Edge V Bret

[Mr Lawrence]

Could not find the original comparision topic, so thought i would start a new one.

Its not a topic to discuss who will go down in history as the most significant or important wrestler in years to come etc...

Its just a topic to discss, who did you enjoy watching the most out of the two.

For me personally it was Bret - as i enjoyed the seriousness of his work, saying that Edge was hilarious with Christian and Cool with Lita - but Bret was the coolest of the cool with the 5 man foundation in 97.

 

Both were..........

Canadians

Tag Team greats,

Multiple Champions,

roughly in the WWF/E for roughly the same time

Had careers cut somewhat short

Had MOTY candidtates for many years

Main evented Wrestlemania/Summerslam

Had nice hair and looked cool and were able to pull of the leather jacket

LEGENDS.

[King Pitcos]

Edge, by far. I was never a fan of Bret Hart, and was a big fan of Edge for pretty much his entire career. The exception being most of 2010, when he was crap. One of my favourite wrestling memories is a bunch of us cracking up watching Edge's birthday celebration on Raw during a house party when I was seventeen. "Long live the stream!"

 

I don't have any strong feelings for the Hitman's career. But from the Brood's entrance to the ladder matches and awesomeness-reeking to the marriage with Vickie, Edge has probably entertained me far more than any other wrestler over the years. I even used to go to the library to read the WWE.com blogs he used to do when he was injured in 2003.

[air_raid]

It's a fairly hard comparison as both competed in radically different eras for the WWF/WWE in terms of match style, booking style and television presentation and there was almost no crossover period - what became the Attitude Era was just starting when Bret departed and was really ramping up when Edge got the call, and both in-ring and out-of-the-ring output dramatically changed over the next two years, and of course even more in the ten years since.

 

Having said that, the "Hitman" is my favourite wrestler of all time, so I will put my cross next to his name.

[AshC]

Bret. Edge was great though.

[obama_316]

I'd have to go for bret as i enjoyed him both as heel and face. Never enjoyed edge as face that much but hes still awesome.

[Cobra1000]

Really interesting comparison, and rather sadly if I had WWE All Stars, this would be the first match I would play.

 

When I first read the title I was like Bret Hart, obviously. But thinking about it, I may have to go for Edge.

 

For as much as I love Bret, I wasn't quite his generation. I watch Bret Hart matches back and I love them but I watched Edge live, stayed up to watch PPV's with him and generally tuned in every week sometimes just for him. He debuted on Raw in 1998 the day after my 12th Birthday, and I was instantly hooked. He said he grew up in front of fans eyes, but I grew up with him and for that, I'm gonna go with Edge. Bret is an absolute legend no doubt, but on a personal level its gotta be Edge.

[truthofsin]

Bret was the better of the two in the ring as far as im concerned, but Edge was the more entertaining character. Its a really difficult choice, but id have to put my cross next to Bret, but only by a hair.

 

The 2 of them were so good in completely different ways that its tought to say who was better even from a personal perspective. Bret was one half of my favourite match ever (Wrestlemania XII) and had a long standing rivalry with my favourite wrestler of all time. He also had one of my favourite series of matches when he feuded with Owen. The cage and Iron Man matches were awesome, and Wrestlemania X had me on the edge of my seat.

 

Edge i remember seeing for the first time in WWF magazine in an article as himself about trainees (Sean Morely and Jay Reso i believe were also featured). He was called up to the main roster a few months later and i remember thinking he had something about him and that i thought he'd be a star. I then followed his career from begining to premature end and was blown away time after time. He reinvented himself over time and i just wonder what would of been the next reinvention of the Edge character.

 

Tough question..

[jimufctna24]

Edge for me

 

Partly because he was from my generation, I did grow up watching Bret but to be honest outside of his tremendous workrate he bored me as a character a lot of the time. I did really enjoy him as a heel in 1997 and his feud with Steve Austin is my favorite feud of all time. Still he did still have all those years of boring me when I was a kid. In the ring he could tell a great story no doubt but he was quite dull at times, I always prefered Diesal and HBK growing up, although I look back at HBK now as a chararcter and how camp it was and think what was I on. I moan about main event faces being naff now but in the mid ninties it was just as bad looking back.

 

Edge has always been a favorite but from his 2006 title win all the way up until he got injured in 2009 he was my favorite and for my money the best all rounder in wrestling barring obviously when he got injured in 2007.

 

Just a terrific heel, great worker, great on the mic and had some great feuds with the likes of Cena and Taker. Yes he had a bit of a shit face run when he came back but the feud with Del Rio was going well so he went out on a high. Also I still hold Edge and Christian as my favorite tag team of all time, besides Nash and Shelley in TNA, the funniest duo in wrestling history. They thrived when tag team wrestling was in my opinion at its best in 1999-2001.

[Ron Simmons]

Edge by far. I found Bret's matches pretty dull to watch, whereas Edge was a really exciting wrestler. His character evolutions were far more entertaining than Bret's in my opinion. As a heel he's one of the best ever, his run with Vickie, his "psychopath" turn, his run with Lita - total brilliance. Throughout much of the last decade he was the face of Smackdown, and single handedly made the show superbly entertaining to watch. He was frequently champion, but I never felt bored. He's one of my all time favorite wrestlers, it was a real shame to see him retire.

[Fox Piss]

For what they did in there respective times i would give it Hitman.

 

Was a real highlight in a not so good period of wrestling from 93-97.

 

Great matches and i think he was the only world superstar from that period.

[Teq]

Bret by far. He never had bad matches and had a level of realism and storytelling that was/is unaparalleled. I prefer Bret's transition from "Tag Champ to World Champ" too. It was a different time but that's all I can go on here, it was a beautiful climb and struggle to finally get there.

 

Two completely different eras. Bret in every aspect for me, even promos. His 1997 was just too great for me to ever want to watch Edge over him.

 

Bret was always consistent, Edge would go through phases. He had great patches and there's a bunch of his matches I love, but he's not on Brets level.

 

I'd rather watch Bret's midcard stuff like against Barbarian and Hakushi than Edge's top matches. I just think Bret has more rewatch value and his stuff ages better than almost anybodies. I've never been a fan of Edge's offense and it can sometimes hurt his matches. My favourite Edge matches are often when he's in there with somebody who makes him change his style up.

 

I can understand more modern fans liking Edge more due to the whole "holy shit" moments from all the TLC and gimmick matches, but that doesn't make a great wrestler. I can appreciate something like Bret Hart going through the table at Survivor Series '95 and using it as the lead in to the finish over everybody and their dog flying through tables left and right and spearing Foley through a contrived flaming table spot, even if they are guilty pleasure moments to watch for a quick youtube fix.

[King Pitcos]

I can understand more modern fans liking Edge more

I started watching wrestling at the same time Bret became a proper singles wrestler, and I much prefer Edge.

 

For anyone interested, these two are matched up in the "Fantasy Warfare" section of the WWE All Stars game, with a video package to hype up their bout. It's here:

 

Going off-topic here but of all the dream match hype vids I've seen in the game so far, Austin vs Punk is the best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OVgPFdD41c

[mdh85]

Bret by a country mile. I loved Edge as a character (excluding his bland solo babyface runs) but in the ring he never came anywhere close to Bret's level for me, and I'm surprised anyone really thinks differently.

 

I've never been a fan of Edge's offense and it can sometimes hurt his matches. My favourite Edge matches are often when he's in there with somebody who makes him change his style up.

 

This is a big reason for me. Most of Edge's trademark moves were very "indie" and "innovative" or unusual for the sake of it, even though they just didn't look good or effective. They also all had stupid names at one stage - Edge-o-matic, Edgecution, Edgecator (what does that even mean?) - which again I just found very indie and annoying, although the announcers seemed to knock that on the head in recent years. The Spear was quite cool as a sneaky heel finisher, but it did resemble a flying cuddle a lot of the time, and it wasn't particularly believable against larger opponents.

 

Not many of Edge's matches stand out for me as overly memorable either, and the ones which do are always for crazy highspots. Whereas I can remember loads of Bret's matches in detail, including a lot of throwaway TV bouts with people like Fatu or a Beverley Brother which were ridiculously entertaining considering how meaningless they were.

[Teq]

Bret by a country mile. I loved Edge as a character (excluding his bland solo babyface runs) but in the ring he never came anywhere close to Bret's level for me, and I'm surprised anyone really thinks differently.

 

I've never been a fan of Edge's offense and it can sometimes hurt his matches. My favourite Edge matches are often when he's in there with somebody who makes him change his style up.

 

This is a big reason for me. Most of Edge's trademark moves were very "indie" and "innovative" or unusual for the sake of it, even though they just didn't look good or effective. They also all had stupid names at one stage - Edge-o-matic, Edgecution, Edgecator (what does that even mean?) - which again I just found very indie and annoying, although the announcers seemed to knock that on the head in recent years. The Spear was quite cool as a sneaky heel finisher, but it did resemble a flying cuddle a lot of the time, and it wasn't particularly believable against larger opponents.

 

Not many of Edge's matches stand out for me as overly memorable either, and the ones which do are always for crazy highspots. Whereas I can remember loads of Bret's matches in detail, including a lot of throwaway TV bouts with people like Fatu or a Beverley Brother which were ridiculously entertaining considering how meaningless they were.

 

This all over. My friend mentioned a match Bret had with Ted Dibiase in MSG the other day and I hadn't seen the match for about 4 years but can almost remember it step by step. There may be something there to do with how much wrestling is/was on TV not long after Bret left but Edge's stuff would often blend together and it's always just "moments" with him most of the time.

 

For somebody who mentioned Edge's "psychopathic" character, I always thought Edge was like a really bad B-movie actor (the Kane feud is still too fresh in my mind). Pretty cheesy in delivery unless he was blending in real life stuff (which is perhaps why my favourite feud and series of matches he had were with Matt Hardy with the cage match being perhaps the best of the decade and both guys career). When Bret went psycho just before Wrestlemania 13 after the cage match with Sid was one of the best and most shocking "snaps" I've seen that felt truly real.

 

Edge has a lot of great matches, but they usually seem to follow the same formula of offense stringed together and spear spots whereas Bret's body of work has a huge level of variety against all types of people that are all different matches. An Edge match always seemed like the usual Edge match, just throw in a different opponent and stipulation.

 

One of the best Edge matches in recent years was the Smackdown '09 match with Morrison just before his injury and it was because he was forced to play the veteran role against Morrison being pushed as the new up and coming uber-quick babyface. It was terrific and fresh for him as I honestly thought he had been boring since about 2006 at the time.

[Loligan]

Bret. Edge has been a favourite of mine for years and was excellent but Bret Hart is the greatest of all time.

 

It feels like Bret gets compared to others more than most on the UKFF, maybe it's just me.