07/25/1995 WWF 

Cage Match: Bret Hart def. Hakushi in 13:33 

This was a dark match from a TV taping in Evansville, in the heart of USWA country. Why is this match in a cage? The two were working a program, but secondary to Hart and Jerry Lawler, and nothing violent enough happened in the storyline to warrant a cage match. Unfortunately, this was in the shitty era of WWE escape the cage rules, and since this was a house show where they could get away with it, they worked most of the match around escapes, while doing very little physically.. The match wasn’t very formulaic because they sort of traded spots where they would try to escape, only to be cut off, and they mostly kept trading that throughout. Some of the escapes had all the logic of a Vince Russo storyline, doing stupid shit like at one point, Hakushi trying to escape over the top instead of walking out of the unprotected, nearby door instead. The drama and psychology of trying to escape did build, and the crowd eventually started getting into the match despite a quiet start. If you remember the Summerslam ‘94 match with Owen, Bret was good at getting the crowd sucked into near-escape spots in the cage. They finally built to Hart, stopping Hakushi from going over the top and giving him a superplex from the top of the cage. Bret teased being out of it, but got past a last-minute Hakushi effort to fall out the door to the floor.  The match was okay, but don’t watch this if you’re someone into moves or violent cage matches. This was built on the psychology of it being a race to the floor. **1/4