The Killer Bees usually wrestled as a team, but on 5/4/86 at Madison Square Garden, they were separated and each Bee wrestled a different member of the Hart Foundation.
The Richard Land channel recently posted the full video of this event with Jim Brunzell (the taller Bee with the dimples) facing Brett Hart at 15 minutes into the video.
Much of the offense in this match involves busting balls (or at least implied ball busting.) Here Hart spreads Brunzell’s legs apart, exposing his crotch to a potential stomping boot.
Actually when the stomp is delivered, it strikes the stomach of the spread-eagled victim. But I always feel that this move teases a nutshot — it implies that he could (and perhaps did) crush the helpless victim’s balls. After all, the attacker could just as easily stomp on his stomach without needing to dramatically open his thighs and expose his taint first.
Jim Brunzell may be cute as a button with his cherubic smile, but is no jobber bitch — he won’t take this abuse and emasculation lieing down. After catching his breath, he takes revenge by spreading Brett’s legs and giving him a payback boot to his “lower abdominals” to show him how it feels.
Hart curls up and grabs himself, implying that maybe this was a low blow by the Killer Bee, not a gut stomp. In any case, we just know this uppity pretty-boy is going to be punished later for daring to humiliate the “Hitman” like this.
Hart again goes after Brunzell’s manhood with the old Atomic Drop. Brunzell clutches his lower back as if the impact damaged his spine instead of his scrote, but the positioning of this move, with the victim straddling the attacker’s thigh, always looks more like a Ball Buster than a Back Breaker to me.
If you’ve ever fallen on a fence rail or tree stump or any hard surface, and the impact occurs anywhere that a jockstrap would cover, then you know the worst of your pain is not centered in your lower back.
Brunzell again replies in kind, implementing an Atomic Drop of his own — the Reversed version. They seem to be in a “Roshambo” competition where two guys take turns kicking each other in the crotch to see who can endure more ball busting, who is more powerful.
Hart “no-sells” his opponent’s Atomic Drop, maintaining his Headlock to imply that he has balls made of steel.
Eventually Hart decides to fully neuter Brunzell by crotching him on the top rope. That is the nuclear warhead of crotch abuse — there can be zero retaliation after that one is delivered. In fact, Brunzell is destroyed and the bell rings immediately, signaling a disqualification.
So Hart technically lost the bout, but he won the war by leaving his victim curled up in the fetal position nursing his sore nutsack. Hart reigns supreme despite his disqualification because he remains fully intact as a man.
So the match is over, the bell has rung, but Hart is still not finished with Brunzell’s crotch. Again he opens his opponent’s legs by the ankles and drives a boot into that vulnerable area. You’ve already defeated him and utterly emasculated him — this is going too far!
This is Brunzell’s punishment for daring to copy this move earlier, using it to humiliate the more powerful male. We see him getting a lesson in obedience — a second dose of the same maneuver he had dared to copy.
Jim Brunzell had a reputation of really getting punched around in the ring by other bigger more established wrestlers. No matter what, he wouldn’t hit back. He’d just take the abuse. Not from Brett Hart however, who had a reputation of never hurting another wrestler.