Bret started in the WWF as a face. I remember this because I actually watched it on WWF Cavalcade TV which was mainly WWF shows in Ontario. Bret had come over to the WWF from Calgary and first started wrestling WWF shows in the Ontario area. The same with Neidhart who debuted at MSG, but was soon wrestling Cavalcade shows. Neidhart was the cool, high intensity heel. They actually wrestled against each other early on.
Bret was over because he was young and athletic. Neidhart was over because of his intensity and power. The only problem with Bret is he was using a Calgary cowboy gimmick that was a bit lame. Neidhart was managed by Mr. Fuji and then all of the sudden, out of nowhere, Bret and Neidhart teamed up and it was over because Bret could wrestle and no longer had the Cowboy gimmick. And he was now being paired with Neidhart and it made for a nice combination of power (Neidhart) and technical wrestling (Hart). Plus, they had one of the best finishers in wrestling history. If they didn’t have that finisher, I don’t think they would have been quite as over. They also had those black and pink tights which were really cool for the time.
Neidhart was better on the mic early on. But, the fans could see his limitations in the ring and in his gimmick. Eventually they turned face and then they split up. The natural progression for wrestlers back then was to go from tag champs to then the I-C champ and then, hopefully…to main event status (whether they got the heavyweight title or not is another story). The I-C champs were usually responsible for having great singles matches. The tag champs usually wrestled before the Main Event and were there to get the crowd worked up for the main event.
Bret had a lot of great I-C matches. I really loved his feud with Bad News Brown. That’s where he started to get the nickname ‘the Excellence of Execution.’ Eventually, Bret became the Heavyweight Champion.
Why?
Because of the steroid trial.
Vince could not have roided freaks on the show anymore and had super strict, random drug testing. So they got Bret who was testing negative and because he was a smaller guy and couldn’t get over with some freakish physique, they chose him because of his in-ring skill and ability.
I don’t think anybody here thinks one solely becomes a superstar on pure wrestling ability. But, it can play a giant role in the wrestler developing into a superstar. And for Bret, it was a large part of his identity. The same for Shawn Michaels, Bob Backlund, Dory Funk, Lou Thesz and many others.
YR
