Hart v. Hart

Hey Scott–

I’m browsing through old Observers (because what else to do on this
shattered hellscape of a planet?) and there’s a quote from Dave
post-WrestleMania X that I never gave much thought to before:

“The Hart-Hart match, with Owen scoring the surprise clean win to
elevate him into the upper echelon, appeared when it was over to be a
strong match-of-the-year candidate and was a tad better than the
legendary Rick Steamboat-Randy Savage WrestleMania III match”

Is this 1994 Dave reacting in the moment, or do you think the opinion
has some validity? Through most of my fandom, Savage/Steamboat was
always the WM gold standard (at least until we get to the TLC, ‘Mania
X-7 era) and here’s Dave not only saying Owen v. Bret was better, but
the Michaels/Razor match on the same show was better than that.

Where do you think Owen and Bret fall in the history of WrestleMania matches?

I know Dave wasn’t the biggest fan of Savage-Steamboat, actually. I think the problem with Bret-Owen was that it got overshadowed on the SAME SHOW despite being one of the greatest matches of all time. And yeah, I’d say it’s better than Savage-Steamboat.