Recently, WWE Hall Of Famers Steve Austin and Bret Hart were guests on the first anniversary of E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness. During the podcast, Austin and Hart got in-depth with respect to their classic submission match at WrestleMania 13.
According to Hart, he did not know he was turning heel at WrestleMania 13 and only got wind of it the day of the event when Austin told him that there was talk of the double-turn.
“I don’t think Steve knew anything they had in mind for me until the last minute, until that day,” Hart remembered. “Steve was the first guy to come up to me and say, oh, Vince [McMahon] talked to him about me turning heel. Nobody up until that point, including everyone else in the dressing room, knew anything about it as far as I know.”
With respect to the expertly executed double-turn, Hart pointed out that the entrances at the beginning of the WrestleMania 13 submission match showed who the babyface and heel were and that completely changed by the end of the match without the characters changing.
“What I loved about the match, right from the start, are the entrances.” Hart explained, “if you watch Steve and I both go to the ring, he was the heel. He was the bad guy. I walk out and I’m kind of cheered. I’m the cool babyface and I’m coming in for revenge. It’s kind of funny how we were completely switched over by the end of it and we never changed our styles or do anything other than wrestle the same way we did all the time. And I think it was a bit of amazing psychology.”
Although Austin and Hart just worked together at Survivor Series, the plan was for the two veterans to revisit their rivalry, but not as soon as WrestleMania. Austin recalled that Hart handpicked him as an opponent and put over ‘Mr. SummerSlam’, saying he was always a big fan.
“You pretty much handpicked me, Bret because you were making a comeback from having your knee cleaned up.” Austin declared, “and that was a big honor for me because we had worked at a couple of house shows and I think I was working with Shawn [Michaels] over there in Houston, Texas and I just worked with Shawn and you said to me in the dressing room, ‘hey man, that was a great match.’ You said, ‘I’ll work with you anytime’ and that was a big complement to me because I was a huge Bret Hart fan before I had come to the Federation. And Bret got in the business [of pro wrestling] a little bit before me and obviously got started way earlier over in Calgary [Canada], so I’d seen his entire body of work. And Bret is such a high-level guy with such multiple layers of psychology and all the technical aspects and mechanical aspects that he brings. He brought a reality-based product to the ring. We always knew the business was a work, but Bret was total reality to me, which is why I had so much respect for his work.”
Also during the podcast, Austin remembered his former tag team partner and Hart Foundation member, Brian Pillman, telling him that he was a babyface from his pop when he was trying to work as a heel. Sure enough, this comment upset ‘The Rattlesnake’.
“I’ll never forget one house show, Brian Pillman comes in,” Austin recalled. “And, of course, me and Brian were good friends since WCW and our Hollywood Blond days. We kind of separated. He went through the things he had gone through and I had gone my direction. We were singles [performers] now. And I remember coming back from the ring one time, and Brian had watched the match and I got a louder pop than my babyface opponent. And Brian said to me, ‘Goddamnit, kid! You’re a babyface!’ And I said, ‘f- you’ because you take the stuff [seriously]. When you’re trying to be a heel or baby, and I’m trying to be a heel and he’s calling me a baby, that’s damn near and insult. And I said, ‘f- you, dude. I’m a heel.'”
Credit E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness
