Kyle O’Reilly Recalls Bret Hart’s Response After Expressing Fandom To Hart: “He’s Like, ‘Yeah, I Was The Best'”

O’Reilly remembers expressing his fandom to Hart.

Before Kyle O’Reilly’s return to All Elite Wrestling at the 2026 Dynasty pay-per-view in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, he made an appearance on This is VANCOLOUR.

As the conversation moved along, O’Reilly spoke about growing up in Canada and being an anti-Shawn Michaels guy, but then getting to develop a great relationship with Michaels in WWE NXT.

O’Reilly then recounted the first time he met Bret Hart and expressed his fandom to Bret. He stated that Hart responded by saying he was indeed the best. O’Reilly added that throughout the years he worked with H.B.K., Michaels never touted himself as the best.

“I had a lot of interaction with The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels when I was down in NXT. He was our main coach and he ran the shows and he was really hands-on with everything we were doing and had an amazing tutelage and experience with Shawn… It was really amazing, especially as growing as such a huge Bret guy and such an anti-Shawn guy. Now that I’m an adult, it’s totally flipped because the first time I met Bret — I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Bret Hart. Don’t get me wrong. But the first time I met Bret, after the Aladdin (musical) show, I was like, ‘Hey Bret, man, I’m just such a big fan of you. Your match with Davey Boy in ‘92 is one of my favorite matches of all time’ and he just looked off, he’s like, ‘Yeah, I was the best.’ I was like, okay, it’s true, it’s fair,” O’Reilly laughed. “But not once did Shawn Michaels ever tout himself as being the — he was always just, you know, a little more humble than Bret in my opinion.” The interviewer brought up that those roles were reversed with Shawn and Bret in the 90s, and O’Reilly said, “You know what? I didn’t meet Shawn in 1996. We definitely would have been reversed. I met the born-again guy in 2017 so I had a much different experience but, nothing but respect and love to both guys. Absolutely.”

In a media appearance, Michaels responded to Bret Hart’s latest comments about him. Click here to read more.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit This is VANCOLOUR with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.