Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Bret The Hitman Hart (Sep 1996 – Jul 1997)

Background

Bret Hart lost the WWF Championship to Shawn Michaels in the Iron Man match at WrestleMania XII and then took a leave from the company to pursue acting opportunities.[15] He would not appear on WWF television again for seven months.[1]

Steve Austin had fallen out of favor in WCW by 1995 and signed with the WWF by the end of the year. His early run was spent alongside Ted DiBiase in an undercard feud with Savio Vega, and the two split in the spring of 1996 after Austin deliberately lost a match to Vega.[15] At King of the Ring that June, he won the tournament by beating Jake Roberts, whose character quoted scripture, and answered him on the microphone.[15] "Talk about your psalms, talk about John 3:16," he said. "Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass!" The line went straight onto T-shirts.[11]

Austin did not get a title match at SummerSlam; he beat Yokozuna on the Free For All instead.[15] So he went after the man who wasn't there. At In Your House: Mind Games on September 22, Brian Pillman interviewed Owen Hart, who suggested his brother was staying away because he was scared of Austin. Austin then came out and said, "If you put the letter 'S' in front of Hitman, you have my exact opinion of Bret Hart."[1]

They had already wrestled once, far from American television. At the Sun City SuperBowl in South Africa on September 14, 1996, Hart pinned Austin with an inside cradle at 19:56 after kicking off the turnbuckle, with Jim Ross and Owen Hart on commentary for SuperSport.[1]

Before the bout, Austin said it had taken him eight months and a flight to South Africa to get Hart in the ring. Hart said it was his last official match with the WWF and that while he could leave, he didn't think he would.[1] One reviewer called it the least of their series but still "so good," worked for an adoring South African crowd.[7]

Build-up

Hart came back on the October 21, 1996 Raw in Fort Wayne. In an in-ring interview with Jim Ross, he said he was back in the WWF and had agreed to face Austin at Survivor Series.[1][12]

Several heels watched backstage, with Austin in front. When Hart accepted, Brian Pillman jumped in excitement until Austin turned and stared him down.[1] Hart also said Michaels would never be tougher or smarter than him.[12]

Austin turned on Pillman next. On the October 27 Superstars, he crushed Pillman's ankle between a chair, an attack that kept Pillman out until the summer of 1997, and on the November 4 Raw he broke into Pillman's house in the angle remembered for the gun.[15] On the October 28 Raw, he and Hart cut a split-screen promo about the match. Hart said he wouldn't stop his career if he lost, and Austin promised to be all over him whether he won or lost.[15]

Survivor Series came to Madison Square Garden on November 17, with a title shot at the next In Your House going to the winner.[1]

Before the match, Hart told Todd Pettengill that MSG wasn't a church but it was holy ground. He said he wasn't greedy for money but for respect, and that Austin would respect him.[1] Both men were heavily cheered. Hart won at 28:34 by kicking off the top turnbuckle while caught in Austin's Million Dollar Dream and pinning him, then spent several minutes greeting fans at ringside, where Vince McMahon congratulated him from the commentary table.[1]

Austin kept coming. On the November 25 Raw he hit Hart in the back with a chair as Hart applied the Sharpshooter on Owen, then put Hart's ankle in the chair and tried to stomp it until the British Bulldog pulled it away twice.[1]

On December 16, Hart attacked Austin with a Sharpshooter during Austin's match with Vader.[15] On December 30, Hart replaced the injured Jesse Jammes as Savio Vega's partner and they beat Austin and Faarooq by disqualification.[1] The next week, Austin hit Hart with a Stunner to cost him a match against Vader.[15]

At the Royal Rumble in San Antonio on January 19, 1997, Hart threw Austin out at 50:04. The referees missed it because they were busy with Mankind and Terry Funk brawling on the floor, so Austin slid back in.[2]

He eliminated the Undertaker and Vader, Hart eliminated Diesel, and Austin then eliminated Hart to win at 50:29.[2] Hart grabbed both referees and then McMahon at the commentary table, demanding the call be fixed. The next night on Raw he said he had been screwed by Michaels, Austin, the WWF and McMahon, and quit.[2]

He didn't stay quit. Hart had been booked to beat Michaels for the title at WrestleMania 13, but on a special Thursday Raw on February 13, Michaels vacated the championship.[4] In what became known as his "lost my smile" speech, he cited a knee injury that many have since doubted.[10] The vacant title went to a four-way elimination match at In Your House 13: Final Four in Chattanooga on February 16, with Hart, Austin, the Undertaker and Vader.[2][4]

Hart threw Austin over the top with a fireman's carry at 18:09.[2][4] Austin returned minutes later to attack him. After the Undertaker low-blowed Vader and threw him out, Hart eliminated the Undertaker with a clothesline at 24:06, right after Taker knocked an interfering Austin off the apron.[2][4] Hart was champion again, and Sid confronted him in the ring as the show closed.[2]

It lasted a day. On the February 17 Raw, Austin interfered both in the ring and backstage to delay Hart's title defense against Sid. When the match finally went on, Austin hit Hart with a chair while he had Sid in the Sharpshooter, and Sid powerbombed him for the title.[2]

On March 17, Hart got a cage match against Sid with the WrestleMania title match at stake. Austin came out to help Hart and the Undertaker to help Sid, and Sid kept the belt.[3] Afterward, Hart shoved McMahon, and to many fans he was already turning heel.[15]

The Matches

WrestleMania 13 took place on March 23, 1997 at the Rosemont Horizon outside Chicago in front of 18,197, a sellout. The card drew a 0.77 buy rate.[2][3] Of that crowd, 16,467 had paid.[2] Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler called the card, and Ken Shamrock, the UFC fighter, was the special guest referee for a No Disqualification Submission Match.[3]

The stipulation shaped everything. "It was all submissions, so there was no one-two-kickout," Hart later told Sports Illustrated. "Taking away the pin falls removed a lot of the element of suspense."[9]

Austin attacked Hart during his entrance, and they brawled from the ring to the floor. Hart sent Austin into the ring post, Austin drove Hart into the barrier, and they fought into the crowd hitting each other with whatever they found.[3] Shamrock followed them and brought them back, and once the match settled in the ring, Hart went after Austin's injured leg.[3]

Hart busted Austin open with an Irish whip into the steel barricade. Austin countered a chair attack on his leg and hit Hart with the chair repeatedly. Then Hart hit Austin in the head with the ring bell, and the bleeding got worse.[3]

Hart locked in the Sharpshooter. Austin, his face covered in blood, refused to submit and pushed against it until he passed out.[3] Shamrock stopped the match and awarded it to Hart at 22:03 by one record, 22:05 by another.[2][3] Hart kept attacking Austin, and the crowd turned on him and began cheering for Austin.[3]

Shamrock pulled Hart off with a waistlock takedown and challenged him to fight. Hart declined and left to boos.[3] Austin came to, hit a Stunner on an official who tried to help him up, and walked to the back under his own power while the crowd chanted his name.[2][3] "From when he put it on, to when he turned me over and to when I passed out, that was absolute magic," Austin said later.[8]

Hart was not done for the night. In the main event, he came out to call Sid a fraud and claim Michaels' injury was fake. Late in the match he dropped Sid throat-first over the top rope as Sid set up a powerbomb, and the Undertaker won the title.[2]

Dave Meltzer gave the match five stars. Wrestling Observer readers and Pro Wrestling Illustrated readers both named it 1997's Match of the Year.[3] It was the last WrestleMania match Meltzer rated five stars until Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn at WrestleMania 39 in 2023.[3]

Aftermath

The turn was set within a week. On the March 24 Raw, Hart cut a long promo turning his back on the American fans and the other top babyfaces, which led to him putting Michaels in a figure four around the ring post.[15] On March 31, Austin told McMahon he had never submitted and had bled because of the guardrail, not because of Hart. He said he would be the same man whether he faced "a good guy" or "a bad guy."[2]

Hart appeared on the big screen to gloat and said he was finished with Austin. Austin answered that he wouldn't be finished until Hart was dead, and told him to bring Owen and the Bulldog if he needed help.[2]

Later that night Hart reunited Owen and the Bulldog. He told them they shouldn't be fighting for a crowd that knew nothing of family values, and Owen cried.[2] With Neidhart and Pillman, they became the new Hart Foundation, an anti-American faction set against Austin.[5]

The two met again at In Your House 14: Revenge of the 'Taker, a show named for the Undertaker's feud with Mankind, at the Rochester Community War Memorial on April 20.[6] There, Owen and the Bulldog escorted Hart to the ring and were ejected by WWF President Gorilla Monsoon.[2] Austin won by disqualification at 21:09 when the Bulldog came back and hit him with a chair while he had Hart in the Sharpshooter. Afterward Hart came back for more, and Austin put him in the Sharpshooter again until officials pulled him away.[2]

The next night on Raw, a street fight ended in a no contest. Austin wrecked Hart's knee with a chair, and when Hart was loaded into an ambulance, Austin turned out to be the driver.[15] Hart had knee surgery in Calgary that Wednesday.[2]

He came back for In Your House 16: Canadian Stampede on July 6, in Calgary, with the entire Hart family and Alberta Premier Ralph Klein at ringside.[2] Bret, Owen, the Bulldog, Neidhart and Pillman beat Austin, Goldust, Shamrock and the Legion of Doom at 24:30, when Owen rolled up Austin while he was distracted by several Hart brothers at ringside. Austin was led out in handcuffs while the family celebrated in the ring.[2] Their last match against each other came in a flag match on the July 21 Raw, where Bret, Owen and the Bulldog beat the Undertaker, Austin and Dude Love.[2][15]

At SummerSlam on August 3, 1997, Austin challenged Owen for the Intercontinental Championship with a stipulation that he would have to kiss Owen's backside if he lost. In the final minute, Owen dropped him with a sit-down piledriver, and Austin was temporarily paralyzed. He rolled Owen up for the win at 16:17, and several referees had to help him to his feet.[2]

Austin was out of the ring for about three or four months.[16] Hart beat the Undertaker for the WWF Championship the same night. At the 1997 Survivor Series he lost it in Montreal, and he and Austin never wrestled again.[2][15]

Behind the Scenes

The finish was McMahon's idea, and Austin wasn't sold on it. On the Edge and Christian podcast, Austin recalled taking his worries to McMahon and being told, "Oh Goddamn Steve, I promise you this will work!"[8] The blood was Hart's idea. "Steve if you're going to pass out from this sharpshooter you need to have colour," he told Austin, according to the same account.[8] Austin has also said on Talk Is Jericho that Hart told him he should bleed.[9]

The company had a no-blood policy at the time. "They had had a no blood policy for a while and the toy companies and everybody were on Vince's ass," Hart said. "So I was like 'Let's just pretend it was an accident. What are they guna do?'"[8] Hart offered to do the cut himself, and Austin agreed. "I'd done many blade jobs before but when the man, Vince McMahon says no colour, I'm going by those orders, and Bret was covering my ass," Austin said.[8]

Midway through the match, Austin wavered, and Hart told him there was no turning back. "Steve goes to throw me into the railing and I'm reversing Steve but if you watch, I'm going into Steve's ear and I'm yelling at him 'It's too late!'" Hart said. "It's right in front of everybody, including Vince, who's one foot away."[8] Austin said it was done so fast that "you never see him do the cut on the forehead," and that when Hart threw a big right hand, he swung his head and splattered blood all over Jerry Lawler's notes.[8] "It wasn't a gasher, it wasn't anything that needed stitches," he said. "It was just absolute perfection."[8]

Shamrock had never worked a match like it. "I knew these guys were at an another level and I knew what I had wrestled before was nowhere near at what these guys were doing," he said, and refereeing them was when he realized: "Oh sh*t, this is no different than MMA."[14] Austin credited McMahon with the double turn. "It was Vince's vision. I guess I didn't see the big picture that Vince saw of turning me babyface. Certainly, I was becoming one just from crowd response."[13]

Austin also spoke warmly of Hart. "I love Bret Hart. We just always had great chemistry from day one," he said, calling the Rosemont Horizon "probably my favorite building to work in."[13] The match that turned him into a babyface also set up the injury that nearly ended his career. Owen said he knew Austin had a bad neck going in, from a trapped nerve that had bothered him for months.[16]

"My head was about, I dunno, six or eight inches below the bottom of his legs, and he jumped up and spiked me," Austin said of the SummerSlam piledriver. "As soon as my head hit that mat, I was thinking Christopher Reeve."[16] Owen said he felt terrible: "I would never have pile-driven him knowing what was going to happen."[16] Bret said he told Owen to call Austin and Owen never did. Austin's version: "He called me only once to apologize while I was in the hospital. If I almost break someone's neck, I'm calling them 25 times to apologize."[16]

Austin had reportedly expressed reservations about the spot beforehand. He held a grudge against Owen for years, and has said that with time he let it go.[17] Owen died in May 1999.[17]

Legacy

In 2025, during WrestleMania 41 weekend, WWE announced the match as the first inductee in a new Hall of Fame category, the "Immortal Moment."[13] Austin said Triple H called him with the news. "He said, 'Hey, man, we're thinking about doing this, and this is gonna be the first match to go in,'" Austin recalled. "I have such a long list of great matches in my mind that could've gone first, but this one obviously made sense."[13]

He tied the match to everything that followed: "Bret would go on to become a heel, I would turn into an anti-hero babyface and have the Austin run. I couldn't have had that run without Bret."[13] He also gave credit to Shamrock, "who was a big part of it," and to the announce team.[13] "I knew that was a great match, no doubt," he said. "I noticed it as it was going down."[13] The event as a whole drew mixed to negative reviews, but the submission match was highly praised, and John Canton called it "wrestling perfection."[3]

The match has been released on collections for both men, from The Bret Hart Story: The Best There Is, Was, and Ever Will Be to Stone Cold Steve Austin: The Bottom Line on the Most Popular Superstar of All Time.[2] The Survivor Series and Final Four matches are on The Legacy of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Best of In Your House.[1][2]

Hart's run as a heel ended in Montreal that November, and the program with Austin was his last great feud in the WWF.[15] For Austin, the Rosemont crowd's switch was the beginning. "Every time you go in the ring, you want to have a match like that," he said. "It's just a big honor to go in and be the first match of this kind to start this new trend."[13]

See Also

Sources & Further Listening

1. 1996 WWF results (television, pay-per-view and house shows) — The History of WWE. https://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/96.htm
2. 1997 WWF results (television, pay-per-view and house shows) — The History of WWE. https://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/97.htm
3. WrestleMania 13 — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WrestleMania_13
4. In Your House 13: Final Four — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Your_House_13:_Final_Four
5. In Your House 16: Canadian Stampede — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Your_House_16:_Canadian_Stampede
6. In Your House 14: Revenge of the 'Taker — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Your_House_14:_Revenge_of_the_%27Taker
7. "Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Bret Hart – WWF Sun City Superbowl (09/14/1996)" — Brock Hates Wrestling. https://brockhateswrestling.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/bret-austin-sun-city/
8. Mark Farrelly, "Bret Hart Explains The Secret Plan They Had To Make Stone Cold Bleed At Wrestlemania 13" (Edge and Christian podcast) — Balls.ie, April 3, 2019. https://www.balls.ie/american-sports/bret-hart-explains-secret-plan-make-stone-cold-bleed-wrestlemania-13-386046
9. Benjamin Vieira, "The Real Life Story Behind Steve Austin & Bret Hart's WrestleMania 13 Submission Match, Explained" — TheSportster, March 17, 2023. https://www.thesportster.com/wwe-real-life-story-behind-steve-austin-bret-hart-wrestlemania-13-match/
10. Kyle Scharf, "Lost Smiles and Rising Stars – Revisiting In Your House: Final Four" — The Signature Spot. https://www.thesignaturespot.com/articles/revisiting-in-your-house-final-four-25-years-later
11. "18th Anniversary of Stone Cold Steve Austin's 'Austin 3:16' promo" — Sportskeeda, June 2014. https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/18th-anniversary-of-stone-cold-steve-austins-austin-316-promo
12. "WWF RAW 10/21/1996" — Wrestling Recaps. https://wrestlingrecaps.com/2015/06/10/wwf-raw-10211996/
13. Andy London, "Steve Austin On WrestleMania 13 Match With Bret Hart Being First 'Immortal Moment'" (Ariel Helwani Show interview) — PWMania, May 5, 2025. https://www.pwmania.com/steve-austin-on-wrestlemania-13-match-with-bret-hart-being-first-immortal-moment
14. Jeffrey Harris, "Ken Shamrock Recalls Refereeing Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13" (Busted Open Radio interview) — 411Mania, June 29, 2024. https://411mania.com/wrestling/ken-shamrock-recalls-refereeing-bret-hart-vs-steve-austin-wrestlemania-13/
15. Bob Colling Jr., "Reliving A Feud #44: Bret Hart Vs. Steve Austin In WWF '96-'97" — Wrestling Recaps, August 6, 2020. https://wrestlingrecaps.com/2020/08/06/reliving-a-feud-44-bret-hart-vs-steve-austin-in-wwf-96-97/
16. "Steve Austin: The Neck Injury That Changed His Life Forever" — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/steve-austin-neck/
17. "Owen Hart & Steve Austin's Troubled Relationship, Explained" — TheSportster. https://www.thesportster.com/wwe-owen-hart-steve-austin-troubled-relationship-explained/

Further Listening

• Edge and Christian podcast, "Anatomy of a Match" with Steve Austin and Bret Hart — the blood plan and the finish, in their own words
• The Ariel Helwani Show with Steve Austin (2025) — on the match becoming the first Immortal Moment
• Talk Is Jericho with Steve Austin — Austin on agreeing to bleed
• Busted Open Radio with Ken Shamrock (2024) — refereeing the match