their largest pay-per-view event of the year.

While it’s usually Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels who are credited with opening the WWE’s door to showcasing its smaller stars in the 90s, it was actually Bret and his brother Owen who paved that path. The brothers’ success together in 1994 helped to make Bret’s classic 60-minute Iron Man match with Michaels for the WWE title a reality two years later.

If it weren’t for the efforts of the Hart brothers, the WWE may never have made it to be the company that we currently know it as. The stigma of steroids didn’t linger as heavily over the company as it could have, and as a result, the spotlight being placed on talented athletes such as Bret and Owen was just what the WWE needed as they soon entered into their most popular era.