Bret Hart's Last Great Match
To say that 1999 was an emotional rollercoaster of a year for Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart would be an understatement. Having signed with WCW in late 1997 and debuting at that year’s Starrcade, the booking for Bret in the Atlanta-based promotion was lackluster from the time he signed. Then at WWF’s Over The Edge pay-per-view on May 23, 1999, Bret’s younger brother Owen would tragically pass away following a botched stunt for his entrance as the Blue Blazer character. Much has been written over the years regarding this horrible tragedy and it was even covered as part in Season Two of the VICE series Dark Side Of The Ring (read our recap of that episode here). Following this, Bret would take time off from WCW to be with his family and deal with the fallout. Bret would debate if he ever wanted to return to the ring following his brother’s passing.
Bret would appear on the July 5th, 1999 edition of Nitro to speak to the crowd regarding Owen’s passing in an emotional speech.
“I’ve been told I got all the time I want, so I’m gonna try not to rush myself. First of all, on behalf of my whole family and everybody back in Calgary, we want to thank all the wrestling fans around the world who have sent their love and support and condolences. It’s meant a lot to myself. It’s meant a lot to my family and it was very, very much appreciated. The WCW has been really kind to me in the last few weeks and they’ve allowed me to take all the time I want to collect myself. I wanted to say a few words about my brother Owen. He wasn’t just your average wrestler. He was a wonderful human being. So many wrestling fans watch him on TV every day but they never really got close to him sometimes but then again there’s a lot of fans that did get to know and a lot of the wrestlers got to know him. I don’t think there’s anybody that could say a bad thing about him anywhere. He was my closest brother, we never had an argument. We never raised our voices with each other once, we were friends. We were close from the time he was in diapers and I take a lot of, I take a lot of uh, pride in knowing how well he turned out. Eric Bischoff talked to me and he asked me if I’d come back on July 5th and at least come and explain how I felt about things and I thought maybe I’d be ready to talk about things when I got here. But the truth is that I’m really having a hard time deciding on what I want to do with my career and probably my life. I’ve lived for wrestling and my family has lived for wrestling and we’ve died for wrestling. And I’m at a funny little crossroads where I look at wrestling, pro wrestling and I go ‘I don’t know what else there’s left for me to do anymore in wrestling. Maybe it’s time for me to move on and accomplish something else in another field or do something else.’ I think of Wayne Gretzky and I think of Elway and I, ya know I think of all these guys that are retiring in 1999. And when I think of those people they all, when they got to hang it up, they’re all so happy. And I look at myself and it sucks. I tell myself on one hand that its not fair for me to end my career on a tragedy, on a bad note. Nobody wants to prove more in wrestling than I do, I’ve given my whole life to it. But the truth is, I just don’t know. I really don’t know, I swear to god I do not know. I’ve always tried to give you my best. I’m happy in spite of everything that happened with the way my career and life turned out. But I’m gonna take some time and I’m gonna think about everything and put everything into perspective. But if I never get the chance to ever say it again, I just want to thank all the fans, everywhere, that I ever had, that I still have. I wouldn’t be anything without the wrestling fans. You’ve been with me from the very start. And if this is the last chance that I ever get a chance to talk to all the wrestling fans all around the world, thank you very very much. I wanna thank all the wrestlers in the dressing room. All the wrestlers in dressing rooms all around the world. It was a pleasure to work with each and every one of you. I hope I wasn’t too stiff. And that’s about it, thank you very much.”
Bret wouldn’t be seen on WCW TV again until the opening of Monday Nitro on September 6th, 1999 where he would cut a promo challenging Hulk Hogan to a match. Unfortunately, only a few days later Eric Bischoff would be relieved of his duties as the head of WCW. This would lead to Vince Russo being brought in to lead WCW, something that Bret was not a big fan of due to Russo’s relation to the death of Owen.
But Bret still wanted to have at least one last great match, as he wrote in his autobiography Hitman: My Real Life In The Cartoon World Of Wrestling.
“The business was more dead to me than it had ever been before, but I still cared enough about my career that I wanted to have one last great match. I knew the Kemper Arena was the best place to do it, and that Chris Benoit was the only guy to do it with: a tribute match for Owen right there in front of the fans who watched him die.”
Bret goes on to explain that despite the natural obviousness that the match needed to happen, it was still a battle with the suits at WCW to make the match happen and that it was actually Benoit who helped solidify the match happening.
“Chris had never forgotten that Stu, and Bruce, had got him into the business. Wrestling, old style, was all about trust and respect, the business of very tough men who could set aside those prized reputations when they needed to do so in order to make each other and the business. Benoit, despite being a young man, was old school. I wanted the Benoit match to honor my dad, the workers of his generation, the boys in the dressing room, those old-time fans-and most of all, Owen.”
Having brought in Harley Race for the match, this would be a true testament to old-school wrestling.
Harley made the official introduction noting how special it was to him:
“It gives me great pleasure to be out here in front of you people again for two reasons. First off because the greatest fans in the world are right here in Kansas, City. And secondly, I’m introducing a match that of all the accolades I’ve had thrown at me in my career, this right here probably means more to me than 99.9% of them. Being able to call out to this ring.”
Two babyfaces battling for supremacy in an age where that no longer happened, all in tribute to his fallen brother. But this was also a special moment for Benoit, as he also had a relationship with the fallen Owen.
The two worked together in Stampede Wrestling during the early years of both men’s careers and also battled across the globe. While not as widely known as their days together in the Stampede territory, Chris was actually almost brought in to be Owen’s tag team partner in the WWF in 1995 before they made a pivot and went with Yokozuna. This of course set Benoit off on a different road and their paths would not cross again before Owen’s untimely passing.
Following an emotional introduction by Harley Race, Benoit and Hart would absolutely tear the house down. Dave Meltzer would rate the match at 4.25 Stars, but make no mistake, this is a 5 Star match.
After Owen’s passing, Bret wanted one last great match….and in Owen’s honor, in the same building that he passed away and was surely watching over his older brother and old friend, Bret got that last great match.