Bret Hart recently sat down with Sportsnet to discuss some favorite moments from his historic in-ring career. The Best There Is, the Best There Was, and the Best There Ever Will Be started off by talking about the influence Stampede Wrestling stars had on the business.

“I believe that the Stampede wrestlers like Dynamite Kid and myself, kind of went down to New York and WWF when we first got there in 1984/85, and really started raising the bar for wrestling,” Hart said. “Working harder than a lot of the big giants they had there at the time. We slowly changed the pace of wrestling, I think.”

Bret Hart, Ricky Steamboat, Roddy Piper and Ric Flair hanging out

As Hart continued, he stated that he believes today’s wrestling is too faced-paced.

“I do think that wrestlers of today watched Bret Hart and that’s how come they wrestle so quick and action-packed today,” he said. “I think they go too fast too much today in wrestling. I like the old stories but wrestling’s never been more popular than it is right now so it’s hard to criticize it.”

Bret Hart On Winning The WWF Title For The First Time

Bret Hart and Dynamite Kid

Hart also spoke about the first time he won the WWF title. He noted that his match against Ric Flair was one of the hardest of his career.

“The match we had was in Saskatoon, I know for a fact it was one of the hardest matches I’ve ever had,” Hart said. He continued to say he broke his finger and hurt his ankle during the match.

“I never really got to celebrate winning the world title. The first time I celebrated it was in the emergency ward in the hospital in Saskatoon,” Hart said.

Bret Hart On Wrestling The British Bulldog In Wembley

Bret Hart and Ric Flair

Hart also spoke about wrestling the British Bulldog for the Intercontinental Championship in the main event of SummerSlam 92. He spoke about how he feels losing that match helped his popularity.

“I had such a groundswell of fan support all around the world when I lost,” Hart said.

He would continue to say he feels the loss helped show WWE that Hart was a top guy.

“It showed how popular I was around the world, finally. They recognized like ‘we really have something with this guy.’”

There’s much more to the interview, which runs about 32 minutes.