Here's a really interesting interview with Bret Hart, via ESPN's website, coinciding with his appearance in the Legends of Wrestlemania game (which I hear is pretty crappy).
http://sports.espn.go.com/videogames/news/story?id=3965096
Poor Boris Zhukov.
Anyway, this will probably just flame the fires even more here on The Blog of Doom, but the PR company handling the DVD release of Wrestling With Shadows and the Owen Hart documentary is sending me a copy for review so we'll revisit that one pretty quick here, which I'm sure will be good for 300 replies back and forth right away. And as well both Paul Jay and Bret Hart are open to interviews and since I have absolutely zero skill at that I'm thinking I'm gonna solicit questions from the blog since Bret seems to be pretty open about everything.
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`Tags: Bret Hart, DVD, Legends, Sting, Wrestlemania
I can listen/read Brett interviews for hours. The guy is so candid and honest that like him or hate him, at least you can appreciate it.
Too bad cell phones weren’t around back then because I would give a shit load of money to see Vince get the “Hart Attack” in a strip joint.
Whats the Owen Hart documentary?? I haven’t heard about that one.
I would like to know one thing from Bret that wasn’t answered in his book: He almost jumped to NWA/WCW in 1989…does he regret not?
I think the Owen documentary was the A & E one done in 99 shortly after his death.
As for questions for Bret, while he wrote a lot in his book about his “troublemaking” siblings, such as Bruce, Ellie, Diana & Smith, he didn’t write much about those who didn’t cause him nearly as much grief. I’m thinking of Wayne, Keith, Allison & Ross. Did he write more about them and it just was cut out? And what are they doing these days?
What sort of advice would Bret give to the current crop of “Hart” kids (TJ Wilson, Nattie, Harry Smith) currently in the WWE? Kind of like, “if I’d have known then, what I know now” type things he would pass on to them.
Hate him if you must, but that guy will tell you how it is. I like when guys will straight up say “I’m the best.”
People seem to hate when Hogan says things like that.
I think they’ll hate Hart for it, too.
Hogan is just amusing when he says it because he’ll start inflating numbers. I think the WrestleMania III attendance is up around 125,000 now.
If you watch the RAWS from 97, Bret was clearly on his way down the ladder in favor of Austin, Rock, Michaels, and others. I could even see him eventually becoming basically glorified enhancement talent like Tito Santana, Greg Valentine, Jimmy Snuka, Kane, etc.
So would have Bret have accepted that 20-year contract if what I described was the case? Twenty years is a long time to be wrestling like that, especially when you used to be one of the top dogs.
The contract never called for him to wrestle another 20 years. IIRC, he would wrestle a few more years, always in a top spot, and then be moved to a front office or agent position.
Thanks. I never knew that. Someone should do something where they busts all the myths and legends that have to do with wrestling.
No problem. Here are more specific details, from http://brethart.info/wrestling-observer-newsletter/
October 20, 1996:
McMahon, not to lose a very public fight, offered him the famous 20-year contract where he’d, after retirement in about three years, become almost a first lieutenant when it came to the booking process. Hart would earn somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 million per year as an active wrestler, and a healthy but far lesser figure working in the front office for the 17 years after retirement as an active wrestler.
It’s weird, because he ended up retiring about three years down the road anyway, but in a much different and tragic fashion.
Had everything worked out with WWE, he probably never would have gotten kicked in the head by Goldberg, and he probably would still be going today. $1.5 million is a lot of money, and you know how wrestlers and retirement don’t go together. Plus, he never might have suffered the stroke. Really weird how things work out. I’m not saying anything new when I say that Montreal might have saved the WWE and revitalized pro wrestling, but it nearly ruined Bret personally and could even have killed him. Not to start an arguement, here, though, because I fall on the Vince/WWE side on that particular subject.
Well, Bret Hart would have had to put up with an awful lot of crap that he would have truly hated during the “Attitude Era”, and I doubt that Bret could have taken that for the rest of his career. But the WWE of 2009 is actually a lot closer to Bret Hart’s vision of wrestling, and if all egos could be held in check, he could be a real asset to the WWE creative today.
If he was to wrestle another 20 years that would have him in the ring until he was 60ish.
This was an interesting read.
It inspired me to buy his autobiography on my lunch. Well that and the $9.99 price tag.
Bret is such a mark for himself. Yeah, he’s good. But the best? Nah.
If you get to ask Bret a question, this is one I’d like to know…
If the shoe had been on the other foot and Vince had forced Shawn out to WCW and then screwed him, how would Bret have reacted?
My questions for Bret:
1. The Montreal screwjob actually put the spotlight on him much more than on Vince or Shawn and may have been the best way for him to go out in order to make a splash in WCW, did he ever see it that way?
2. Bret had creative control for his final 30 days prior to leaving WWE. WWE violated his contract with the unscripted screw job. Plenty of evidence of the original events planned as seen on wrestling with shadows. Why didn’t Bret Hart sue WWE for breach of contract?
I still believe the screwjob was orchestrated.
I’d like to know what, if anything, he feels is missing from the product today. To me there is a lack of psychology among the top stars, does he feel this is a problem? Does he feel he has a lot to offer as an agent and if he was an agent, what would he be trying to drum in to the guys?
And finally, does he fancy wresling Jericho at Mania? Million buys!!