Bret Hart Says Roddy Piper Brought the Best Out Of Him, Recalls Planning WrestleMania 8 Match

Bret Hart credits the late, great Roddy Piper as the opponent who brought out the rest of them, looking back at their WrestleMania VIII match. Hart and Piper locked up for the WWE Intercontinental Championship at the 1992 iteration of WrestleMania. It was a match that saw Hart regain the title after having lost it to The Mountie. Hart looked back at the match when asked which opponent made him his best at a Q&A with the Johnny I Pro Show.

Hart recalled what it was like planning the match with Piper, something he was nervous about, and more. You can see the highlights below:

On Which Opponent Brought Out the Best In Him:

“I would say Roddy Piper, maybe. You know, I watch a lot of my matches back and you know, like I take credit for all my matches. Almost every — like, Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13, that’s 95% Bret Hart, 5% Steve Austin. Iron Man match, Shawn Michaels. That’s 90% Bret Hart, 10% Shawn Michaels. It’s mostly me sitting down with Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin. Both, me sitting down and saying, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ And then mostly nodding at me, going, ‘Okay, all right, Then what? Then what? Then what am I doing?’ And then and I just lay out the whole match to these guys most of the time.

“But with Roddy Piper — I remember I found out I was wrestling Roddy. I was kind of like, ‘Well, me and Roddy are friends, right?’ Like — I you know, I wasn’t really sure because he was off. I couldn’t connect with him. I’d see him at TV tapings. He was only kind of coming down for the TV shows, and he wasn’t on the road or anything. So I saw him, and it was all very sudden. I lost the belt to The Mountie and did that whole angle. And then when Roddy got it, I almost kind of felt like I got swerved. Like, ‘Oh this was all set. They promised me the belt and now they put it on Roddy.’ And Roddy told me that, you know, he’s dropping a belt back to me.”

On Worrying About Planning the Match Out:

“But anyway Roddy, that was the match where I put a lot of thought into it. And I thought, ‘This is how the match should go.’ And then it’s like well, what’s going to happen when I sit down with Roddy and he goes, ‘I want to do this.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I want to do this.’ And I thought, ‘I’ve got the perfect match in my head.’ And and of course, I would have to do what Roddy [wanted]. Roddy was more my senior at that time.

On Talking About the Match With Piper:

“And I remember he started said, ‘You tell me what you want to do.’ And he started telling me the match, and we he laid out the whole match about like — let me put it this way. Roddy had the exact same match that I did. Not necessarily the moves, but the the the story. We could put the moves in after. And I remember he laid out the whole match and how he thought it should go.

On The Finish:

“The finish is — the ending of the Roddy Piper match is Roddy’s ending. I remember he said — he watched that finish at a match somewhere, and he goes ‘That’s how I want to have my last match in my career, or something.’ It was a really special ending that he had found or seen done or done somewhere, but that was how he wanted to go out. He goes, ‘I want you to do the [spot]’ where I push off with the sleeper and fall back on him and all that and roll over and pin him and one, two, three.’

“And I was like, ‘Great. I love it. This is the exact same match.’ That’s the thing I was going to say, is that Roddy laid out for me basically the same framework of the match that I had in my mind. And when Roddy started talking to me, it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s like such a relief.’ Because it’s like we’re on the same page. Roddy knew how to make a hero.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Johnny I Pro Show with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.