In professional wrestling, few performers have the pedigree of “The Hitman” Bret Hart – or Bret “The Hitman” Hart, if you will.

A 32-time champion across WWE, WCW, and his home promotion, Stampede Wrestling in Canada, Hart has wrestled nearly 3,000 matches over his professional wrestling career as both a singles and tag team specialist and has helped to define a style of wrestling that remains popular with performers like FTR to this day.

But, of those nearly 3,000 matches – 2,964, according to Cagematch – which is Hart's favorite? Well, “The Hitman” stopped by the Johnny I Pro Show to talk about his professional wrestling career and discussed his favorite match, in addition to a few runner-ups that came up just short.

“Probably my all-time favorite match is going to be the Steve Austin WrestleMania 13 just because it was such a real piece of work. This is a real masterpiece. I don't know that wrestling can get better than that. I really just love the whole memory of it. It was such great, great storytelling. Steve Austin was a great wrestler. That was just the one that stands out, tops,” Hart said via Wrestling News.

“But the Iron Man match with Shawn Michaels that's legendary. That's no slouch. That's not a match. You just go, ‘well, that wasn't it. That was nothing.’ That was probably the hardest match I ever had in my career. That was definitely. Both have like 2-2 wrestlers in their prime, basically trying to outshine each other for an hour. And it's a great match that I would say their rate, I could rate even, and then, of course, Wembley with Davey Boy, the British Bulldog, that was pretty hard to talk about. The beautiful art in that match these two wrestlers again in their prime. And you know even Undertaker Mr. Perfect, my brother, Owen, WrestleMania 10. I mean, I can just have so many matches to say what my favorites are are really hard ones for sure, but the Austin one stands out the most is just for me. I love to watch it back because it was one of the most fun matches I ever had and I dreamt it would be fun to watch.”

Unsurprisingly, all of the matches Hart mentioned are considered some of the best of his career by outside observers too, with Dave Meltzer specifically naming his matches with Austin and his brother as certified five-star classics. In a career loaded with highlight moments and efforts that rise above the expected to become truly spectacular, few performers from his era have the same level of masterful matches as “The Hitman.”

Bret Hart names his favorite stars from the past and ideal dream opponents.

Turning his attention to specific wrestlers that he admires as opposed to his own former in-ring friends and foes, Bret Hart shouted out the performers of yesteryear who helped to light a fire inside him to get into the family business.

“My favorite wrestlers growing up were Sweet Daddy Siki, who was one of my favorites,” Hart said. “I should say Abdullah The Butcher was one of my favorites, but I was he was my favorite to hate, like the three afraid of, but he was to me now. Looking back, he was one of the greats of my childhood. He really was a great, evil character. I had a lot of love and respect for some of the guys like Gene Kiniski and Whipper Watson. I actually watched them when I was really small, so., I had a rich history, so I got lots of there's some of the guys. I still believe the Canadians are the best wrestlers in the world, Pro wrestlers anyway, for sure.”

On paper, it's kind of hard to imagine Hart having to go through his father's Dungeon and say ‘eh, not for me,' instead of becoming arguably the greatest technician in professional wrestling, but hey, it's always possible.

Turning his sights from the past to the present, Hart was asked who he really wished he could wrestle in a hypothetical dream match. Though he didn't pick just one in particular, Hart went through a murder's row of the best to ever lace up a pair of boots, including a special shoutout to a surprising native San Diegan who entered the WWE Hall of Fame earlier this year.

“There's so many. If I could go in the past, I would go, I would love to wrestle Sweet Daddy Siki just because he was my hero or Abdullah. I think I did work with Abdullah, so I had that memory. But of today's wrestlers, I would love to wrestle Brock Lesnar. I would love to wrestle Roman Reigns. I would love to put John Cena in the sharpshooter. I just know that when I was the, you know, the American bashing Canadians. John Cena would have been the perfect American. We could have danced for a long time, and we could have done some great stuff, and I wish I could have done that with someone like John Cena. CM Punk, and Daniel Bryan are also two of my favorites. I'll say this like one of the greatest, maybe the greatest wrestlers of all time that people don't often forget about or don't recognize. Rey Mysterio is maybe one of the greatest. I wish I could have had one match with Rey Mysterio just to be in the ring with him. He's one of my favorites and is always a class act. Very few wrestlers have the respect that I have for Rey Mysterio.”

As crazy as it may sound, Hart and Mysterio actually did share the ring together once upon a time, as they worked a house show match against Alberto Del Rio, Cody Rhodes, and Drew McIntyre in Turkey back in 2010. A singles match, however, will forever go down as one of the great ‘what ifs' of professional wrestling history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3EtHIAxaKE