All Elite Wrestling‘s FTR are not shy about sharing and admiration for the career of Bret Hart.
Current AAA World Tag Team Champions FTR were the most recent guests on Casual Conversations with The Classic to discuss various subjects. When talking about their love for WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart, the tag team detailed the differences for them when it comes to Hart and arguably his biggest rival, Shawn Michaels.
“Well, I think Shawn had a longer career, especially on top. So his work gets seen more, it gets looked at more,” Dax Harwood said. “But to capsulize everything about Bret Hart is just — Bret and his work is timeless. You can watch it in 1950, and you can watch it in 2021, and it always resonates. You can’t say the same thing about Shawn. Bret, to me, there were so many guys that were moreover than Bret. I understand that Stone Cold and The Rock and Hogan and even maybe Savage, there were more guys that were over than Bret. But there was never, and there never will be; I don’t think anybody over like Bret. He made people cry. He made them feel a certain way, and I don’t even know why. He still makes me feel a certain way. His work and the way he spoke to you and how he was just — everything was believable. And then you knew he wasn’t lying to you. And he made me feel a certain way.
“His matches are — for a period of time people were saying, ‘Oh my gosh, his matches are boring. They’re slow.’ But now they’ve come around, and they’re like, ‘Holy shit.’ His matches are the greatest matches of all time because there’s thought that goes into it: everything, every single movement. There’s thought that has gone into it, why it’s happening. You know why he’s doing it. I will sit back with my wife, and I’ll watch a Bret Hart match. And sometimes a Bobby Eaton match too, but I’ll watch a Bret Hart match,” Harwood explained, “and I just shake my head, and she’s like, ‘What’s wrong or was that bad or something?’ I’m saying no, I just can’t understand — it even pisses me off a little bit, but I can’t understand why he’s so good and how he’s so good.”
“That’s the best though, I love when I watch somebody that I respect, and I just have to shake my head and like, how do they do that? How are they so good. I love that,” Cash Wheeler chimed in.
“And you know, maybe Shawn does have more of an impact on modern wrestling today. But I watch modern wrestling today, and I see their punches are shit. I see their kicks are shit,” Dax Harwood said. “I see their side headlocks and their lockups and their holds are shit. I see them do backflips off the top rope, and that’s amazing. You know what I mean? But there’s a lot of times I see the in-between stuff that sucks the people in, look like shit. They can wow the audience, and then that one time they snatch a side headlock, or rear chin lock is so lazy, they give them a punch, and it’s off by three feet.”
“I’m gonna say this. The idea of Shawn’s style had more of an influence, but the execution of it did not,” Cash Wheeler said. “Shawn was very good at his style. But like, everything he did in between, like he had good transitional stuff, too. He didn’t slack in between. But people just noticed the flashy stuff that he did. And they would try to mimic the flashy stuff and not caring about the stuff that goes with it. I think the idea of his style may be influenced more but if you look at an execution now is not the same as the way he did.”
READ MORE: The Briscoes To FTR: We’re Done Talking, ‘Pull Up’ And Fight Us; Dax Harwood Responds
What do you make of FTR’s comments? Do you agree with what they say about Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
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