The opening bout of WrestleMania X remains one of the most respected matches in the event's history — and Owen Hart's victory over his older brother Bret is a big reason why. When Bret Hart and Owen Hart opened WrestleMania X at Madison Square Garden on March 20, 1994, few in the building could have predicted that the show's first match would end up being remembered as one of its best.
The card is best known for crowning Bret Hart as WWF Champion later that same night, and for the ladder match between Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels that is widely considered a genre-defining classic. Yet the Hart brothers' opener has aged into a case study of great in-ring storytelling — and more than three decades later, it's still held up as a benchmark.
Here are three reasons why.
1. It Was Built on Real Family Tension, Not a Manufactured Feud
The rivalry between Bret and Owen began at Survivor Series 1993, when Owen — competing on the same team as Bret in an elimination match — was accidentally knocked off his focus by an injured Bret staggering along the ring apron, causing Owen to be eliminated. The brothers argued after the match, and in the weeks that followed, Owen repeatedly demanded a match with Bret, who refused to accept the challenge.
The two eventually reunited to team up against The Quebecers at the 1994 Royal Rumble, but Bret suffered another in-match injury that forced the referee to stop the contest — and an enraged Owen turned on his own brother afterward, reigniting the feud heading into WrestleMania. That slow-burn build — resentment, a forced truce, then betrayal — gave the WrestleMania X match a foundation that felt personal rather than promotional, which is a big part of why it still resonates with fans revisiting it today.
2. The In-Ring Storytelling Was Genuinely Ahead of Its Time
The match itself began even, with neither brother gaining a clear edge, while Owen's bragging and Bret's refusal to let him leave the ring underlined the tension between them. Owen eventually took control using a camel clutch, suplexes, and a Tombstone piledriver, and when Bret leapt over the top rope to attack him on the outside, Bret landed awkwardly and suffered a knee injury that Owen exploited with a figure-four leglock.
From there, the match became a genuine back-and-forth: Bret fought back with a bulldog and sleeper hold, Owen countered with his own Sharpshooter, and Bret escaped to lock in a Sharpshooter of his own before Owen blocked a victory roll attempt and pinned his brother to win. That level of counter-driven, psychology-heavy wrestling — where a leg injury was tracked and exploited for the entire match, and each finishing move had an answer — is exactly the kind of storytelling modern fans and wrestlers still point to as the gold standard.
3. It Was Validated by Critics, Journalists, and Wrestlers Alike — And the Underdog Actually Won
Chris Jericho reflected that the Bret-Owen match was always his personal favorite from that WrestleMania, calling it "kind of Owen's coronation" and praising how well the story was told despite it being nearly impossible to follow as the show went on.
Crucially, the match didn't play it safe. Rather than protecting the bigger star, WWF let Owen — the resentful, chip-on-his-shoulder younger brother — beat Bret Hart clean in the middle of the ring on the sport's biggest stage. Bret went on to win the WWF Championship from Yokozuna later that night, becoming the first wrestler in company history to win both the Intercontinental and World Championships at WrestleMania, while a visibly bitter Owen watched Bret's celebration from the aisle before storming off — a moment that fueled their program for the rest of 1994. That willingness to let the "lesser" brother win, and mean it, is a big reason the match still feels bold and rewatchable today.
Wrestling