Maple Leaf Gardens House Show: Mr. Perfect vs. Bret Hart
Date: April 23, 1989
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=todtDjC6BcM
Background: None really. Bret was still a tag team wrestler in the Hart Foundation at this point and wasn't a singles star (that wouldn't come until two years later).
The Match: Gorilla Monsoon and Lord Alfred Hayes on the call.
Bret strikes the first blow, hitting Perfect with a pretty violent hiptoss on Perfect early on. Perfect looks at him, perturbed. Gorilla says, "Perfect seems a little surprised. I don't know why. You're not in there with Barry Horowitz." Well that was a drive-by on poor Barry. Perfect regroups, and as he sends Bret off the ropes he seems to miss with a drop toehold. Bret mocks him. I honestly don't know if that was a botch or not. If it was, bravo for Bret for convincing me that maybe it wasn't. If it wasn't, it was a cool planned spot.
Painful-looking spot occurs when Bret clotheslines Perfect over the top to the outside, but the ramp here at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto was up at ring level, so there was no drop to the ground and Perfect appeared to hit his head sort of unexpectedly on a hard surface. Perfect plays with the crowd a little as he circles the ring; I think he legit needed a bit of a breather here to recover from that bump. I went back and reviewed the spot and actually it seemed like he successfully caught himself and cushioned the blow, but the three-minute delay that happens before he returns to the ring seems legit. Who knows.
Perfect finally gets control for the first time when he gets pushed into the corner, the ref breaks the two up, and Perfect takes a cheap shot and hits Bret in the face as Bret is getting backed up. He follows with the patented knee-lift and now the match momentum has switched. Bret rolls to the outside, and as he tries to get back in, Perfect makes like he's going to catapult Bret back into the ring and instead propels him back into the steel barricade.
Perfect sends Bret to the outside on the ramp level and then follows him out and slams his head on the ramp. Is that a deliberate call-back to the earlier spot where Perfect hit his head there? Perhaps. I'm going to choose to believe that it is because that's awesome if so.
Back in the ring, Perfect applies a spinning toehold, but Bret kicks him into the corner and Perfect ends up lunging shoulder-first into the post. Bret instantly capitalizes by holding Perfect's hurt shoulder back and slamming it hard into the buckle, and then executing a bodyslam with the arm pulled back so that Perfect lands first on the hurt shoulder. He then transitions into an armbar on that arm. Very nice psychology.
Bret attempts to jump on Perfect's back horizontally and execute a crucifix pinning combo, but Perfect reverses into a Samoan drop.
He proceeds from there to drop the headbutt into the lower abdominal area. Perfect sends him into the ropes, attempts to apply the abdominal stretch on the way back, Bret reverses, the two struggle and then Bret locks in the stretch himself. Perfect quickly reverses into a hiptoss.
Perfect quickly runs Bret into the ropes and rolls him up for a pinning combo, but Bret powers out and kicks Hennig out of the ring. He follows him out with a pescado to the floor, sends him back in, nice suplex, near-fall, elbow off the second rope, and…the bell rings. The match is declared a time limit draw.
As a Mr. Perfect mark: seriously? Even when Bret was a tag team wrestler and Perfect was on an undefeated streak, he couldn't just pin Bret? This brings me back to my childhood grudge against Bret, where it pissed me off that Bret got the better of Perfect on two different PPVs and Perfect never got to beat him. I was a Hart Foundation mark, but as a Mr. Perfect mark that always stuck in my craw and it took a long time for me to accept Bret as a singles star that I actually liked.
There's a post-match sequence here where Bret takes a mic and challenges Perfect to 5 more minutes. Perfect refuses, pretends to walk away, and then runs back into the ring and ambushes Bret. Bret eventually fights him off and Perfect leaves the ring and exits up the ramp. Alright, whatever.
Result: Time limit draw (20:00)
Rating: This wasn't on the level of their 1991 or 1993 classics, but it was still quite good. Seriously though, just let Mr. Perfect go over here. Fix that part of my childhood.
3.25 stars out of 5.