In the early '80's, a young Bret 'Hitman' Hart was establishing himself
as a talented wrestler in the WWF. He was generally overlooked by promoters at the time, until manager Jimmy Hart had the good sense to pair him up with powerhouse Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart. The pink and black attack was born. From there, this dreaded duo literally tore through the ranks of the World Wrestling Federation tag team division. Not even the British Bulldogs (considered by many to be the best tag team of all time) could stop the Hart Foundation, as they eventually took the straps from the two talented Englishmen, with help from referee Danny Davis.
As time went by, many great tag teams would come and go in the WWF, whether it was the Rockers, Demolition, Rougeau Brothers, Powers of Pain, Brainbusters, Strike Force, it didn't matter. The Hart Foundation would still be standing when all was said and done.
On a side note, during this time an amazing high flying masked Blue Blazer would take the WWF by storm. This unknown star was the talented Owen Hart, under a mask as fans would learn years later. Jimmy Hart would soon have a bitter break-up from the Hart Foundation, as he aligned himself with Jacques and Raymond Rougeau. The Hart Foundation lost the straps to the duo of Tito Santana and Rick Martel then known as the Strike Force. The fight back to the top wasn't easy. The Hart Foundation had to fight hard to get the straps back. They had a lot of feuds with many great teams. Prior to Wrestlemania 5, they would feud with Jimmy Harts new team of Greg 'The Hammer' Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man. During a televised match, Honky smashed his guitar to bits on the head of Bret Hart, which lead to a rematch between the two teams at Wrestlemania 5 from Trump Plaza. The Harts were victorious and moved up the ladder. At Summerslam '89, they had one draw-back as the Brainbusters (Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson) got a tainted victory over them. However, The Anvil and Hitman continued to devastate teams with their viscious finisher the Hart Attack.
At Wrestlemania 6 they defeated the Bolsheviks (Boris Zhukov and Nikolai Volkoff) in a matter of seconds. They would then declare themselves the #1 contenders for the tag titles then held by Demolition. Ax and Smash added a new member to their tandem , the monstrous Crush.The two teams fought at Summerslam '90, and the Hart Foundation finally won back the tag straps.
Later that year the young up and coming team of Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels, better known as the Rockers would win a three fall title match against the the Harts (Jannetty pinned Hart, Hart pinned Michaels, Jannetty pinned Neidhart), but due to controversy in the match the tag straps were later returned to the Harts and the decision was voided and never acknowledged until recently. This perhaps marked the very beginning of the extremely bitter rivalry between Bret and Shawn which would be rekindled years later. Near the end of the Hart Foundation's second and last tag title reign, it was quite obvious that Bret was ready for singles competition. The Hart Foundation would lose the tag straps once and for all at WM7 against the Nasty Boys. Soon after, the team broke up and went their separate ways.