This is a book about and written by Bret Hart, better known in the world of "professional wrestling" as Bret "The Hitman" Hart.
BTW, if you plan on reading this book because it interests you, do it! It's a good book! Don't believe the negative reviews on Amazon. The only way to find out how good or bad this book is is to read it for yourself and form your own opinion. My opinion-It's great! It's about 500 pages, but if you are interested in the life of Bret Hart, it's worth every page!!
Summary
-Bret Hart was born on 7/2/1957, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the sixth boy in a family of 14-two parents and 12 kids. His father, Stu Hart, was a wrestling coach from Canada and his mother Helen, who was from New York, helped out with booking the wrestlers, handling payroll, transportation, etc. She very rarely cleaned or cooked because she was constantly busy answering phones, handling payroll, taking messages and the like. She went around with a pen and notebook to take messages because the two phones at Hart House never stopped ringing. The reason for this is because Stu Hart ran a successful wrestling company called Stampede Wrestling. All of the Hart brothers wrestled for this company. This company also helped introduce, to the world, other wrestlers, such as Dave "Davey Boy" Smith and Tom "The Dynamite Kid" Billington, two wrestlers from England would go on to marry two of Bret's sisters. These two wrestlers would go on to become a tag team known as The British Bulldogs. Their entrance them was "Rule, Britannia" and their uniform consisted of trunks with the Union Jack on it.
-The family grew up extremely poor, with the kids wearing hand me downs a good majority of the time. At school, kids would make fun of him and his siblings for wearing shorts in thirty below weather only because it was the only thing they had to wear. In the mornings, their father would make what seemed like a buffet of food for the 12 kids. And if he didn't make food, the kids made it themselves. Bret describes how he would often make his own toast and egg for breakfast because it was either that or go hungry
-With their dad being a wrestling coach, a lot of the kids made fun of Bret and his siblings, saying wrestling wasn't real and the like. As the kids got older, they all gradually started getting into wrestling, including Bret. He and his siblings would reenact wrestling matches at the Victoria Gardens, where they went on Friday nights and kids would surround them, cheering them on. When Bret was a kid, he would make money for himself selling programs at the Gardens, but was mad when his younger brother Ross started cutting in on his market by selling programs.
-As they all grew older, the boys all started realizing that their sibling Ellie had a temper on her. Or that Owen would rat them out to their parents. Bret jokingly says that what some might call "corporal punishment" from their parents might be considered more along the lines of child abuse. For the kids growing up, hearing grown men screaming for mercy in the basement "dungeon" while daily life went on was normal for them. They had a bear living under their porch who would lick the feet of the kids especially if the kids had Fudgsicles. Bret laughs about the memory of playing outside and his feet being dirty and the bear, Ted, licking them clean. Because of all the kids, Stu bought a large mansion in Calgary that, on a clear day, you could see the Bow River and the skyline of Calgary. He bought the house to accommodate all the kids. But of course, having a large house didn't always mean they had money. The kids still got bullied for being poor and the kids still defended the Hart name, especially when kids would say wrestling is fake
-As Bret grew up, he started getting into wrestling and going to matches all over. He went to Montana and wrestled, went to Japan and wrestled. He was taught the art of shooting, submission holds from his dad. These two types of moves would eventually become part of his trademark. Early on, one of the suggested gimmicks for Bret was that he was to be a cowboy. He firmly said that where he came from, if he said he was a cowboy, you better be one in real life. His name was Buddy the Heartthrob Hart. He would also go on to become one of the only wrestlers who never injured, seriously, another wrestler. One wrestler told him that he was not a true wrestler unless he cut himself. So he took a small razor blade out during a match and worked it into the routine where he gave himself a scar on his forehead, almost down to the bone. Bret also laughingly mentions that his mother made him promise not to break his nose. What happens? He breaks his nose during a match and, of course, she notices. She says in her strong New York accent "You didn't break your nose, did you?" He was trained by two very successful Japanese wrestlers who taught him the Japanese style of wrestling. With his dad being a trainer, Bret got to meet all the big and little, up-and-coming names. He met boxer Rocky Marciano, who Bret describes as being not such a nice guy. There was a match Bret's dad Stu had put on between Marciano and someone else. Marciano and Stu got in to a heated argument over payment and a few days later, Marciano died in a plane crash. Bret said there were no tears over his death. As Bret got into wrestling, so did his brothers Owen, Smith, Dean, Keith, Ross.
-Bret and his brothers travelled all over the world. And of course, along the way, older wrestlers would educate the young, scrawny Bret Hart about what to do and what not to do. Bret's brother Smith would labelled the troublemaker, more or less, because he got a girl pregnant with an illegitimate baby and it was to be considered hush-hush because of the controversy it could bring. Another time when Smith was driving with Bret, they had to get Andre the Giant to the airport so he could get on a flight for a match. Smith was known for his extreme driving and it caught up with him as a Canadian Mounted Police Officer working the airport threatened to arrest Smith for aggressive driving. Andre was able to make the flight, but he did not have any more respect for the Hart siblings, only because of Bret's brother Smith. As Bret got better and better at wrestling, he would get to meet wrestlers who would go on to become world famous, like Tom Billington, aka "The Dynamite Kid", or Jake "The Snake" Roberts. He would learn about English-style wrestling from people like "The Dynamite Kid" or Japanese wrestling from champions Mr. Hito and Mr. Sakurada, American wrestling from Jake "The Snake" Roberts. He would also meet wrestlers who would join WCW (World Championship Wrestling), like Terry Bollea, who started out as Sterling Golden but then changed his wrestling name to Hulk Hogan.
-Bret had fallen in love with a woman named Julie who was from Regina. And everywhere Julie went, her sister Michelle followed. Bret and Julie would eventually get married, seeming to set off a chain of weddings in the Hart house. All of Bret's sisters were getting married...to wrestlers while all the boys, who were wrestlers, were getting married. Bret thought that Keith, one of the few who wouldn't wrestle professionally, only occasionally, was going to break the cycle and go to college. Of course, Bret says it's a running joke in the Hart house that the boys became wrestlers while the girls married them. While Bret was on the road, Julie called to say she was pregnant. He was surprised, but none the less happy. The two had done a small ceremony at City Hall. Also, in the same call that Julie told him she was pregnant, she also told Bret that a wrestler who was close to Bret had died during a kidney transplant operation. It struck Bret hard. As he wrestled his way up in the wrestling world, he went to far flung places, such as the Middle East. He said that shopkeepers there worried not once about shoplifters since the penalty for being caught shoplifting was getting the offending hand chopped off. He and his brothers all bought jewelry, Bret buying a series of rings for him and Julie
-While their dad Stu was running Stampede Wrestling only a small part of the time, Bret's brother Bruce helped him out by running it full time. Unfortunately, the way Bruce ran it, it was one sided and sloppy. He had a lot of the wrestlers going for groin shots, which would take a man to his knees in record time. That made Bret thankful he didn't stay with his dad's wrestling company
-April 27, 1985 is the official day that Bret adopted the moniker of "Hitman". He thought it sounded cool after reading about a boxer named Thomas "Hitman" Hearns KO'ing his opponent in a fight. When Bret wrestled, someone suggested changing his look. Someone brought in neon bubblegum pink material and suggested that be the color that The Hart Foundation wear. Most men, especially tough men like wrestlers, might be aghast to even consider wearing pink. But Bret and Jim agreed and they became known for the neon bubblegum pink clothing. By this point, Vince McMahon Jr had bought his father's wrestling company, WWF, and was now running it. He offered to buy out the Calgary-based Stampede Wrestling from Stu Hart. He accepted and it was better to be bought out by someone who would bring money in than nothing at all. All the wrestlers who were with Stampede Wrestling would now, most likely, become part of the WWF. Around this time, Bret started wearing sunglasses in interviews. It wasn't to act like he was Mr. Cool or anything; it was to simply hide the high level of nervousness that could be seen in his eyes. He also suggested to his dad or someone else about the idea of becoming a tag team. His dad liked the idea and together with Jim Neidhart and Jimmy Hart, who was a fast talking, high voiced Southerner acting as manager, the three became The Hart Foundation. He also started adopting the phrase "we're the best there was, the best there is and the best there will ever be." He took it from the Robert Redford film The Natural. This was to be the quote to describe The Hart Foundation
-With Vince McMahon's WWF now reaching into other territories and states, Bret was now encountering, more frequently, other wrestlers he would encounter later on, such as Sgt. Slaughter, Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, The Iron Sheikh, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, etc. He had gotten to know Sgt. Slaughter over a meal one time. The former Army soldier invited Bret to sit down and the two got to know each other. Bret found out that Sgt. Slaughter, whose gimmick was being a drill sergeant, was real. He really was in the Army. His "arch rival" was The Iron Sheikh. Together these two would play up the politics of the then Iran hostage crisis. He also met Jesse Ventura. A former soldier and Vietnam veteran, the man had come back with demons from Vietnam. To get away from them, he turned to wrestling until a blood clot stopped his career in its tracks. He then turned to announcing for the matches
-The 1980s would prove to be a good time for Bret. He was working his way up in the wrestling world. People were becoming fans of The Hart Foundation. In fact, the first actual fan of The Hart Foundation was Jesse Ventura, former soldier-turned-wrestler-turned announcer. He now had four kids-Jade, Dallas, Alexandra Sabina aka "Beans" and Dallas. He now had an even set of two girls and two boys. Any of his off time was spent playing with his kids and spending time with his wife. But, things were still strained between him and Julie, mostly because of his long, frequent absences. By this point, Bret had wrestled in various forms of WrestleMania, a concept conceived by Vince McMahon Jr., to pit wrestlers against each other and go for world championship titles. There was also another concept he conceived-The Slammys, a wrestling-related take on the Grammys, that would honor wrestlers for various categories by having them actually wrestle each other. On the horizon, however, a small wrestling company called World Championship Wrestling (WCW) was looming, soon to be the other major competitor to Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF), which would, in the future, change its name to WWE to avoid confusion with the World Wildlife Fund. One wrestler he did not care for was The Ultimate Warrior. He thought of this wrestler as a prima donna. Once, a sickly child from the Make A Wish Foundation had a dying wish to meet his favorite wrestler, the Ultimate Warrior. This kid had the face paint on just like Warrior, but Warrior never met him. He acted like it was an inconvenience for him. Bret said that, because of that, his disgust for the Ultimate Warrior was magnified 1000 times that day
-Bret was now running into a lot of the wrestlers he would work closely with, including Randy "Macho Man" Savage. He met Savage and his wife Liz, both of who he describes as good people. With Vince McMahon running WWF, he instituted a new set of rules. One was to be no more blading. This is the act of drawing blood with a razor blade or some sort of blade during a match. He outlawed that, but Bret wishes he could have done it sooner so that his head wouldn't have so many cuts he could separate them with his fingers. The other rule was mandatory drug tests. Each wrestler would take a test before a match. If you tested positive for any kind of narcotic, you'd have three chances to clean up your act before you were fired. First offense is six week suspension. Second offense is mandatory drug rehab to be paid for out of your own pocket. Third offense is termination. The first casualty to this was Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who tested positive for cocaine. Bret was relieved at hearing about the mandatory drug tests because he was convinced this would keep wrestlers from becoming, as he says it, 'roided up or using steroids.
-At this point, Bret was also encountering Shawn Michaels and his tag team partner Marty Janetty more frequently. These two were a tag-team known as The Midnight Rockers, whose entrance theme was "Living After Midnight" by Judas Priest. They earned this nickname from their habit of staying out past midnight partying and getting in to trouble. Almost immediately after Vince's new mandatory drug test rule, The Midnight Rockers only lasted one night before they were fired for starting a fight at a club. Bret says that every wrestler must have three things to be successful-ability to talk and sell yourself, actual wrestling ability and physical presence. He rated Hulk Hogan on this and gave him high scores on physical presence and talking, but low scores on actual ability. He gave Tom Billington aka "The Dynamite Kid" a high score on physical appearance, but low scores on everything else. He even gave himself a high score on actual ability, but low scores on talking and appearance.
-By now, it was getting into the late 1980s and into the early 1990s. The 1980s seen Bret had becoming known for wearing wraparound shades to hide the nervousness in his eyes. He might seem like the typical cocky wrestler in interviews, but he was often a quiet, introverted person outside the ring who kept to himself. He also did cartoons in his spare time, to entertain his fellow wrestlers and to relax. He would also give a pair of his trademark shades to a lucky kid. Suddenly there were tons of kids coming, hoping to get a pair of the famed wraparound shades worn by Bret Hart.
-At home, Bret lost his brother Dean. His brother had been fighting Bright's Disease and was now on dialysis full time. While away wrestling, Bret came home with rare time off and was told his brother was unconscious in the bathroom upstairs. He passed away right there. The family cremated him and spread his ashes over the property of Hart house on a viciously cold winter day, so cold their tears of grief froze to their face. While down in New Orleans for a match, Bret decided to take a chance and visit a palm reader. He said nothing so as to not lead her one or way or another. Most if not all of the stuff she mentioned happened. She said he had a big red haired friend who was a bad influence on him. He knew that meant his tag team partner Jim Neidhart. She said that in middle age he would have a bad accident. At this point, he didn't know the "bad accident" would be a nearly debilitating stroke that left him wheelchair bound for some time and then using a cane. She said that he was an entertainer of some sort and that he would make a lot of money and that financial issues would be his no longer. When Bret told Jim he had seen a palm reader, Jim laughed and said Bret wasted ten bucks
-As the 1980s gave birth to the 1990s, Dr. George Zahorian, a doctor who was constantly hanging around the wrestlers, giving them substances of all sorts, was now arrested and on trial for issuing steroids and other illicit drugs. Bret was relieved that there was now a no drugs policy for the WWF. Bret was of the sound opinion that Dr. Zahorian got what was coming to him. He was also meeting the WWF's newest wrestler, Mark Calaway. He was a tall, gangly kid from Houston, Texas, who was now being billed as The Undertaker. He would put paint under his eyes to simulate dark circles, to give the impression of being a corpse and he would wear a wide brimmed hat, all black clothing and a black leather longrider coat. He would also wear eyeliner around his eyes and also had the habit of rolling his eyes into the back of his head to reveal the whites of his eyes, for a more eerie look. By now, Jim and Bret were continuing their pink and black look, but it was Bret's idea to add a military-type jacket in pink and black. It ended up adding to their appeal. Bret also started adding four dots above "Hitman" when he signed autographs. The four dots represented his children Blade, Dallas, Jade, Alexandra Sabina aka "Beans". He also added four hearts on the right leg of his neon bubblegum pink tights to remind him of why he does this. The four hearts represent his kids.
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| Mark Calaway aka The Undertaker |
-The 1990s would represent a time of great change for Bret. For one thing, he had tried his hand at acting and really liked it. He appeared on the television series Lonesome Dove, playing a cowboy who usually got kicked out of the bars or brothels for, surprise surprise, fighting. He also was doing more matches with Shawn Michaels as his opponent. Vince McMahon, meanwhile, was bringing in more wrestlers. Like Kevin Nash, whose gimmick was that of a burly, big-muscled truck driver who went by the name Diesel. Or Scott Hall, a 6'7'' Maryland-born wrestler whose gimmick was that of a heavy Cuban-accented man nicknamed "Razo Ramon" because of the razor blade necklace he wore. He also encountered Glenn Jacobs, whose wrestling name was Kane. He started to have a lot of disrespect for Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Shawn Michaels. He found it incredibly disturbing that when Shawn would start doing his Chippendale-like stripteasing, little boys were re-enacting this. He would be wondering if Shawn was gay when he would push his trunks down past the line on his hips separating his navel from his groin. As the 1990s progressed, he found himself wrestling either Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash or Scott Hall. He found Mark Calaway, aka The Undertaker, to be a decent guy. He was out of the picture for a short time since his wife was pregnant. The 1990s would also be a bad time for Bret. His brother Owen was getting ready to wrestle and he was to drop in on a wire, which would lower him to the ring. The clamps holding him on this rope broke. He fell 75 feet to the ring, where he hit his chest on the top rope, snapping it like a rubber band, before bouncing off and landing hard on his back. His lungs started filling with blood as he essentially drowned in his own blood. The whole night had taken a somber tone as announcer Jim Ross spoke respectfully of what happened. While on the plane, Bret was told the horrible news-his brother Owen died.
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| Scott Hall, aka Razor Ramon |
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| Michael Shawn Hickenbottom, aka Shawn Michaels |
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| Kevin Nash, aka Diesel |
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| Paul Levesque, aka Hunter Hearst Helmsley, aka Triple H |
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| Owen Hart |
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| Glen Jacobs aka Kane |
-While out for some time off, Bret and a few of the wrestlers took their wives or girlfriends to India to sightsee. Bret was amazed at the fact that there were opulent hotels and palaces surrounded by utter poorness and slums. They seen the Taj Mahal and had also been warned about what the locals called "Bombay Belly", which resulted from the poorly sanitized water. Almost all of the wrestlers suffered from diarrhea and vomiting. Bret was even more disgusted by Scott Hall's behavior in India. A little kid came up to Hall dressed like him because Hall was his favorite wrestler. Hall refused to sign an autograph for him. Bret said this whole experience of opulence surrounded by poorness reminded him of his time in Manila, Philippines. While there, he seen that people who lived in opulent houses were surrounded by poor people and looked down on the poor. That everywhere he went, there were poor people using the streets as their own bathroom, begging for food and money, the ocean was a slimy, scummy mess.
The Montreal Screwjob
-The only reason this part gets front and center is this is one part of Bret's history that no wrestling fan can forget. 11/9/1997. Molson Centre. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Survivor Series '97. Bret Hart is slated to have a match with Shawn Michaels over the World Championship Wrestler title belt. The plan was for a secret change of the match's pre-determined end or "screwjob" in wrestling terminology, was created by WWE executive Vince McMahon Jr. It was decided that Hart would drop the belt to Michaels, a wrestler for whom Hart had and still has zero respect for. The plan went into action when Michaels tried to execute Hart's trademark move, the Sharpshooter, on him, but had gotten it backwards. Hart had to tell him "the other leg". While Hart was down, referee Earl Hebner was told by Vince McMahon to ring the bell. The bell rang and Michaels was declared the winner. Everyone was shocked by this; Bret had lost to his most hated rival in his home country. Bret had seen McMahon mouth "ring the bell" and when all was said and done, Bret spit right in the face of McMahon and spelled out WCW, signalling he was going to WCW. Prior to this, he had signed a contract that would make him a WCW wrestler. An impending omen was given to Bret prior to this. A wrestler named Leon Jacobs, aka Vader, told him "Be careful out there. Vince has a tendency to screw people over."
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| Leon Jacobs |
-After the whole Montreal Screwjob situation, Bret went to WCW. He ran into a few former WWF wrestlers, like Hulk Hogan or Randy "Macho Man" Savage. He also ran into Kevin Nash, who went by the wrestling name Diesel. After this whole situation blew over, the only wrestlers from WWF he was still friendly with were The Undertaker, Mankind, Stone Cold Steve Austin. While working at WCW, he got to meet a lot of the wrestlers there and found they were decent, down to earth guys. Like Steve Borden, who went by the name Sting. His gimmick was black and white face paint reminiscent of the film The Crow. His signature move was the scorpion death lock. Or Diamond Dallas Page, an older wrestler who reminded you of an outlaw biker club member with his leather boots, long hair, jeans and leather vest. Or Paul Wight, aka The Giant because of his 7'2'' height. Of course, wherever Bret went, he did drawings. He drew one drawing in the locker room of a wrestler with the name Knobbs with 10 penises and all the guys, even Sting, who seemed the hardest to get to laugh, was in hysterics.
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| Booker T aka "The Black King" |
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| Diamond Dallas Page |
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| Hulk Hogan |
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| Randy "Macho Man" Savage |
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| Steve Borden aka Sting |
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| Paul Wight aka The Giant |
-Unfortunately, during one of his last matches, he was up against Bill Goldberg. He was a decent, down to earth guy, but had a powerful kick, reminiscent of getting hit by a freight train at full speed. Bret said that Goldberg's kicks were strong enough to take chunks of brick out of the wall. He was wrestling Goldberg and ended up receiving one of those kicks directly to the head. Later on, he lived in a perpetually fuzzy state of mind until he went to a doctor in Canada who proceeded to tell him he was severely concussed. When the doctor told him he had to tell his boss he couldn't wrestle for a while, Bret was confused. He said his bosses wouldn't believe him. The doctor came back with "If they don't believe you, have them call me." "Why, who are you?" Bret meant it as a compliment. The doctor realized he meant it as a compliment and smiled as he said "I'm the head NHL injury coordinator."
-Later on, in 2002, as Bret was riding his mountain bike in a park, just to keep himself in shape, he had to find somewhere to relieve himself. He hit a small hole in the sidewalk, which caused him to topple over. When he felt, he immediately suffered a stroke. He called his wife Julie, but could only make out a few words because his speech was impaired and the whole left side of his body was numb. She proceeded to tell their kids and they came racing over. A nurse who just so happened to be jogging by called 911 to get him to the nearest hospital. Of course, he'd be in the hospital for a while. Later that night and in to the next day, a young nurse took him to the showers to help get him cleaned up. The whole situation came crashing down on him and he cried like a baby. Since it was also 16 hours since he had last gone to the bathroom, he also relieved himself in the showers, joking about it, saying he didn't think he was going to stop
-As time went on, he slowly recovered. The nurses reamed him for trying to go to the bathroom unaided by nurses. Besides the incredibly embarrassing experience of being seen completely naked by nurses who also seen him urinate in the showers and cry over the whole situation, he also had to contend with the embarrassing situation of the nurses helping him to go to the bathroom. He found that if he put his hand on the wall for balance, he was fine. They were only there to prevent against him falling on his left side, which would reverse all his recovery work. Of course, with him being out of the WCW for longer than usual, he was terminated by WCW, but they said in their termination letter that they wished him the best of luck in his future endeavors. Shortly after he started recovering from his stroke, he and his son Dallas took a father-son vacation to Europe, where Bret and Dallas went sightseeing. He said his son had to be his seeing eye dog because he was still suffering from vision problems in his left eye.
-He also started contemplating writing a book, which he did and was released in 2008. What's not mentioned in the book, but mentioned on a documentary A&E has been airing about different wrestlers, specifically the episode about Bret "The Hitman" Hart, is that he met his current wife Stephanie Washington at a party a friend was giving. She said a lot of people give them funny looks because of the obvious racial and age differences. She's 38 and he's 63. She's black and he's white. But in 2010, they announced their engagement and eventual marriage. His kids were a little suspicious of her, because they didn't know her. But she had won them over because his kids were of the opinion that if she makes Dad happy, then that's all that matters. His kids are happy that he's home full time now because it's like he's making up for lost time.
