Bret Hart v. Kurt Angle

[Hoss]

To me, it's a slight edge to Kurt. Just barely though.

They would have loved to wrestle each other too. Kurt used to call Bret hoping he could talk him into coming back, because that would be his dream match.

“If there was one person who you would have a match with you but never did, who would it be?”

Kurt: Bret Hart. We called each other a million times about it to try to work it out…..try to turn it into a Street Fight….tried to do whatever we could, but Bret Hart knows he can’t have a Bret Hart style match with me. He wouldn’t have it any other way, so it’s just not possible. I was very hurt when he wrestled Vince McMahon, but when Bret explained to me that, “Kurt, I am not wrestling Vince; I’m beating the crap out of him.” It made sense to me because I asked Bret four years prior to that I wanted to wrestle him at Wrestlemania. He flat out said no. Now I realize why. He knew he couldn’t put on that Bret Hart preformance that he would want to against Kurt Angle. With Vince McMahon, it was just a straight up Street Fight. I think they even used kendo sticks, trashcans….and his family. It was a completely different match and now I understand that. And I understand why Bret did not want to wrestle me and I can respect that.

 

[Art Barr]

kurt,.....

given the fact he got to ramp up using the stampede handbook via benoit.
plus was such a fast learner to the craft, in all facets.
quite possibly the fastest learner in all facets of the business historically.
whereas bret took considerable time.

even being stu's favorite,...
plus never really performed better than to supplant dynamite.

while dynamite was around,...
whereas angle had the stampede booklet and worked on every facet and skyrocket excelled.
in a faster timeline than bret.

bret, whom was stu's favorite and a mcmahon fav before the screwjob, too.

i have to choose angle as well.

also,...bret could never hold my attention week to week as just a inring singles guy.

whereas, angle held my attention in every facet.
as he ramped up from green amateur to one of the best all around all time.

whom is still active,....


art barr

 

[Da King]

HBGOAT gave both these guys the match of their lives

 

[Swiggy]

Angle and Hart would be too real for the E

 

[Art Barr]

I don't mean lasted as in "he'd get fired", but if he came in as that early-to-mid 90's face Bret, I just think the crowd would have been pretty apathetic. Great technically, but what else is there? Benoit came in as a heel so he got some reaction, but his promo skills were ass. Malenko was a prime example. Put on some great matches (that Backlash 2000 match against Scotty 2 Hotty was ) but ain't no way he was getting major reactions unless he put Lita in that Texas Cloverleaf.

Bret would have lasted in the Attitude Era, no doubt about it - but not with the persona he had going for him. He'd have had to alter and improve on a lot of shyt, imo

wiat a minute,....
attitude era had a lot of crap writing.
the only saving grace was austin ascension.
leading to mick's me comeuppance and the rock with him.
real talk,....the actual content outside of a lot of the attitude era.
was just as piss poor as the hulk to bret to hbk era.

it just so happened that austin and the stampede connection of bret/pillman.
helped to propel the wwe attitude era into a higher quality zone for their segments.

little else outside of that really was high quality.

it really was not until the radicals came,...did the wwe have a higher quality and click on more cylinders.

yet and still it squandered hordes of oppurtunities, to make higher quality draws and angles.

with no brainer talent and angles that they botched.
or never knew what the fukk they were doing. when they threw shyt against the wall.

sort of like wcw getting lost in the nwo.
yet forgetting prior to that how dominant malenko was as a draw from ecw.

wwe also never rematerialized the draws of guys. they could have easily used to re-invigorate all around quality. instead of over saturating the fanbase with the mcmahon bullshyt low quality talk you to death promo angles.

that steve had to stunner into acceptable.

if not for the rock and mick being there. when, steve went down,....
wwf under mcmahon-helmsley rule would have been worse on the same low quality spectrum as hbk.

also,..to add on, why i feel kurt is better than bret is.

bret was inring versus flair.

yet, real talk!
bret going over flair lacked umph!
whereas, any angle/flair interaction is still the stuff of hof legend.

whereas kurt, is just as legendary as flair, on the mic.


bret could never do that,.....consistently.

also, bret needed props to mAke me lol versus the behemoth.

like the plate i am smarter than you goldberg angle.

whereas kurt was week to week, incredible versus brock.

plus they switched roles from heel to face as well.

yet it was still a higher number of high quality moments.

to offset bret's hof plate counter to the goldberg gore.

kurt was just a better all around everything.

when compared to bret,...
bret was tip three nasty heel in tags, as a kid.

yet kurt as a heel was a bonafide do not fukk with that dude totally over the top charismatic wuss kick ass character.

that bret could never pull off.

bret, imo....was always a heel from tags.

i never bought him as a singles face champion.
plus his style inring was always heel to me.
just a heel who could work the false babyface comebacks for the transistion.
i never viewed him as a believeable face, EVER!

he was always,...that mean little dude that did all the work on davey and dynamite to me. he was the first i am scared of that dude greaseball hair scumbag character for me as a kid. so i never saw him in another light.

nor did i buy into him as a face as an adult.
kurt i bought into as a green debuting grappler to any character he currently plays.

bret was never that good, to do that.

bret also, never held my attention week to week like kurt either.
nor was bret capable of being anything other than the i will
kick yoir ass guy.

bret lacked the ability to convey vulnerability. or lol at himself as he played a side of himself that was a stretch from his real persona.

whereas kurt could be a chicken shyt, drink milk and be a p*ssy.

then in the same interview show he was still tough enough with enough cocky edgeto kick your ass.

bret was always, like the i am better than you kid brother.
bret could never play another role and that is why kurt was better.






art barr

 

[Art Barr]

HBGOAT gave both these guys the match of their lives

you mean bret and kurt carried hbk.
to the few good encounters in his overrated decade old and outdated high flying career.

hbk was using shyt the fantatics and dynamite were already known for in the late mid eighties.

wwf was just behind the mark workrate wise.
anyone who watched other promotions, knows the wwf were behind the times.

only ones ahead of their time. who had to dial back to not upstaGe the anemiac workrate low quaLity of the wwf. in general, was macho, stampede guys, and steamboat.

plus a few times nwa tag team staple or me guys came into the wwf.
even hennig was dialed back for the cartoon workrate trash that was in an outdated time warp.

incomparison to why i watched the awa for hennig. as the first badguy champion i first ever rooted for.

as a kid wwf was agonizing to watch once nwa and uwf was on.

anyone who watched other promotions like uwf and nwa.

knows how outdated And oldschool wack hbk was.

dude was a ripoff no talking, outdated high flyer, and inferior eddie gilbert.

the real art barr, liger/pillman, and even windham and many more.
whom were all in the nwa/wcw.
were all light years better at what hbk did in the wwf in the mid nineties. significantly before, hbk was irrelevent as a tag guy.
or, relevent as a singles guy.

hbk is the most overprocessed revisionist character all time in wwf mythos.

dude was not in bret's fukking league at all.

let alone the actual history of the wrasslin as a whole.
the reason why wwf did not draw when h k was champ.

was because he and the wwf were outdated.

it was not until scsa brought the horseman playbook with him.

then instituted it with the astute worker that bret and pillman were.

did wwf start to draw again,...
rightly, so…
as stampede and nwa was light years ahead of wwf content and workrate wise.



art barr

 

[Tres Leches]

two of the goats

 

[Art Barr]

Angle and Hart would be too real for the E

if it could have happened.
it would only be after paul e's smackdown six like booking.

conditioned the crowd, and brought the fanbase up to speed ramping them up workrate wise for the encounter.
wwf really before scsa/bret.

really was never up to speed workrate wise, outside of the stampede guys, and a few guys here and there, generally.




art barr

 

[Art Barr]

Maybe 92-95 Bret

But Face Bret of 96 def could have worked in the Attitude Era. If Benoit worked, why wouldn't Bret?

benoit worked because of the excellent wwe iwc pr, of the radical defection.
plus the excellent placement of mick foley and a heel turn.
which was imo, the best handled one episodic content driven raw in the attitude era.
after the god-like austin visits brian pillman's house.

as mick was as golden as the booking and writing.

to get over a current wcw champion invading with the radicals.
plus giving them a purpose and purposeful mouth piece in shane.

including mick as a foil.
which, was their best work content wise outside of austin visits pillman's house.

so benoit had the luck and execution of the highest quality everything production-wise from the wwf, at that time.

imo, bret and austin only worked because they willed it to work.
it was one of the very few feuds in all of wwf history.

for the time,...
which you could tell was high quality and cutting edge as possible.

as you could literally feel austin and bret doing something that never consistently was given much on wwf tv before that.

it had the same care as macho/steamboat, and macho/allen.

plus the oh shyt value of snuka/piper, snuka/ the old rock, hogun/atlas/rocky and hogun/wonderful.

that typically was neutered in most wwf angles.
generally bret never got that much wiggle room quality wise.
whereas the wwf never had a horseman all in one guy like austin.

who literally was on some eighties horseman playbook shyt meets the wwf finally.

which worked because wwf was a full decade plus behind content wise.

from the other promotions,...which is why bret/scsa actually worked so well.

as the wwf fanbase was dying for a ramp up in quality and in-style content. the other promotions specialized in, that was always missing from wwf programming.

to the point it almost died as a promotion.
without austin bringing the horseman playbook as the protege of flair into the outdated cartoon bs of the wwf.

almost alternatively put wcw into ruin, before the nwo as well.

as hogun brought his outdated wwf garbage.
into the more advanced horsemen country of wcw as well.

at a time when wcw suffered from the loss of flair's defection to the wwf was a while before this.


art barr

 

[krackdagawd]

HBGOAT gave both these guys the match of their lives

The GOAT does that to all of his opponents.

 

[Singh]

ding ding time limit draw, I can't pick one

 

[DocZulu]

This is not about nostalgia or accolades, this is about in-ring performance. And while Kurt is one of the premier technicians in the history of the sport...Bret out classes him.

Bret was a far more creative and gave the appearance (as part of his performance) of being a better improviser. Further, Bret was a far better brawler than Kurt.

Bret did more with his smaller move set than Angle did with his grand repertoire.

There is literally nothing Bret was better at than King Kurtis - and that's not taking anything away from Bret. It's just that King Kurtis >>>>>>

 

[Popi]

kurt,.....

given the fact he got to ramp up using the stampede handbook via benoit.
plus was such a fast learner to the craft, in all facets.
quite possibly the fastest learner in all facets of the business historically.
whereas bret took considerable time.

even being stu's favorite,...
plus never really performed better than to supplant dynamite.

while dynamite was around,...
whereas angle had the stampede booklet and worked on every facet and skyrocket excelled.
in a faster timeline than bret.

bret, whom was stu's favorite and a mcmahon fav before the screwjob, too.

i have to choose angle as well.

also,...bret could never hold my attention week to week as just a inring singles guy.

whereas, angle held my attention in every facet.
as he ramped up from green amateur to one of the best all around all time.

whom is still active,....


art barr

Angle's learning curve def can get him GOAT consideration on that alone.



But I think you're shortchanging Bret.

If Angle's skill set was superior to Bret's, ok.

But what is a better skill set worth compared to better storytelling?

We watch matches for the story. I'd rather see Bret v. Diesel in a classic display of ring psychology than Angle v. RVD in a spot fest.

Bret told better stories in the ring, giving him the edge in the ring and # of very good to classic matches.

I will say that that's not all Angle's fault. Good chunk of Angle's prime was during the Attitude Era and the brawling style almost every match did limit him stylistically.

 

[Kimo_bud]

bret was the best there ever was, is or ever will be

 

[TrueEpic08]

Kurt is more talented and better overall talent. Bret was the better wrestler.

This, pretty much.

I feel like some people are blinded by the fact that Kurt Angle's peak as a wrestler (2002-2004) was of such a level that there were really 2 or 3 people on the entire roster that could keep up with him, and even then only in one aspect. Bret was more consistent over a longer period, but I don't think he ever had that type of peak as a wrestler where he was SO much better than the rest of the roster save a few people.

I'm picking Bret, however, because he also never had the type of rapid deterioration of match quality that Kurt had when he went to TNA. It didn't happen immediately, but it was blatantly evident by 2010 or so that Angle had pretty much lost all ability to structure a match outside of one style, capped by that awful, AWFUL exhibition in excess that was the January 4, 2010 World Championship match against A.J. Styles. He does "epic" reversal fests, whether they're 30 minutes or 6 minutes, and at this point, I'm just sick of seeing that, in addition to the fact that he's utterly and completely reckless with his body. Bret was the master of doing a lot with not much at all, while Kurt seems to be the master of making a lot not matter much at this point.

I just don't enjoy watching Kurt wrestle much at this point. Bret never, ever got to that level with me (WrestleMania 26 doesn't count).