There are many firsts in the world of sports, and not many people get the rare distinction of being the first of their kind in their chosen profession, one they've spent a lifetime perfecting and cultivating. Many people can say they had the best era, or the most hits in a single season, or even the most WrestleMania wins, but not everyone gets to be the first of something.

On Friday, April 18th, ahead of WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, Bret "The Hitman" Hart will become the first three-time as his "I Quit' match with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin from WrestleMania 13 becomes the inaugural "Immortal Moment" Award recipient. The Hitman spoke with ScreenRant ahead of his third induction to talk about the match and its meaning to him and professional wrestling.

Bret Hart Calls His WrestleMania 13 Match His Favorite

"To Me, It's Like A Rembrandt. It's Perfect."

1997 was a tumultuous time for WWE, and the landscape of professional wrestling was changing by the day. The match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13 may have initially felt like just another match, but because of its intensity, technical perfection, and storytelling, it quickly became not just one of the best matches of its time, but it is universally recognized as the starting point for the Attitude Era, the Era that ultimately changed the face of the industry forever.

When asked about the significance of WWE choosing this match as the inaugural "Immortal Moment" match, Hart highlighted that the match is not just significant to him but to the industry as a whole.

I love the idea, and I appreciate how many other people might be considered for something like this. But for me, I've always believed, and I'm very proud of my career and proud of a lot of the great matches I had throughout my career. But I've always felt from probably the night that I had this match that it was the best match I ever had, for sure. And I had a lot of great matches, but I just always felt something special about this match and what it did and what it delivered and what the ramifications of the match and how far Steve Austin's career went and how much of a difference it made maybe for his career. I think Steve has always been a great wrestler, whether he had that match or not. But I think that match launched and just made it so much easier for him. It was just such a great story. When I look at that match, I look at the execution and the match, the moves, and what led from one little step to the next thing to the next thing. When I watch it back, I would never change one single bit of that match. To me, it's like a Rembrandt. It's perfect. I'm proud that everyone chose that as the first one to be entered into something like this, into the [WWE] Hall of Fame. But I personally have always felt that it was my finest hour, too. So I'm proud on all kinds of different levels.

Hart said that he and Austin had a fantastic match at the previous year's Survivor Series and weren't sure what they could do to top that match. He its that, while the "I Quit" stipulation may have looked good on paper, he and Austin felt like it was going to limit them and their ability to put on a great performance.

Steve and I had fought at Survivor Series just a few months before this, and that was a great match. It stands out as one of my finest matches, too. But when I look back to that time and reflect on it, I go, 'We did everything we could think of. We threw everything but the kitchen sink into that match', and it was a great match, and when it was over, it was like, I don't know what we'll do in the next one. It's funny because I don't know that either one of us thought we'd be wrestling against each other so soon after that one. I when that match happened, it was like, I thought I'll maybe come back and wrestle Steve sometime, maybe next Summer Slam or next year. It's going to be a while before we wrestle each other again. And one thing led to another, and we all of a sudden were wrestling at WrestleMania. And it's like the concept of the match, the I quit part, might sound great on paper, and it might sound good to Vince McMahon or whoever thought of it, it came up with the idea of that.

But the reality of it is that it does put restrictions on having a great match. We can't use pinfalls. There's no false finishes, no one, two, all the shoulders up. None of those. Cancel all those for the rest for the whole match. So when I look back in that time, I not putting a lot of... I really didn't have any fresh ideas for that match. And I being dragging my feet thinking like, this is going to be... Why did they make it an I quit match? It's restricting us, and it's going to confine us to having a better match. And I think because of that, it forced us as professionals to dig a little deeper and try to think of how we could somehow tell a story without pinfalls. And I think that's where it became special, is that we really created some new stuff, like new ideas, new... I when Steve and I talked that day, I named off all the submission holes I could think of. I named like, the Boston Crab, the Figure Four, the Sharpshooter. I didn't name that many, but I named everyone I could think of, from bear hugs to headlocks. I going, 'What do you got for submission holds?' And [Steve] was like, it was a blank. I think he had one move from the tree stump, which he put on me, which was a super painful hold. But again, we were faced with all these limitations to not having [a great match]. When we started out that day, we didn't think it was going to be anything special, and I think it forced us to really dig deeper and try to find something more in the story that we could make it special. We had great chemistry, and we liked working with each other, always had a lot of respect for each other.

The Story Is What Sets This Match Apart

"I Making The Analogy Of A School Fight I'd Watched As A Kid"

The story of Bret Hart and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was one of twists and turns, but what made the story unique was the change in fan between the two. Hart, the baby face and arguably the face of the company for many years, suddenly found himself as the heel, where Austin, a classic heel, found himself becoming the hero.

When I think about it, I think I saying the way I see it, this is more like a school fight. And I making the analogy of a school fight I'd watched as a kid, where the baby face in my school, or the guy that was popular and was considered the guy to beat in school. He was the man thing. And then there was another kid that was the new guy that just came to school, and you could see these two personalities were going to be drawn together, and there was going to be a school fight between the two of them eventually. And I the kid that lost the fight was the heel, and the baby face ultimately won that fight. But the very next day at school, the kid that lost was the one that was the most popular. And everyone drew to him because he put up such a good fight. And the kid that won the fight, that didn't even pick the fight, that really just defended his position, was shunned for a little while. And I going, there's something in that story. There's a real story behind it, and I applied that thinking to the whole match, that if we can do things, and if you beat somebody in a heroic way that you can switch positions.

Hart said the true beginnings of his heel turn came from an unshakable feeling of being wronged, a theme he'd carry through the remainder of his WWE career. Hart sums up the groundswell of for Austin with a simple calculus: People were ready for something different, and Austin represented that difference.

I that morning, Steve was one of the only guys, maybe the only guy that was aware of the fact that they were going to turn me heel the very next night on Monday Night Raw. If you look back at the storyline, the way it was evolving and how Steve cheated me at the Royal Rumble and it cost me the title against [Sycho] Sid. There was like one... I kept getting screwed over and screwed over. And anyone that was watching would know that I had every right to be pissed off. There was this idea of me being right, my thinking. And I had every reason to really want to dish it out to Steve Austin and really punish him for what he's done to me for the last couple of months. I'd already beat him at Survivor Series. It was so many things. Then the way the story showed up right then and there. Steve was playing it so well. He was becoming an anti-hero anyway, where people started to really like his schtick and his work and the way he talked and his confidence.

I'd been around for six years as the top guy. And you can always tell when that tree is going to fall down. It's like they were dying for a chance to ditch me and be in love with some Steve Austin thing. And we just played on that so perfectly, all of us. And the storyline I know that it was taboo in those days to have blood in a match. It was totally against the rules. And I'm sure that if we asked, double-check with anybody to see if that was okay to go that route, I'm sure they would have said, No, don't do that. That would have been a shame because it wouldn't have been as good. There's so many things in that match where you'd think, if you were a fan of mine, you go, What an injustice. When he kicked me in the groin, it was such a cheap shot and beautiful cheap shot. When I watched that back, I always thought, Oh, is that? It didn't hurt. He kicked me more in the seat of the pants. But it was so well done. And at the same time, it's like, I got to kill him now. I really got to kill this guy now. There were so many reasons for me to keep wanting to up the ante, including the chair shot he gave me. He gave me a chair shot across the back that I can still feel today.

As much as Hart was ready to make the heel transition, Austin was hesitant to be a baby face simply because he was comfortable being the heel, and wasn't prepared for all the , but the crowd couldn't be convinced otherwise.

There was so many reasons for me to do what I did. And at the same time, all those things meant nothing. It didn't matter that he hit me with a chair. It didn't matter that he kicked me right in the groin. It was like, 'That's all okay because that's Steve Austin.' And so at the end, when I go back to dish it out and kick his leg a couple of and then [Ken] Shamrock threw me to the ground and all that, you could feel the heat turned on me. To plan that out, which we did, it was all thought over and talked through. But it's something I'm really proud of because it was an ability - I think I've always had to understand just the right measures to take all the way through to tell this story so that at the end, I'm the bad guy, and they're going to love you. I know Steve had told me that night that he knew that he could feel that he was turning into a baby face, and that they were probably going to turn him baby face sometime in the near future, but he wanted to prolong that as long as he could. He wanted to be a bad guy for as long as he could, because that was just what he was more comfortable with. And I think that match sped that up a little bit. It happened for him much quicker.

The Iconic Blood Spot Wasn't Approved Beforehand

"We Had To Work Everybody, Including The Guys In The Dressing Room"

One of the most iconic images of both the Attitude Era and WWE is the image of Steve Austin in Bret Hart's Sharpshooter, screaming in agony with blood pouring from the front of his forehead as Ken Shamrock asks him over and over whether he was going to say "I Quit." Most fans at the time chalked it up to an accidental cut from an earlier spot, but Hart its that he and Austin were in the work the whole time, as blood was frowned upon in that era of WWE.

When you, let's just say, for example, you get busted open in a match for real or somebody punches in, bust your eye open or something where you're bleeding. When you come back to the dress room, it's a pretty heated exchange between you and the guy that did it, especially when they're not supposed to happen. So when we had to pretend, we came back to address them that there was some friction there. And I we started to like, What the hell are you doing? And we had this little altercation in the back. I Chief Jay Strongbow grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from Steve so that we didn't get into a fight. And it was all for show, just so that we didn't get in trouble. But we had to work everybody, including the guys in the dressing room. And I think it just speaks to the testimony of two professionals that really gave their all.

Hart says that the match gives the perfect visuals of being a hard-hitting match with the level of intensity and violence that was required to show and prove, but that for him and Austin, it was just another day at the office with no injuries (minus the forehead cut).

The thing I love about that match the most is that no animals were harmed in the making of that movie. I know when I came back to the dressing room, I wasn't so beat up like I usually am, even though I took a lot of hard falls. Like I said, took a chair shot. When he threw me into those hockey boards, the penalty box, whatever, I'm going to tell you, that hurt a lot. I just splatted against those boards. And I can appreciate every hockey player that ever got knocked into the boards because there's no give in those boards. Steve taking a backdrop on the cement stairs. We were putting a lot on the line and putting a lot of risk. Those are the things that when you do them, you might not get up. You could call a match right there. Those are serious, I would call them offerings to each other. Things are, I'll give you this, you do that for me. We try to build each other and make each other."

"Like I said, it's always been one of my favorite matches because I know I took some hard falls, but I could walk around after and it's like, jeez. I almost could have gone in for another match. It could have been like the King of the Ring where I wrestled and wrestled again. I know I think I could probably say the same for Steve. In a lot of ways, it was a really easy match. It was fun to do. It was easy to do. We just delivered great workmanship. I know when I had the Iron Man match, for example, I was beat up for probably at least six weeks where I could hardly move my body and get out of bed. Everything hurt for quite a few weeks, and it's probably the same for Shawn [Michaels] at that time. And in certain matches, you take some hard falls. If you're getting choked, slammed and power bombed and all the stuff, it wears you down, and it's painful stuff. When I look back on that match, it always comes up with a big smile where I go, 'That was one of the easiest matches I ever had.'

There Isn't A Better Choice For The Inaugural "Immortal Moment" Award

"We Nailed It When We Put That Match Together"

It doesn't get much more impactful in wrestling in of storytelling and timeline altering than Bret Hart and Steve Austin's "I Quit" match from WrestleMania 13, and it's hard to think of another match that would be as deserving of the inaugural "Immortal Moment" Award at the WWE Hall of Fame. Hart looks back fondly on the match, seeing it as a reminder of just how good the business can be and how great wrestling really is.

I know I've had times in my life when Steve Austin has given me a call, he's called me and said, 'I'm on the treill right now, and I'm watching our match back, and what a match.' I'm so happy that we did that match. I know it's always been a special match for him, and it's always been a... It's just one of those matches where I think if I ever wanted to put on a match for somebody and say, Watch this match, and just, This is what I did for a living, or, This is what I did back in life. It's just a very special match that can turn almost anybody into a wrestling fan, I think. If you're into wrestling, the execution and the delivery of all the things that we needed to get across from the heel turn and the babyface turn, how it was very so smoothly done almost without anyone realizing it was happening."

Sometimes in wrestling or in movies and things like that, it can be so obvious. It's so obvious that this is what they're trying to get you to do. Whereas in that match, I had a fan following that believed in me. Whether I was a heel or a baby face, they believed in me. That was one of those where they could still believe in me. I was still right. Like I said, just master storytelling. We nailed it when we put that match together.

The 2025 WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony will take place at Foutainebleau Las Vegas on Friday, April 18th, and will stream live from Peacock and WWE social media channels beginning at 10 pm PT. The new "Immortal Moment" category will be a chance for wrestling fans to celebrate the turning points in the history of their beloved form of entertainment, and truly there was no better match to start things off than Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin "I Quit" match from WrestleMania 13.