In the nearly forty-year history ofWWE’smajor summer event, Summerslam,one match stands out above the rest as the all-time greatest: Bret Hart vs. his brother Owen at Summerslam 1994. The steel cage match stands as one of the most emotionally resonant bouts in the canon of wrestling – though as Bret later admitted in an interview, it had the potential to be even better.
In an interview with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustratedfrom 2017, Bret reflected on his feud with Owen, andtheir groundbreaking Summerslam match, noting that the brothers had originally pitched a ladder match instead. While they initially shied away at the idea of a Steel Cage match, they eventually delivered one of the most iconic performances ever put on inside the cage.
Still, it is worth considering whether the Harts could have topped even that, had they been given unlimited creative freedom to do the match their way.
According to the traditional rules of a Steel Cage match, the winner was determined not by pinfall or submission, but rather whichever contestant escaped the cage first. This stipulation – as well as Bret Hart’s original idea for a ladder match – was smart, because it took theHarts' famous finisher, the Sharpshooter, out of the equation for the climax of the match.
During the course of the half-hour long match, both Bret and Owen locked the Sharpshooter on one another, adding to the emotional complexity of the match, given that the use of the move became more about hurting their opponent, rather than forcing a quick submission.
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Had the Harts been allowed to have a ladder match, the emotional arc might have ultimately been the same, but it’s likely the in-ring action would have been even more memorable than it turned out to be.
In the wake of Bret vs. Owen at Summerslam’s 30th anniversary, fans have had more than enough reason to revisit the bout, and for many, it has confirmed what they already suspected – thatthe match is perhaps unparalleled in the annals of the PPV’s history, in terms of both emotional pay-off and pure, unadulterated wresting action. In a way, the match serves as a perfect bridge between the classic pro-wrestling of the 1980s, and what was to come in the latter half of the ’90s, making it endlessly fascinating, and ceaselessly entertaining.
Yet, at the same time, the match is compromised in its own way. As Bret Hart explained to Sports Illustrated:
We never wanted to have a cage match. The truth was, I would have liked to have had a ladder match against Owen.
Unfortunately, Razor Ramon hadjust defeated Shawn Michaelsin a ladder match at Wrestlemania X earlier in 1994, and as such, the Hart brothers' battle wound up in a steel cage instead. Had the Harts been allowed to have a ladder match, the emotional arc might have ultimately been the same, but it’s likely the in-ring action would have been even more memorable than it turned out to be.
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Bret and Owen’s Summerslam match was highly regarded in its time…In retrospect, it sets a high standard by which every other Summerslam match can be judged.
Many fans point to the built-in pathos of the “brother vs. brother” angle as a reason Bret and Owen’s 1994 feud is so memorable, but there is more to it than that: their work that year represented two high-level wrestling minds, operating at the peak of their game.The outside world saw two brothers battling for the championship belt, but to the two of them, they were a pair of workers with unrivaled chemistry. That they were brothers made it all the more impactful for audiences, of course, and meaningful for them.
Pro Wrestling Illustratednamed “Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart” its “Feud of the Year” for 1994, with the Hart brothers beating out “Ric Flair vs. Hulk Hogan,” “Randy Savage vs. Crush,” and “Sabu vs. Terry Funk” for the award.
Bret and Owen’s Summerslam match was highly regarded in its time, even earning a 5-star rating in theWrestling Observer, one of only two in the WWE that year. In retrospect, it sets a high standard by which every other Summerslam match can be judged. Bret Hart put it as well as anyone can, telling Sports Illustrated:
We told the wrestler’s story. We wanted to tell the suspense of getting in and out of the cage, and we were proud of the match. I thought it was a beautiful story.
With so many more Summerslams having come since 1994, and few matches having lived up to Bret and Owen Hart’s performance, it is safe to say they put on the bestSummerslammatch in WWE history.
Source:Sports Illustrated, Bret Hart interview
WWE SummerSlam
WWE SummerSlam is an annual WWE professional wrestling pay-per-view event featuring wrestlers from Raw and Smackdown. The event began in 1988 and is considered part of WWE’s “Big Five” event series, and features various written storylines that increasingly grow more intense, eventually leading to a penultimate wrestling match.
