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http://www.brethart.com/

Wrestlemania X. March 20, 1994. Madison Square Garden. 

It was unquestionably one of the biggest nights of my career.

It was arguably the greatest opening match ever held at the greatest 
wrestling hall of them all! 

In the first of two co-main event matches on a huge show celebrating 
the tenth anniversary of Wrestlemania my feud with my brother Owen was
at it's
red hot peak and we blended his high flying skills and my solid
technical
style to build a match that would finally earn Owen the respect that
he had for
so long deserved. 

It seems ironic now that the only way that both Owen and I could get
to
the top of the WWF when each of us first got there was to become
nasty,
vicious, ruthless, villains. 

What a lot of people don't know about is how Owen and I figured out, 
not one, but two completely different ways to reverse the
sharpshooter! In
what was then considered to be one of the biggest upsets of all time,
Owen pinned me when I went for a victory roll! It might seem strange
but nobody was
more proud of his victory over me than I was! 

I opened the show and I closed the show. 

In the other main event I squared off with five hundred pound Yokozuna
and regained the world heavyweight title!

The wrestlers piled out of the dressing room and hoisted me up on
their
shoulders in what was a very genuine and spontaneous showing of
respect that
I'll never forget!

Wrestlemania XI was at the Hartford Civic Center on April 2, 1995
where I took on two time world champion Bob Backlund in a classic
match up of the old generation versus the new. Unfortunately it was a
submission match centered around one of us having to say ‘I quit'.
When I finally hooked old Bob in his own hold, the cross face chicken
wing, he soon found out just how painful it really was. It hurt so
much that when guest referee, Roddy Piper, stuck the microphone in his
face and asked him if he'd had enough he couldn't remember to say ‘I
quit' so he blurted out, "yes!" With no disrespect to Bob, this was
probably my least memorable Wrestlemania match, but only because it
was a poor concept to start with.

I redeemed myself the following year at Wrestlemania XII in the
infamous iron man match with Shawn Michaels.

I've always felt that this was the toughest match I ever had.

That year Shawn took the winter off to train solely for our one hour 
marathon match while I was being jackknifed and pancaked all winter in
short but physical matches with the biggest behemoths in the WWF at
that time -Diesel, Undertaker, Psycho Sid and Yoko! This, along with a
grueling tour of India only weeks before Wrestlemania XII, made it
extremely difficult for me to build my stamina for a one hour pay per
view main event match! Luckily for me, I could see that I was being
set up, with the full intention being that Shawn
would scrape me off the mat so that Vince and Jim Ross could describe
in their
commentary how Shawn, who was a few years younger than me, had just
taken over
for the new generation. Instead, I trained like an absolute lunatic
every
day, on my own time, and I think if you watch that match back you'll
come to
find that, more often than not, it was The Hitman scraping The
Heartbreak Kid up off the mat! To both our credit, I think the iron
man match at Wrestlemania
XII still sets the standard for hour long matches, which is no doubt
why
the WWE wrestlers themselves just voted it the greatest Wrestlemania
match of
all time! 

The following year I fully expected to have my planned rematch with 
the still reigning champion, Shawn Michaels, but rather than lose to
me he came
up with another of many phony injuries and forfeited the title so that
he
could, as Shawn tearfully put it during an in ring interview, go home
to find
his smile. So, plans were changed and I was hastily matched up with
Stone Cold
Steve Austin, who was just beginning to make a name for himself. I've
always
felt this match opened the door for Stone Cold, who told me, just a
few
months ago, that it was his all time favorite match! It's no surprise
that in
two weighty polls conducted by the most respected news chronicle of
the pro
wrestling business, The Wrestling Observer, one for fans and the other
for
wrestlers, promoters and others in the business, the Wrestlemania XIII
match
between The Hitman and Stone Cold was voted the number one
Wrestlemania match of all time! I'm flattered and I'm happy to agree
that, in my opinion, that
knock down drag was not only my best Wrestlemania match but also the
single
greatest Wrestlemania match ever! 

And ... as for the massive rumor that I'll be appearing at
Wrestlemania XX .... I want to wish Chris Benoit all the luck in the
world ... and to all the boys, have the time of your lives!

I'll be watching ... but I won't be there. Let's just leave it at 
that ... for now.


--- Internet Rex 2.29