Diesel vs Bret Hart (WWF, 11-19-1995)

WWF Survivor Series, Landover, MD

This is for Diesel’s WWF championship. It’s a year after Bret Hart lost it to Bob Backlund, after which Diesel smoked Backlund in record time. These two had also met a couple of times in very good matches already, with Hart proving more than capable of getting something better than average out of Diesel.

The hype coming in here is that Hart wants to push it past the 15-20 minute mark, where he feels Diesel and other big guys slow down and he can take over. Diesel wants to finish it early, admits that, admits that he doesn’t punch a clock and get paid by the hour. It was good promo work from both guys to set this match up.

This is also no DQ, no countout, so immediately, Diesel takes a turnbuckle pad off in his corner, and Hart, seeing this, does the same in his corner. Well, Hart takes a minute. His was tougher to get off. But he gets it off. Just like he gets me off. Not like that. Probably.

They lock up and Bret drives Diesel to the corner, but Diesel clubs down with forearms over the back and turns it around. Elbow to the jaw, knee to the breadbasket, another knee downstairs. Diesel tosses Bret back into the corner and lands another knee, then a couple right hands. Hart tries to get out, Diesel throws him back again. Another right hand, and another. And another. Hart again tries to get free, Diesel again just chucks him back, lands another shot, and Bret goes out to the floor to get some space. Diesel takes a moment and then follows him out toward the entrance aisle.

Diesel with a shot to the back, then a snake eyes on the guardrail. Diesel tosses Bret back into the ring after another moment, and slowly makes his way back up to the apron, steps over the top rope with massive dick energy, and Hart rolls back out. He’s making Diesel chase him around if nothing else, but Diesel is trying to do it as methodically as possible, too.

Diesel with a boot choke on the floor. Nothing anyone can do about any of it, but Earl Hebner gives him guff anyway, because referees never truly understand these sort of stipulations.

Back into the ring, Hart struggling to get out of the gates. Hart goes to the leg, but then they trade shots and Diesel wins the slugfest easily. Hart out to the floor, Diesel follows and catches him trying to get back inside. Hart sent careening into the steps as Mr. Perfect theorizes that Hart is trying to burn out Diesel’s power early, to weather the storm.

Hart gets his back smashed into the ring post. Mr. Perfect is kinda changing his tune already, this is just too consistent an attack. Diesel gets a chair and whacks Hart in the back. Hart chaired Diesel at the Royal Rumble, so that’s a little payback. Diesel hovering over Hart, picks him up and throws him back into the ring.

Hart whipped hard to the corner, hits and falls out. Diesel with a short-arm lariat. Diesel calls for the finish, mostly to boos. He was still officially a babyface here, but the crowd had largely grown tired of his act after a year on top, and still preferred Hart for the most part.

Diesel goes for the jackknife, but Hart fights and won’t go up. Diesel hammers down on the back and tries it again, but Hart elbows free and bites and twists the arm. Fuck it, gotta do something. Hart biting the head! Eye rake! Hart jumps on Diesel’s back with a sleephold, actually a choke and some clawing at the eye.

Hart targeting Diesel’s knee now, trying to chop the big man down. Hart trips Diesel down and drops an elbow into the knee. Hart snaps the leg over. Hart places the ankle over the bottom rope and drives his ass down into Diesel’s knee, then repeats that move. Hart gets the legs, and locks on a figure four, something he often used to set up the sharpshooter later. JR reminds us that Hart used the figure four three times in their Rumble match in January, but Diesel always got out.

This time, Diesel’s in the center of the ring, and a rope break won’t even break anything, he has to get out some other way. Actually, never mind, they decide that although this is no DQ, a rope break still is a rope break. Mr. Perfect basically brings up how illogical that is, and Jim Ross is, like, “Uh, tough spot for the referee.” Vince is fine with it because Vince thinks we’re all so fucking stupid that it doesn’t matter at all, which in a way is correct.

Bret goes for the sharpshooter, but Diesel thumbs him in the eye. Bret tries it again, Diesel kicks him to the corner and Hart smacks his ear on the exposed turnbuckle. Big break for Diesel. Diesel up and limping, but hammers Bret down again. Hart slips out, then gabs Diesel’s foot and drags him down, wrapping his knee around the post. He does it a second time.

Now Bret’s tying some cable around the ring post. He goes back in and drops an elbow on the knee, and he’s trying to tie Diesel’s foot to the post. Again Bret is having trouble with simple knots.

Diesel turns him over and smacks his calf down over Hart’s face, but his ankle is tied to the post. When he gets up, he can’t escape, and Bret drives an elbow down over the back of his head. Hart goes outside and gets a chair, with Diesel still stuck in the corner, trying to get up. Diesel tries to get a foot up to kick a charging Bret, but he legitimately trips himself up a bit and Hart has to stop short, waiting for a second attempt to land.

Hart gets up first, though, and gets the chair, whacking Diesel across the back, then driving it down into the knee three times. This is the vicious side of Bret Hart, as Mr. Perfect notes, something he always had in him but didn’t always show.

Hart with a side backbreaker. He did a good job on that cable knot, at least. Diesel’s still tied up. Hart rolls out with the chair, then climbs up to the top rope. Diesel trying to get up, and he makes it in time to punch Hart in the gut and crotch him. Diesel up and he HURLS Bret off the top rope across the ring, and finally gets a chance to try and untie himself. He struggles with it, too, but gets it off just before Hart drives him into the corner.

Diesel uses the cable and chokes Hart, though. Diesel, limping badly, powers Hart up for a side slam for two. Hart whipped chest-first into the corner, one of the two with no top turnbuckle pad. “That should do it! Bret Hart should give up!” Calm down, Vince.

Diesel on the advantage. He scoops Hart up to his shoulder and hits snake eyes, but doesn’t use one of the two exposed corners, which Vince notes. But it makes enough sense. It was the corner Diesel was facing, and didn’t force him to turn and walk any further on a bad knee while carrying Bret’s 234 pounds.

Hart trying to block another scoop to the shoulder, but Diesel gets him up. He goes for snake eyes in an exposed corner, but Bret slides down and Diesel’s head hits the steel. Diesel down to his knees, Hart unloads with right hands. Hart with a running clothesline off the ropes, his half of the old Hart Attack, and he gets two.

Hart to the second rope, and he hits a bulldog. Cover for two again. Russian legsweep. He fancily rolls back for another two count. Diesel gets up, but Hart clotheslines him over the top to the floor. Hart tries to slingshot out onto him, but Diesel moves and Hart tumbles to the floor, crashing hard.

Diesel rolls back in, trying to recover as much as possible, with Hart out on the floor. Bret finally gets up and makes his way to the apron, but Diesel shoves him off and Bret VIOLENTLY crashes through the Spanish commentary table, which in these days was an actual table, not some weird custom IKEA desk. And none of the monitors or equipment were moved there, either. The poor Spanish commentary guys keep trying to call the match, bless them. They had no idea yet that this was about to be their life for the next decade or so.

Diesel throws Hart back into the ring, but with the bad leg he’s slow to follow him back inside. He gets back in and calls for the finish again. The cheers lead, but the boos overwhelm after a moment. Diesel sets the dead Hart for the jackknife, but Bret crumples to the canvas. Diesel looks him over and sexily brushes his hair back. Diesel picks Hart up, Hart gets an inside cradle, 1, 2, 3! Bret Hart is WWF champion again and Diesel shouts “motherfucker.”

Diesel gets up, shoves Hebner on his ass, and jackknifes Hart. More referees run in and Diesel takes them all down. Another jackknife for Hart! Diesel shaking with adrenaline and takes the belt from Hebner, tosses it down by Hart, and stands over him with his fist raised. Diesel: “I’m back!”

Diesel still slaps hands with the people who want to slap his hand as he makes his way to the back.

Bret on the finish and immediate aftermath, from his book:

Diesel furiously bumped down the ref and gave me not one, but two, very sloppy and painful jackknife power bombs that knocked all the wind out of me. Referees hit the ring like Keystone Kops, and Diesel left them lying on the mat. In an unscripted moment, he stood over top of me, dropped the World belt across my chest, glared down and snarled, “Don’t forget who did you the fuckin’ favor.” This was the same guy who, two years earlier, did nothing but suck up to me.

Then he bitches that on RAW the next night, the Shawn Michaels-Owen Hart injury angle overshadowed him being champion again.

Rating: 4.5/5. This is my pick for the best match of Kevin Nash’s career, and it’s one of Hart’s best performances, too. They complemented each other very nicely, with Bret’s speed and technical prowess against the size and brute power of Diesel. It’s a very physical match — Bret called it “brutally physical” — and works exactly as you’d design it to. And Nash deserves credit for that, too. He really goes hard in this one, which he didn’t always do, but he was generally up for big matches with Bret, who was really his best opponent, not Shawn Michaels. 1995 was at best a mixed bag in the WWF, but this and the excellent Bret-Davey Boy match at the December In Your House show ended the year nicely for the WWF title, at least.

Note: In late 2022, I gave this match another pass and bumped it to a full 5.