Calgary, Alberta · Stampede · WWF · WCW · 1978–2000
Bret Hart billed himself the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, and built the closest thing wrestling has to a factual case for a boast: five WWF Championships, two WCW World Championships, two Intercontinental reigns, two King of the Ring wins (the 1991 tournament and the first pay-per-view edition in 1993), and a 1994 Royal Rumble co-win with Lex Luger. 5WWF Championship reigns between October 1992 and November 1997 — the company’s 1990s axisThe eighth of Stu Hart’s twelve children, he came out of the family’s Calgary Dungeon and carried the WWF through its leanest commercial years on technical credibility: the first title won in an untelevised match in Saskatoon against Ric Flair on October 12, 1992, the last taken from him in Montreal by means outside the match entirely.
Montreal is the fact everyone knows, and it is a fact, not an angle: at Survivor Series on November 9, 1997, leaving for WCW and having declined to drop the title in Canada, he was double-crossed when Vince McMahon had the bell rung while Shawn Michaels held him in his own Sharpshooter. 1997the Screwjob — the last time a major world title changed hands off-scriptBut the better summary of him is the year that preceded it: at WrestleMania 13 on March 23, 1997 he beat Steve Austin in a submission match in which Austin passed out rather than quit, executing wrestling’s definitive double turn — Hart walked in the hero and out the heel, and made his opponent a megastar by beating him. In April 2025 WWE inducted that match into the Hall of Fame as the first entry in its Immortal Moment category, and Hart and Austin accepted together in Las Vegas — Hart’s third induction, after 2006 individually and 2019 with the Hart Foundation.
At 69 he lives in Calgary, recovered from the 2016 prostate cancer surgery he announced publicly, and remains wrestling’s most quotable unfiltered elder. The 2025–26 file: the Hall of Fame stage with Austin on April 18, 2025; an August 2025 Slam Wrestling interview in which he noted WWE invited him to SummerSlam and then failed to seat him (“I don’t think they really fully appreciate me”); a run of cancelled US signings in late 2025 that he attributed to commitments at home; and a sit-down interview aired on Maple Leaf Pro’s TSN2 show in August 2026, praising young Canadian talent. He does not do nostalgia matches, does not soften old grievances, and shows no sign of starting either.
Fifteen documented bouts — all five WWF title changes in or out, both brothers' WrestleMania X matches, Montreal, the WCW crowning and the Starrcade match that ended everything in slow motion. A curated ledger, not a career count; no career win–loss total is published because none is reliably sourced. Filter by promotion or match type, tap any column header to sort, and turn spoilers on to reveal results.
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The book is kayfabe protected
| Res | Date | Promo | Event | Opponent(s) | Stipulation | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | 1991-08-26 | WWE | SummerSlam — Madison Square Garden | Mr. Perfect | Singles — first singles title, submission win | WWF Intercontinental Championship |
| W | 1992-04-05 | WWE | WrestleMania VIII — Indianapolis | Roddy Piper | Singles — Piper's only clean pinfall loss in the WWF | WWF Intercontinental Championship |
| W | 1992-10-12 | WWE | House show — Saskatoon | Ric Flair | Singles — first WWF Championship, untelevised, in Saskatchewan | WWF Championship |
| L | 1994-03-20 | WWE | WrestleMania X — Madison Square Garden | Owen Hart | Singles — the opener; clean loss to his brother | — |
| W | 1994-03-20 | WWE | WrestleMania X — Madison Square Garden | Yokozuna | Singles — second WWF title the same night | WWF Championship |
| L | 1994-11-23 | WWE | Survivor Series — San Antonio | Bob Backlund | Towel match — Owen tricks their mother into throwing it in | WWF Championship |
| W | 1995-11-19 | WWE | Survivor Series — Landover | Diesel | No disqualification — third WWF title | WWF Championship |
| L | 1996-03-31 | WWE | WrestleMania XII — Anaheim | Shawn Michaels | 60-minute Iron Man match, lost in overtime | WWF Championship |
| W | 1996-11-17 | WWE | Survivor Series — Madison Square Garden | Stone Cold Steve Austin | Singles — the comeback match after seven months away | — |
| W | 1997-03-23 | WWE | WrestleMania 13 — Rosemont | Stone Cold Steve Austin | Submission match — Austin passes out; the double turn | — |
| W | 1997-08-03 | WWE | SummerSlam — East Rutherford | The Undertaker | Singles, Shawn Michaels as referee — fifth WWF title | WWF Championship |
| L | 1997-11-09 | WWE | Survivor Series — Montreal | Shawn Michaels | The Montreal Screwjob — bell rung on a finish he never agreed to | WWF Championship |
| W | 1999-11-21 | WCW | WCW Mayhem — Toronto | Chris Benoit | Tournament final — first WCW World Championship | WCW World Heavyweight Championship |
| W | 1999-12-19 | WCW | Starrcade — Washington, D.C. | Goldberg | Singles — the mule kick that caused the concussion that ended the career | WCW World Heavyweight Championship |
| W | 2010-03-28 | WWE | WrestleMania XXVI — Glendale | Vince McMahon | No holds barred — twelve years of Montreal settled with a chair | — |
| No career-defining bouts match this filter. See them in the full record | ||||||
8 of 15 matches shown
Curated ledger · documented highlights · some bouts are not listed
The matches the reputation rests on. WrestleMania 13 carries the official canonisation now; the ratings shown are Wrestling Observer figures as commonly reported rather than re-verified against archives.
vs Stone Cold Steve Austin
Submission match — the double turn; Hall of Fame Immortal Moment, 2025
vs Ten-man tag, Hart Foundation vs. Austin's team
The hottest crowd of the decade, in his hometown
vs British Bulldog
Intercontinental Championship — 80,000 for a brother-in-law feud
vs Owen Hart
The opener — a clean loss that made his brother
Seven world championships across the two companies, and a triple crown in each — the first man to manage both. The WCW World reign endpoints are the one genuinely messy patch in his title history and are stated as a window rather than fake dates.
October 12, 1992, def. Ric Flair in Saskatoon, untelevised · WrestleMania X, def. Yokozuna · Survivor Series 1995, def. Diesel · SummerSlam 1997, def. The Undertaker with Shawn Michaels as referee · final reign ended by the Screwjob, November 9, 1997
Won the tournament final over Chris Benoit at Mayhem in Toronto, November 21, 1999; the reigns were vacated and reawarded around the December Goldberg matches and stripped in January 2000 when the concussion was diagnosed — sources disagree on exact endpoints, so none are published here
Def. Mr. Perfect at SummerSlam, August 26, 1991; def. Roddy Piper at WrestleMania VIII, April 5, 1992 — the reigns that made the belt a main-event incubator
Four reigns across 1998–99, per the championship's own title history — individual endpoints not re-verified in this pass
Two WWF Tag reigns with Jim Neidhart as the Hart Foundation (1987, 1990) and a WCW Tag reign with Goldberg (December 1999); a fourth, with different accounting, appears in some WCW listings and is flagged rather than asserted
One family, twice over — the tag team that named it and the stable that weaponised it.
Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart, with Jimmy Hart managing
The pink-and-black tag team — Bret the technician, Neidhart the anvil. Two WWF Tag Team Championship reigns (1987, 1990), and the platform the singles career launched from. Inducted into the Hall of Fame as a team in 2019.
Bret, Owen Hart, British Bulldog, Jim Neidhart, Brian Pillman
The great heel-in-America, hero-in-Canada experiment: an anti-American family unit that turned every border crossing into a moral inversion. Its peak, the Canadian Stampede ten-man tag in Calgary on July 6, 1997, had maybe the loudest sustained crowd of the decade. Dissolved by Montreal and by Owen's death two years later.
Bret Hart & Goldberg
Tag champions together on December 7, 1999 — twelve days before Goldberg's thrust kick at Starrcade concussed him and started the end of his career. The pairing is remembered entirely for its last two minutes.
No gimmick changes, ever — the same character for 22 years, adjusted only in framing: the tag technician → the Hitman → the anti-American patriot → the wronged man.
Dungeon-trained, second-generation, allergic to flash — the reputation was built entirely on execution, which became the nickname.
Pink and black, mirrored shades handed to a kid at ringside every night, and the era's most trusted in-ring product. WWF Champion five times over while the company shrank around him.
The 1997 masterstroke: the same honest character, reframed — a villain in American buildings and a folk hero everywhere else, often within the same week. The most sophisticated heel run of its decade, cut off by Montreal at its peak.
WCW never figured out what it had signed; the concussion ended the in-ring story in 2000, and the decades since have been an extended cross-examination of everyone involved — in his autobiography, in documentaries, and in interviews that remain quotably unforgiving.
The Dungeon to Montreal, and the long deposition after.
Breaks in for his father Stu's Calgary promotion after amateur credentials at Mount Royal College; WWF absorbs Stampede in 1984.
First WWF Tag Team Championship with Jim Neidhart; a second reign follows in 1990.
Beats Mr. Perfect at SummerSlam on August 26 for the IC title and wins the 1991 King of the Ring tournament.
Beats Ric Flair on October 12, 1992 at an untelevised show — the least glamorous world title win of the decade, which he has always seemed to prefer.
Co-wins the Royal Rumble with Lex Luger on January 22, loses clean to Owen in the WrestleMania X opener on March 20, and beats Yokozuna for the title the same night.
Beats Austin at WrestleMania 13 on March 23 and turns heel by winning; leads the Hart Foundation stable through the year of the border war; loses everything in Montreal on November 9.
Wins the tournament final over Benoit at Mayhem on November 21; the Owen tribute match with Benoit on the October 4 Nitro is the one WCW match of his anyone rewatches. Goldberg's kick lands December 19.
Post-concussion syndrome forces the title's surrender in January and formal retirement on October 26, 2000. A stroke follows in 2002; he rehabilitates through the decade.
Inducted individually; declines to attend WrestleMania the next night, in character to the last.
Shakes Shawn Michaels' hand on the January 4 Raw, then beats Vince McMahon in a no-holds-barred match at WrestleMania XXVI on March 28 — his last match.
Announces the diagnosis and successful surgery publicly, and adds cancer advocacy to his stroke-recovery foundation work.
Accepts the first Immortal Moment induction with Austin on April 18, 2025; gives the SummerSlam-snub interview that August; cancels late-2025 signings citing commitments at home; sits for a Maple Leaf Pro TSN2 interview aired August 2026.
Who he went to war with — in the ring and, uniquely, out of it.
The Iron Man match at WrestleMania XII on March 31, 1996 — sixty scoreless minutes, lost in overtime — then two years of genuine backstage hatred, then Montreal on November 9, 1997: the bell rung on a finish he never agreed to, McMahon's order, Michaels holding the hold. Thirteen years of silence ended on the January 4, 2010 Raw with a handshake both men have called sincere.
Survivor Series 1996 and the WrestleMania 13 submission match — the loss that wasn't a loss, the win that wasn't a win. Hart beat Austin and made him; the double turn is taught as the form's perfect execution, and WWE put the match itself in the Hall of Fame in 2025. The two accepted side by side.
The best brother feud wrestling has produced: Owen's clean win in the WrestleMania X opener on March 20, 1994, the cage match at SummerSlam 1994, and a reconciliation into the 1997 Hart Foundation. Owen's death in May 1999 hangs over everything after; Bret's Nitro tribute match with Chris Benoit that October is his WCW masterpiece.
Employer, betrayer, and finally opponent. Montreal turned a contract dispute into wrestling's most litigated real event — documented live in the film Wrestling with Shadows — and the no-holds-barred win over McMahon at WrestleMania XXVI on March 28, 2010 was less a match than a public settlement.
Twelve days after they won tag titles together, Goldberg's mule kick at Starrcade on December 19, 1999 concussed him; Hart won the match and lost the career. He has spent decades naming the kick as the end of him — Goldberg has apologised; the interviews suggest the ledger remains open.
The most documented grievance in wrestling, much of it in his own hand.
The documentary crew that happened to be embedded during Montreal — the Screwjob's primary source, including the locker-room aftermath.
The autobiography, built from decades of audio diaries — widely considered the best wrestling memoir written.
Raw guest-host runs, the McMahon match, and a brief on-screen general manager stint — the reconciliation era.
Stroke-recovery work through his foundation after the 2002 stroke, and prostate cancer awareness after his 2016 surgery.
The August 2025 Slam Wrestling sit-down (the SummerSlam seat that never materialised) and the August 2026 Maple Leaf Pro TSN2 segment praising young Canadian wrestlers — still candid, still keeping score.
The records and the singular facts.
October 12, 1992 to November 9, 1997 — the spine of the company's mid-1990s. Only the Screwjob took the last one.
World, Intercontinental and tag titles in the WWF; World, United States and tag titles in WCW — the first man to complete both companies' sets.
June 13, 1993, three tournament matches in one night, after already winning the 1991 tournament edition.
January 22, 1994, with Lex Luger — the only tie in Rumble history, both men's feet ruled to have touched simultaneously.
2006 individually; 2019 with the Hart Foundation; April 18, 2025 as half of the first Immortal Moment, the WrestleMania 13 submission match, accepted on stage with Steve Austin.
Montreal, November 9, 1997 — no major world championship has changed hands against a champion's will on a live broadcast since.
No career win-loss total is published; none is reliably sourced. The WCW World reign endpoints and the exact count of his WCW tag accounting vary by source and are flagged in the titles table rather than smoothed over. A skin-cancer report from recent years was not verified with a dated source in this pass and is deliberately not repeated here.
Follow, connect and verify.
At Survivor Series on November 9, 1997, Bret Hart — WWF Champion, signed to WCW, and having exercised contractual creative control to decline losing in Canada — was double-crossed on live pay-per-view: Vince McMahon ordered the bell rung while Shawn Michaels held Hart in Hart’s own Sharpshooter, though Hart had not submitted and no such finish was agreed. Hart spat on McMahon from the ring and punched him backstage; the documentary Wrestling with Shadows captured the night. It remains the last time a major world title changed hands off-script.
Seven — five WWF Championships (first won from Ric Flair in Saskatoon on October 12, 1992; the others at WrestleMania X, Survivor Series 1995 and SummerSlam 1997, with the last reign ended by the Screwjob) and two WCW World Heavyweight Championships, the first won in a tournament final over Chris Benoit at Mayhem on November 21, 1999. The WCW reigns’ exact endpoints are genuinely murky — vacated, reawarded and finally stripped in January 2000 when his concussion was diagnosed.
A thrust kick from Goldberg at Starrcade on December 19, 1999 gave him a severe concussion — in a match Hart actually won. He wrestled on into January 2000 as post-concussion syndrome worsened, was stripped of the WCW title that month, and formally retired on October 26, 2000. A stroke from a 2002 bicycle accident compounded the damage; he recovered most of his mobility and has spent the years since doing stroke-recovery and cancer advocacy. So the kick ended the career, but not on the night — the ending took ten months to become official.
Living in Calgary at 69, retired for a quarter century and busier as a voice than a presence: he accepted the WrestleMania 13 match’s Hall of Fame induction with Steve Austin in April 2025, gave a candid August 2025 interview about WWE inviting him to SummerSlam and failing to seat him, cancelled a run of late-2025 US signings citing commitments at home, and sat for a Maple Leaf Pro interview aired on TSN2 in August 2026, praising young Canadian talent. He beat prostate cancer in 2016 and does not perform physically in any capacity.
Yes — that is the double turn. He beat Steve Austin legitimately by the match’s rules on March 23, 1997, when Austin passed out in the Sharpshooter rather than submit, but Hart’s refusal to release the hold and his post-match attack flipped the crowd: Austin left the hero, Hart left the villain. It is the cleanest example of both wrestlers swapping alignments inside one match, and WWE inducted the match itself into the Hall of Fame in 2025.