Bret Hart is considered to be the best technical wrestler of all time and one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of wrestling. The former WWE and WCW Champion is one of Canada’s favourite sons, and Bret Hart gave it his all whether it was his first match or his last match.
Bret Hart’s last match in wrestling put an end to one of the greatest yet most tragic careers in wrestling history. With the highs of winning the WWE Championship and facing his brother Owen Hart at Wrestlemania, to being forced to retire by Goldberg and seeing his brother fall to his death live on pay per view, Bret Hart’s career was one of the most eclectic of all time.
In this article, we’ll take you through Bret Hart’s last ever match, and looking at what caused the ending of one of the best wrestlers of all times career.
Bret Hart’s last match
Bret Hart’s last match was in a tag team match, tagging with John Cena to take on Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez on Monday Night Raw. The match, on the 12th September 2011 edition of Monday Night Raw, came to be because Bret Hart felt Alberto Del Rio was disrespecting the WWE Championship, a title belt he had spent his life trying to win.
This led to John Cena continuing his feud with then-WWE Champion Alberto Del Rio by coming to Hart’s aid and setting up the tag team match that night – Bret Hart and John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez.
Bret Hart’s last match featured very little action from Bret Hart. Due to his retirement years ago he wasn’t permitted to do much in the ring. John Cena did the bulk of the work, before tagging in Bret Hart at the end of the match to lock in his famous Sharpshooter finishing move to force Ricardo Rodriguez to tap out and win his last match for his team.
However, while Bret Hart’s match teaming with John Cena was his last ever match, he had actually retired 10 years earlier as a full-time competitor. In his return to WWE in 2010, he was not allowed the wrestler properly, or take any kinds of bumps. That explains his limited involvement in his matches against Vince McMahon, or his part in the WWE vs Nexus match at Summerslam 2010.
He was forced to retire due to a huge concussion he suffered in a match against Goldberg in WCW. In their huge main event match at Starrcade 1999, Goldberg ruined a fantastic match by launching a huge kick into the head of Bret Hart. This caused a concussion for the former WWE Champion that would ultimately force him to retire as a wrestler and cost him nearly $10 million of his guaranteed WCW contract.
However, Bret Hart vs Goldberg was not Bret Hart’s last match in WWE. Bret Hart wrestled Goldberg the next night on WCW Nitro for the vacant WCW Championship, the proceeded to wrestle another EIGHT matches for the promotion before he was forced to retire from wrestling. This included matches against Chris Benoit, Ric Flair and even a hardcore match against Terry Funk.
Bret Hart’s last match in WCW came against Kevin Nash in a match on WCW Monday Nitro for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Bret Hart was still the reigning WCW Championship nearly a month after his concussion against Goldberg, and that fact makes every bump in this match hard to watch.
He even takes a brutal chair shot the skull, thanks to an interference from Sid Vicious. Bret Hart doesn’t even wear his classic pink and black ring gear for his last match as a full time wrestler – instead he wears street clothes and an NWO shirt (he was part of the New World Order at this point).
In classic WCW nonsense fashion, the match ended in a No-Contest. Bret Hart was forced to vacate the WCW World Heavyweight championship three days after his last match, after doctors told him that his career was over due to severe concussions. As the leader of the NWO, all his storylines were immediately dropped and he was removed from the main event of WCW Souled Out 2000 that Sunday.
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