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Ever since I was a little kid, I loved
drawing cartoons.

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If I couldn't have the toys I wanted,
I'd draw them instead.

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I sketched Snoopy and the Red Baron,
werewolves, Frankenstein.

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But what I drew the most were the
wrestlers that I loved.

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Guys like Killer Kowalski, Waldo Von
Erich, Dr. Death, Mr. X, and my

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favorite, the Zebra Kid.

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I loved wrestling so much that I even
drew myself.

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And I dreamed that one day I'd be the
champion of the world.

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Dad, look!

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It's Brett the Hitman Hart!

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Brett!

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We're not looking at a character. We're
looking at a guy. His name is Brett

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Hart. Go get him, Cam.

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It wasn't... Comic book writing. It
wasn't storytelling.

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It wasn't fables. It wasn't make
-believe.

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Brett was the first superstar that you
actually saw a human

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being in.

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We all wanted to be the kid that got the
glasses.

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He had the it factor all along. He was
like magic. They just were drawn to him

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like a magnet.

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As a kid, I would sit down in front of
the TV and pay attention to grass

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more than anything else. The same way I
would do if I was watching Disney, my

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favorite film, because his matches were
so captivating. They were so realistic.

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He just had a cool factor.

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You know, he had the shade, the leather
jacket.

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He made pink and black cool.

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If I got pulled over for speeding and
name dropped that Bret Hart was my

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I'd get out of the speeding ticket.
Definitely helped make me a cooler kid

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school. And he was just kind of the it
thing.

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And I'm sure a pro wrestler such as
yourself will appreciate all the closet

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space, Hitman.

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Ooh, this place got old man stink.

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He took every aspect of being champion
to heart.

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Straightforward, honest, charismatic.

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That was a real champion.

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The best there is, the best there was,
and the best there ever will be. The

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excellence of execution.

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I've lived for wrestling.

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And my family has lived for wrestling.

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And we've died for wrestling.

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We both collapsed in each other's arms,
just hugging each other, just crying.

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We still grieve. We still miss him.

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It's not a sad story.

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He faced adversity in real life, and he
battled through it.

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And he came out on the other side with
his head held high, with his

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pride and his respect still intact.

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I'm not getting into it to be an average
wrestler or make a living. I want to be

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the best wrestler that ever put on a
pair of boots. I want everyone to go,

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the best.

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The whole mechanisms of a family of 12
kids is hard for anyone to understand.

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And I've always been really grateful for
how my dad raised all of us. He was a

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very hardworking guy. Every single day
he got up in the morning and made

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breakfast for everybody.

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He'd make 12 dishes.

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Six dishes would be for the big ones.

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And then he'd make six slightly smaller
ones.

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And you were not allowed to leave the
table until you ate everything because

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dad had grew up with such a tough life
growing up.

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He was born in Saskatoon.

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Saskatchewan in 1915, he was dirt poor.

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His father got swindled in some kind of
a land deal.

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He took up squatters' rights on the
property until they got thrown off the

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property, and they end up with his
father and his two sisters and his mom

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in a tent in the freezing Saskatchewan
prairie for two or three winters, living

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off whatever he could hunt, rabbits and
whatever birds and stuff he could shoot

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with a slingshot.

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I sometimes wonder how he made it
through those days.

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My grandfather's salvation, his refuge,
his shelter was the YMCA, where

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he ended up taking up amateur wrestling
really as just a way to stay warm. He

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takes beating after beating after
beating, but he's getting better and

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and better. He came from such a low
place that this was his way of asserting

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himself in the world.

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He winds up in New York, and it's in New
York that he meets the famous wrestling

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promoter Toots Montt.

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He takes a look at Stu at that time, the
chiseled Greek statue of a man.

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My grandfather was, as we say, jacked.

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My dad and a bunch of wrestlers all went
to Long Beach, Long Island.

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They were all on the beach, and they
were all flirting with my mom, and my

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was pretty hot stuff back in those days.

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My dad somehow caught my mom's eye, and
my mom took a shine to him.

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My mother and father got married
December 31, 1947, in one of the worst

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snowstorms in New York history.

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And my mother used to say, I've been
snowed under ever since.

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Stu was working as a wrestler, but he
wanted to go home. He wanted to go back

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Alberta, and he had dreams of being a
promoter himself.

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There was a Calgary promotion at the
time. He bought the territory for $50

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He's got some grand ideas, Stu, at the
time. When we were growing up, It's hard

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to imagine, but we lived in this 22
-room mansion.

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It was kind of like a cross between a
hotel where maybe all the staff quit and

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little bit like an orphanage.

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We were right on the edge of the city
limits back in those days.

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It was at one time a hospital for the
Red Cross.

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Although it was very stately, it was
clearly a well -lived -in house.

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you know, as a lot of houses when you
have that number of children.

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Smith, Bruce, Keith, then came Wayne,
Dean, then we got our first girl, Ellie,

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and then there was Georgia, and then I
came along, and then my sister Allison

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came along, and then my brother Ross
came along, my sister Diana came along,

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finally the last, my youngest brother
Owen.

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I had a really vivid imagination.

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I loved cowboys and Indians. I loved the
Wild West.

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Davy Crockett was a big hero.

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He was always an adventurer.

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He was a guy that handled the wrestling
bear, Terrible Ted, up in Calgary and

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working the territory.

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And my dad let him live on the property.
He lived under the back porch of the

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house, and it was in a little mesh cage.

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My dad would always have fudgicles in
the freezer, and you could take the

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fudgicles and you could drip the ice
cream on your toes.

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And that bear would lick your feet
clean. I remember my feet were like

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the bottom. I mean, they were so dirty.
I remember my mom going, oh, you took a

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bath. It's like, yeah, I took a bath.
The bear cleaned my feet.

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I never even thought much about it. It's
like I kind of assumed everybody had a

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bear under their porch.

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Dad did a lot of the cooking, the big
stuff, you know, maybe two or three huge

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turkeys. Stu had all these connections
with the grocers where he would get the

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distressed food and stuff.

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They would give him all the fruit that
they were unable to sell.

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So he would sometimes come home with
like 50 pounds of bananas.

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We'd be having bananas and milk for
breakfast for several months.

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I spent every Friday night from the time
I was four and a half or five years old

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around wrestlers.

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Gene Koniski and Killer Kowalski and Pat
O 'Connor and Lou Thez. I can even

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remember Bruno Sammartino coming up from
my father. I earned my first money in

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pro wrestling, selling programs, and I
made pretty good money for a five -year

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-old. I'd make two or three bucks a
weekend and buy stuff for myself.

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My dad had a feud going with a guy named
Archie the Stomper.

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I can remember Archie the Stomper.

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Going on TV and talking about he was
going to tear the hard house down brick

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brick. Have everybody with the last name
of H -A -R -T.

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Every single one of them. Until he found
my mom and my dad. He was going to pile

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drive my mom on the interstate.

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Basically scared the hell out of me with
his promo.

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And then I watched him pull into the
yard and a yellow Corvette knocked on

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door. And my mom came running down. She
opened the door a crack.

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Oh, Archie, she had the New York accent
and all that, and she gave him a hug,

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gave him his check.

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They talked for about 20, 30 seconds,
and he walked off and got in his car and

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drove off.

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What's going on here? Why is my mom
being nice to Archie the Stomper,

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after last night he was biting my dad's
head?

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I started to understand how wrestling
really works, at the same time defending

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wrestling at school all the time.

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Growing up in a wrestling family the way
we did, six months you might be doing

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really good and then it's six months
where it drops off horribly. And I

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as a kid always reflected in my clothes,
my shoes and my shoelaces.

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Your knees are all torn out and kids
would make fun of you for the clothes

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you wore.

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When your dad's not a policeman or a
doctor or a lawyer, when your dad's a

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professional wrestler, And there's 12 of
you and you're wearing hand -me -downs.

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It had its challenges.

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They called us heart fart.

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And we hated that.

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I was always pretty defensive about that
stuff. I think more so defensive of the

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wrestling. When somebody came up and
told me that wrestling was all bullshit

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none of it was real and your dad wasn't
really a tough guy and my dad could beat

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your dad up, that was time to throw
down.

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Where I would beat a kid with a full
Nelson or a sleeper hold or a Boston

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right on the grass.

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It was a big deal to me to go out there
and defend the Hart name.

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I never lost a fight at school, ever.

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It didn't matter if we dressed funny or
if we were different. We were the Hart

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family. My dad would say, the Hart boys
are coming. The Hart boys are coming.

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I slept most of my life in this room
here with four of my brothers. There's

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of us in the room there most of the
time, if not more.

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That's where a lot of hijinks and
wrestling took place.

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In the middle between the two bedrooms
is my mom's office where all the calls

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came in.

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The phones never stopped ringing at the
Hart House ever.

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Hello?

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It was a grassroots business.

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that my mother and father started, and
it's like the little promotion that

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could. I have $1 ,000 here where the
winner of it, each boy is contributed

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and they're going to have a wrestle
royal in Great Falls next Sunday.

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You go upstairs, and my mother would be
in the office booking plane flights,

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managing the bank account and signing
checks. And then in the basement, my dad

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would be training people.

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So you would hear people.

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often screaming.

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In the basement, this is, of course, the
dungeon, where Stu trains, you know,

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wannabe wrestlers, trains people who
want to break into the business.

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My grandfather had this deep passion for
submission wrestling, where you

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basically put somebody in a real hold.

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It meant to induce so much pain in them
that they scream or they tap out. He'd

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stretch you and he'd twist you into a
pretzel.

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Many of these fellas were looking at
parts of their body they had never seen

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before and to see guys actually vomit.
Guys defecating and crying and begging

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him and blood vessels popping in their
eyes, passing out in his arms.

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Upstairs you'd be in the kitchen sipping
red rose tea.

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And down there, somebody's screaming
their lights out and, like, begging for

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mercy, and my grandfather's just having
the time of his life.

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My brothers would go down in the
basement, and they would wrestle with my

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and they would wrestle each other.

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He taught his son how to make a living.

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00:14:00,160 --> 00:14:02,540
That's the way they want to play it.
They're going to get double dose of

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00:14:02,540 --> 00:14:06,020
medicine next week. My brothers were
doing it. Bruce and Keith were wrestling

196
00:14:06,020 --> 00:14:06,819
full time.

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00:14:06,820 --> 00:14:08,960
Half as crazy as he makes out to be.

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00:14:09,290 --> 00:14:10,550
My brother Wayne was a referee.

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00:14:11,210 --> 00:14:12,650
Wayne Hart, the referee.

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00:14:14,950 --> 00:14:17,570
When I was in high school, if you'd ask
me, what are you going to be when you

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grow up? Are you going to be a pro
wrestler?

202
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I would have told you never. There's not
a chance in the hell.

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And when I went out for the wrestling
team, and I had the long hair, I

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00:14:28,190 --> 00:14:29,710
coaches always saying, you've got to get
a haircut.

205
00:14:30,150 --> 00:14:31,650
And I was like, no, I'm not cutting my
hair.

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And then I would win.

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00:14:34,330 --> 00:14:37,870
My last year of high school wrestling, I
was city and provincial champion.

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00:14:38,849 --> 00:14:39,849
That's pretty funny.

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00:14:40,590 --> 00:14:44,290
Of course, things change when you get
your first girlfriend and drinking beer

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00:14:44,290 --> 00:14:46,430
and loving life and having a good time.

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00:14:48,070 --> 00:14:50,030
The last thing I wanted to do was
wrestle.

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00:14:51,110 --> 00:14:52,470
Grab him, Dan.

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00:14:52,930 --> 00:14:54,670
I was a huge Beatles fan.

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00:14:54,930 --> 00:14:58,270
I was a big Doors fan. I loved rock and
roll music.

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00:14:58,570 --> 00:15:02,270
I always loved Jim Morrison of the Doors
because I liked the way his hair was

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00:15:02,270 --> 00:15:04,550
kind of like, I like to think that my
hair was like that.

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00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:09,680
I went to the movie Papillon with Steve
McQueen. It was one of my favorite

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00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:13,140
movies as a kid. And I remember going,
that's what I want to do. I want to make

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00:15:13,140 --> 00:15:14,140
movies.

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00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:21,480
I did enroll in film school with no real
guidance or plan.

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00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:22,800
There's our star.

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00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:26,480
This is all right behind my dad's house,
and he couldn't drive.

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00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:30,920
Being a friend of mine, about an 8mm
movie camera.

224
00:15:31,280 --> 00:15:34,200
Damn lizard destroying the whole city of
Calgary.

225
00:15:34,620 --> 00:15:36,800
Our movie was going to be called The
Lizard.

226
00:15:37,560 --> 00:15:41,720
I went to a pet store and I bought an
iguana that we were going to make the

227
00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:42,960
monster in our movie.

228
00:15:43,180 --> 00:15:45,080
They looked so vicious and scary
looking.

229
00:15:45,460 --> 00:15:49,920
We bought a bunch of model cars that
looked like the cars we were driving

230
00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:53,900
in those days. We had some of our
friends pulling them on a string and we

231
00:15:53,900 --> 00:15:56,760
them crash and blow up and burst into
flames.

232
00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:00,640
This is how bad his acting is.

233
00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:06,240
We didn't really know what we were
doing. We were actually so excited about

234
00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:10,120
buying a movie camera and just making
movies that we started making the movie

235
00:16:10,120 --> 00:16:11,940
without a script and without any plans.

236
00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:20,840
And the big blow to us as a production
company was our lizard died.

237
00:16:21,140 --> 00:16:25,380
He croaked on us and it was like, he's
the star of the movie. It's like King

238
00:16:25,380 --> 00:16:26,380
Kong dying.

239
00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:28,180
So there it went to our movie.

240
00:16:28,740 --> 00:16:29,619
Okay, cut.

241
00:16:29,620 --> 00:16:30,620
We'll try something else.

242
00:16:35,210 --> 00:16:38,350
I quit college in the film school and
everything. I just dropped out.

243
00:16:38,730 --> 00:16:41,530
So I remember telling my friends, like,
I'm going to try the wrestling thing.

244
00:16:41,590 --> 00:16:43,210
And it was like, really? Like, they
couldn't believe it.

245
00:16:44,430 --> 00:16:48,230
And I knew I was a good amateur
wrestler, so I'm not getting into it to

246
00:16:48,230 --> 00:16:49,310
promoter's kid wrestler.

247
00:16:49,870 --> 00:16:53,710
I'm getting into wrestling to someday be
the biggest star in my dad's territory.

248
00:16:54,010 --> 00:16:56,510
I'm going to make this wrestling game
work.

249
00:16:56,790 --> 00:16:58,750
This is the fourth of the Hart clan.

250
00:16:59,510 --> 00:17:02,170
Bret Hart, again, with a big slam.

251
00:17:02,970 --> 00:17:04,730
He's got the abdominal stretch.

252
00:17:05,829 --> 00:17:06,829
And that's it.

253
00:17:07,230 --> 00:17:10,069
And there's your winner, young Bret
Hart.

254
00:17:11,750 --> 00:17:15,170
My dad's been working out with me a
little this week. He knows a little bit

255
00:17:15,170 --> 00:17:16,450
about the game. Yeah, a little bit.

256
00:17:16,990 --> 00:17:17,889
Okay, Bret.

257
00:17:17,890 --> 00:17:19,230
Good to see you. Bret Hart.

258
00:17:20,710 --> 00:17:24,690
The only reservation I ever had was I
didn't think he was big enough.

259
00:17:24,950 --> 00:17:27,950
And then all of a sudden, his physique
emerged.

260
00:17:28,250 --> 00:17:29,570
He got bigger. He got stronger.

261
00:17:31,210 --> 00:17:35,210
He was believable. He was likable. The
fans took to him.

262
00:17:43,210 --> 00:17:43,690
Like

263
00:17:43,690 --> 00:17:50,650
a

264
00:17:50,650 --> 00:17:55,110
lot of kids who grew up in Calgary in
the 1970s, stampede wrestling was the

265
00:17:55,110 --> 00:17:58,770
ritual. And it was something that you
look forward to on Saturday afternoons.

266
00:17:58,770 --> 00:18:02,490
And I do remember the boys in my
elementary and junior high school, a lot

267
00:18:02,490 --> 00:18:05,150
times at recess would emulate the hard
boys.

268
00:18:05,370 --> 00:18:10,130
I'm sure that me and Bruce and Keith are
ready to fight it any way they want.

269
00:18:10,290 --> 00:18:13,090
We'll give them any kind of match they
want. It was quite funny because I was

270
00:18:13,090 --> 00:18:17,110
like this kid that had been picked on,
and all of a sudden girls were telling

271
00:18:17,110 --> 00:18:19,030
that my brother Brad is so cute.

272
00:18:19,390 --> 00:18:22,310
And I'd be like, okay, sure.

273
00:18:23,610 --> 00:18:27,490
The fans loved the hearts so much. I
mean, all the hearts. All of the eight

274
00:18:27,490 --> 00:18:29,930
had some sort of dealings with the
wrestling world.

275
00:18:35,190 --> 00:18:38,970
And then the four girls all wind up
marrying wrestlers as well. My mom,

276
00:18:39,110 --> 00:18:40,490
is the oldest of the heart girls.

277
00:18:40,910 --> 00:18:45,010
She ended up marrying Jim the Anvil
Neidhart, who is my dad.

278
00:18:45,450 --> 00:18:46,450
I'm going to dropkick you!

279
00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:48,860
50 feet all the way to the ceiling.

280
00:18:49,180 --> 00:18:53,220
My aunt Georgia, she ended up following
in my mom's footsteps. His name was BJ

281
00:18:53,220 --> 00:18:57,200
Annis. My aunt Allison was also married
to a wrestler named Ben Basarab.

282
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:04,820
And then the baby, my aunt Diana, she
married Davey Boy Smith, the British

283
00:19:04,820 --> 00:19:05,820
Bulldog.

284
00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:07,680
Davey came over to wrestle for my
grandfather.

285
00:19:08,570 --> 00:19:13,430
Davey proposed to me outside on my dad's
balcony. He said, I've asked your dad

286
00:19:13,430 --> 00:19:17,070
and he gave me his blessing. I asked
your mom and she almost fainted.

287
00:19:17,830 --> 00:19:21,430
That makes me laugh thinking about my
grandmother, Helen. She started off not

288
00:19:21,430 --> 00:19:24,930
really liking wrestling and her whole
entire family ends up becoming a part of

289
00:19:24,930 --> 00:19:25,930
it, including her daughters.

290
00:19:27,930 --> 00:19:29,490
She was in over her head.

291
00:19:31,450 --> 00:19:36,290
In August of that year of 84, my dad
was...

292
00:19:36,490 --> 00:19:41,270
quietly negotiating the sale of Stampede
Wrestling and its TV rights to Vince

293
00:19:41,270 --> 00:19:42,330
McMahon and WWE.

294
00:19:44,070 --> 00:19:47,530
My mom was always pressing my dad to get
out of the business.

295
00:19:47,850 --> 00:19:51,010
He was hesitant, and he decided that he
was going to sell.

296
00:19:51,790 --> 00:19:55,470
Vince bought the company for the TV
network, and as part of the deal, Stu

297
00:19:55,470 --> 00:20:00,190
like, I want you to give jobs to four of
my guys, which were Brett, his son,

298
00:20:01,090 --> 00:20:04,730
Davey Boy Smith, his son -in -law,
Dynamite Kid.

299
00:20:05,999 --> 00:20:08,580
and Jim Neidhart, who was another son
-in -law.

300
00:20:08,860 --> 00:20:12,880
Stu wanted to make sure that they were
taken care of and had a place to go.

301
00:20:13,060 --> 00:20:18,180
Vince looked at all four and thought, we
definitely could use them. He told me

302
00:20:18,180 --> 00:20:21,640
that I was going to be a big star and
they had big plans for me. And I was

303
00:20:21,780 --> 00:20:25,020
that's bullshit. That'll never happen.

304
00:20:25,780 --> 00:20:28,320
Basically, Vince McMahon had no plans
for Bret Hart.

305
00:20:30,860 --> 00:20:34,220
There were people that believed in him,
but Vince just wasn't totally sold on

306
00:20:34,220 --> 00:20:38,040
him. And Bret was struggling to find
himself because there were only going to

307
00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:41,580
so many failed characters in WWE until
Vince ended up just cutting them.

308
00:20:44,860 --> 00:20:48,640
I was a bit more into the Led Zeppelin
and the Rolling Stones.

309
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:55,980
And Bret was Cat Stevens, the Bee Gees,
Harry Chapin, Bob Dylan kind of

310
00:20:55,980 --> 00:20:57,940
stuff. And I loved Van Morrison.

311
00:20:58,750 --> 00:21:02,770
And he couldn't believe it. He's going,
wow, I never thought you'd be a Van

312
00:21:02,770 --> 00:21:03,649
Morrison fan.

313
00:21:03,650 --> 00:21:05,310
And I'm like, oh, I love Van Morrison.

314
00:21:07,410 --> 00:21:11,470
I was getting to that point with Julie
where I hinted to my parents and my dad

315
00:21:11,470 --> 00:21:12,950
especially that I wanted to get married.

316
00:21:13,150 --> 00:21:14,450
Why don't you marry a doctor?

317
00:21:14,710 --> 00:21:17,630
And I'm thinking, I don't know any
doctors that are going to be interested

318
00:21:17,630 --> 00:21:20,330
me. That's wishful thinking on your
part, not mine.

319
00:21:22,110 --> 00:21:23,110
We eloped.

320
00:21:23,580 --> 00:21:28,540
We took Brett's best friend and this
other friend of ours. He was working at

321
00:21:28,540 --> 00:21:33,140
restaurant that we would always go to on
Friday night. We needed two witnesses.

322
00:21:33,340 --> 00:21:37,140
So Brett ran into the restaurant. He's
like, George, come on. He goes, you got

323
00:21:37,140 --> 00:21:39,160
to come with us. Julie and I are getting
married.

324
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:42,000
And so he came with us to City Hall.

325
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:46,400
And after the judge basically told us
that we were married, we went outside.

326
00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:48,900
He goes, oh, yeah. He goes, I got your
ring.

327
00:21:52,220 --> 00:21:55,020
Went and had a quick meal, and he had to
go wrestle.

328
00:21:56,800 --> 00:22:00,860
The night I got married, I wrestled Nick
Bonkwinkel for the AWA World

329
00:22:00,860 --> 00:22:04,700
Championship in Calgary at the Pavilion,
and that was my honeymoon.

330
00:22:06,180 --> 00:22:11,420
I was convinced, absolutely, totally
convinced that I was going to have the

331
00:22:11,420 --> 00:22:13,140
first son, the first hard boy.

332
00:22:13,380 --> 00:22:14,900
The baby's name is going to be Stu.

333
00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:17,340
I'm going to carry the legacy.

334
00:22:18,260 --> 00:22:22,530
But when they came and told me, like,
you've got a baby girl, It just floored

335
00:22:22,530 --> 00:22:23,830
me. It's like, wow, I got a girl.

336
00:22:25,050 --> 00:22:30,030
She was a really beautiful baby, and it
was a very happy time for me and Julie.

337
00:22:30,310 --> 00:22:33,710
It wasn't long that Dallas was coming
next, like the next baby.

338
00:22:34,390 --> 00:22:39,350
So I kind of prepared myself, and it's
like, I am not going to overthink this

339
00:22:39,350 --> 00:22:40,350
this time.

340
00:22:40,430 --> 00:22:45,290
And I didn't have a name. One of my
brothers ended up naming his kid Stuart.

341
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:48,800
So the Stu Hart thing was gone. That
wasn't going to happen anymore.

342
00:22:49,120 --> 00:22:50,720
The Dallas Cowboys were on TV.

343
00:22:50,980 --> 00:22:53,040
They were my favorite football team at
that time.

344
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:55,460
And I named him after the Dallas
Cowboys.

345
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,860
He reminded me a little bit of a
miniature version of King Kong Bundy.

346
00:23:00,300 --> 00:23:03,420
So he was immediately nicknamed Bundy
back in those days.

347
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:06,260
He was a great dad.

348
00:23:07,020 --> 00:23:11,640
Brett was really hands -on with our kids
because he was gone so much. Like,

349
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:14,700
that's all he did. He was just staying
home. He didn't want to go anywhere.

350
00:23:16,460 --> 00:23:21,000
I can remember playing with my daughter.
She was pushing a shopping cart or toy

351
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:24,900
one around, and she was so excited she
was going to get me groceries, and we

352
00:23:24,900 --> 00:23:25,900
stuff all afternoon.

353
00:23:26,220 --> 00:23:27,880
I had to hide my suitcase.

354
00:23:28,340 --> 00:23:32,960
I had to bring it down the stairs and
sneak out of the house because she would

355
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:34,780
get so upset if she thought I was
leaving again.

356
00:23:37,100 --> 00:23:42,200
But it was always on the night that my
dad would have to sneak out and, you

357
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:43,300
know, get on a plane to leave.

358
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:45,300
I wish that he could have been there
more.

359
00:23:46,749 --> 00:23:50,870
But I also, I think, felt so bad for my
mom.

360
00:23:52,570 --> 00:23:56,730
I would love to have stayed home,
especially at that time with two very

361
00:23:56,730 --> 00:23:57,730
babies.

362
00:23:58,330 --> 00:24:01,610
Welcome to the World Wrestling
Federation, and welcome to the good old

363
00:24:01,610 --> 00:24:04,390
A. Yeah, it's great to be here. Now I'm
down in the United States, I want to

364
00:24:04,390 --> 00:24:08,670
really earn myself a niche here. I
pretty much walked out the door and in a

365
00:24:08,670 --> 00:24:13,110
of ways never came back. And I was gone
at least 300 days a year, every year.

366
00:24:14,090 --> 00:24:18,670
Bret Hart from Calgary, Canada,
following in his father's footsteps into

367
00:24:18,670 --> 00:24:19,990
ranks of professional wrestling.

368
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:25,640
Brett had been used to being a top star
in Calgary. He was the promoter's son

369
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:27,500
and an incredible talent.

370
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:35,320
But when Brett came

371
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:42,140
into the WWE, he didn't really fit into
the upper echelon as

372
00:24:42,140 --> 00:24:45,540
far as size, drawing power, personality.

373
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:50,320
He didn't have the confidence. The
company wasn't totally sold on him. At

374
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:51,700
point, they wanted him to be a cowboy.

375
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,780
We're going to call you Cowboy Bret
Hart.

376
00:24:56,120 --> 00:24:59,080
You're going to ride a different horse
out to the ring every night.

377
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:00,640
I'm not a cowboy.

378
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,500
You know, where I come from in Calgary,
you've got to be a real cowboy to call

379
00:25:04,500 --> 00:25:05,500
yourself a cowboy.

380
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:06,680
I can't even ride a horse.

381
00:25:07,100 --> 00:25:08,520
He had to come up with a suggestion.

382
00:25:09,460 --> 00:25:13,200
Bret decided that he and my dad could be
a tag team.

383
00:25:13,660 --> 00:25:18,620
Jim the Anvil and Bret Hart teaming up
in the air. And what's going to happen

384
00:25:18,620 --> 00:25:19,620
here?

385
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:21,800
Oh, my, what a clothesline.

386
00:25:22,020 --> 00:25:27,360
Here are your winners, Brent Park and
Jim the Anvil. When we first teamed up,

387
00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:30,040
didn't even have matching outfits. I
didn't think we were going to last.

388
00:25:32,700 --> 00:25:36,900
We had a Saturday night main event match
coming up. I called the lady out of

389
00:25:36,900 --> 00:25:38,860
Ohio that used to make all the wrestling
gear.

390
00:25:39,120 --> 00:25:42,500
I was in the hotel room with Jim
Neidhart. I said, she's got a hot pink.

391
00:25:42,740 --> 00:25:45,660
He liked it. He gave her the nod, like,
go for it and go for the pink.

392
00:25:46,510 --> 00:25:49,210
And I remember thinking, pink? Like, are
you serious?

393
00:25:49,890 --> 00:25:51,870
All of a sudden, everyone's wearing
pink?

394
00:25:52,830 --> 00:25:53,830
Why is this?

395
00:25:54,070 --> 00:25:55,530
Because they're jealous!

396
00:25:57,310 --> 00:26:00,310
I didn't like it. Jim loved it.

397
00:26:00,570 --> 00:26:03,450
And, well, I've always said pink is not
my favorite color.

398
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,300
But it was my lucky color. We're the
best team in professional wrestling. And

399
00:26:07,300 --> 00:26:09,480
we've got this manager right here, the
greatest manager in professional

400
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:13,180
wrestling. How do you feel, baby? How do
you feel? The original formation of the

401
00:26:13,180 --> 00:26:16,880
Hart Foundation were kind of three guys
that were kind of put together. But I

402
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:21,200
think with all of us having the name
Hart somewhere in it, Knight Hart, Jimmy

403
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:25,220
Hart, Bret Hart, it was just something
that really meshed. You know, it was

404
00:26:25,220 --> 00:26:26,119
the three amigos.

405
00:26:26,120 --> 00:26:27,120
Everybody was different.

406
00:26:27,460 --> 00:26:32,240
I was running around the ring like 90
miles an hour with a high squeaky voice.

407
00:26:36,010 --> 00:26:38,070
Come on, Jim. Kind of stirring up
everything.

408
00:26:38,650 --> 00:26:41,750
You got it right where you want it,
baby. What about that, man?

409
00:26:42,070 --> 00:26:46,530
I love to see the day when somebody
takes a megaphone and shoves it down his

410
00:26:46,530 --> 00:26:50,650
throat. He would just absolutely drive
you insane.

411
00:26:51,190 --> 00:26:55,710
Never stopping was where he got his
name, Mouth of the South. And my dad was

412
00:26:55,710 --> 00:26:57,410
always the scene stealer. They won.

413
00:27:01,940 --> 00:27:06,880
He was always the one that just had an
over -the -top charisma about him.

414
00:27:09,100 --> 00:27:12,020
And he loved to laugh like a lunatic.

415
00:27:15,500 --> 00:27:17,200
Even though we were the bad guys.

416
00:27:17,930 --> 00:27:22,150
The girls love Bret. Oh, my gosh, do
they love Bret. We've got skill, we've

417
00:27:22,150 --> 00:27:26,270
looks, we've got everything, and we've
got money. His talk and everything else

418
00:27:26,270 --> 00:27:28,390
was so smooth. He was like, smooth
operator.

419
00:27:28,990 --> 00:27:32,350
Not only am I possibly the greatest
looking wrestler, but I'm also the

420
00:27:32,350 --> 00:27:33,730
technical wrestler.

421
00:27:34,090 --> 00:27:35,970
Ooh, what a dropkick by Bret Hart.

422
00:27:36,470 --> 00:27:42,530
Get Bret to come in with this crisp,
slick, but yet rough, rugged

423
00:27:42,530 --> 00:27:44,090
technical wrestling.

424
00:27:44,970 --> 00:27:46,350
And then here comes Andy.

425
00:27:47,540 --> 00:27:50,620
Look at the power and the strength of
the anvil, man.

426
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:53,940
Slingshotted over the top like a Harry
Zeppelin.

427
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:59,840
Big forearms and the goatee and the ha
-ha, yeah, baby. And Brett just calm,

428
00:27:59,980 --> 00:28:01,300
cool, holding it down.

429
00:28:03,370 --> 00:28:08,670
All of the things that as a teenager
that I loved in a tag team, they brought

430
00:28:08,670 --> 00:28:09,670
all to the table.

431
00:28:10,830 --> 00:28:16,330
One of the most important parts to our
success as a team was that we all really

432
00:28:16,330 --> 00:28:17,330
liked each other.

433
00:28:17,950 --> 00:28:20,170
Every day was an adventure with Jim
Neidhart.

434
00:28:22,430 --> 00:28:25,990
I wish I could just go back and live
those days just for a few minutes.

435
00:28:33,459 --> 00:28:37,260
Vincent called me. He goes, I don't know
what it is. For some reason, we got

436
00:28:37,260 --> 00:28:40,240
more fan mail for you than any other
wrestler in the company.

437
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,500
We're going to take you out of the tags,
and you're going to be a single

438
00:28:44,500 --> 00:28:45,500
wrestler all by yourself.

439
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:53,960
I was kind of skeptical of anything that
was going to happen for me, and so I

440
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:55,040
didn't really believe it.

441
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:08,560
He had that twinkle in his eye that you
knew there's something there.

442
00:29:08,940 --> 00:29:13,220
For whatever reason, it didn't blast off
immediately.

443
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,900
Once you put me in singles, you took
away Jimmy Hart, you took away Anvil,

444
00:29:17,900 --> 00:29:22,580
they were my support for promos. And I
had to start talking on my own.

445
00:29:22,780 --> 00:29:25,280
It wasn't my strongest suit, but I was
trying my hardest.

446
00:29:25,540 --> 00:29:29,800
You may have come out of Harlem, but I
came out of the dungeon.

447
00:29:30,100 --> 00:29:32,100
Everything was tied in with my dad.

448
00:29:32,730 --> 00:29:34,890
The Hart family, one of 12 kids.

449
00:29:35,110 --> 00:29:36,430
He's taught us how to be tough.

450
00:29:36,750 --> 00:29:42,150
He's made us fight. And I learned hold
after hold after hold, and I learned to

451
00:29:42,150 --> 00:29:42,949
never quit.

452
00:29:42,950 --> 00:29:46,190
Gorilla Monsoon always talked about my
dad on TV in the dungeon.

453
00:29:46,590 --> 00:29:51,090
And he learned that in the dungeon in
Calgary, Alberta, from one of the

454
00:29:51,090 --> 00:29:52,890
wrestlers of all time, Stu Hart.

455
00:29:53,250 --> 00:29:56,410
These are all things that fans didn't
hear about from other wrestlers.

456
00:29:57,030 --> 00:30:00,430
Fans started to slowly get opened up to
this backstory.

457
00:30:01,210 --> 00:30:06,630
And at the same time, fans had seen me
slowly climb up. They understood my

458
00:30:06,630 --> 00:30:08,670
struggle. They related to it.

459
00:30:08,910 --> 00:30:14,050
Although he is very technical and very
sound, very believable, Brett was not

460
00:30:14,050 --> 00:30:15,490
that big compared to the other
performers.

461
00:30:15,770 --> 00:30:19,050
But Brett stayed in there, hung in
there, and hung in there. It's like

462
00:30:19,050 --> 00:30:22,850
eventually everyone recognized his
skill, and the rest is history.

463
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:30,580
Rhett was put in with Kurt Hennig, who
was one of the absolute greatest

464
00:30:30,580 --> 00:30:33,040
performers in the history of the
business.

465
00:30:36,180 --> 00:30:43,100
No matter how much you beat the crap out
of him, he

466
00:30:43,100 --> 00:30:47,280
just wouldn't die. He just kept coming
back. Kind of like a Rocky type of vibe,

467
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:48,360
you know what I mean?

468
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,940
As the match progressed, you would
notice he would focus more on the back

469
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:00,000
Why is he doing that?

470
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:10,980
He's finishing with the sharpshooter.
He's wearing down his opponent, so he's

471
00:31:10,980 --> 00:31:11,980
finishing. He was effective.

472
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:29,700
The Intercontinental title was given to
the best actual technical wrestler in

473
00:31:29,700 --> 00:31:30,700
the company.

474
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:35,660
We'd come that far and had this moment
together as a family, and I was so happy

475
00:31:35,660 --> 00:31:38,020
to give both my mom and my dad in that
moment.

476
00:31:42,460 --> 00:31:46,740
It brought honor to the family and the
name and my dad and

477
00:31:46,740 --> 00:31:49,600
everybody.

478
00:31:52,140 --> 00:31:56,180
Brett defends his coveted
intercontinental title against his

479
00:31:56,420 --> 00:31:57,920
the British Bulldog.

480
00:31:58,180 --> 00:32:01,460
Brett, you are my brother -in -law.

481
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,280
But when I step in the ring with you,
Brett...

482
00:32:16,589 --> 00:32:21,330
The beauty of what the storyline
presented was this realism.

483
00:32:21,610 --> 00:32:24,310
He wanted the big fight. He's got the
big fight.

484
00:32:27,889 --> 00:32:31,870
Davey's consumed with witting it. This
is not a made -up story. She's not an

485
00:32:31,870 --> 00:32:36,350
actress. This is my real sister, and she
really is married to the bulldog. But

486
00:32:36,350 --> 00:32:38,510
they don't understand what we're going
through.

487
00:32:38,870 --> 00:32:40,490
It was a legitimate storyline.

488
00:32:40,850 --> 00:32:44,950
I had feelings for both of them. I
really did. Take a listen to the

489
00:32:44,950 --> 00:32:48,110
your dear mother, Helen. Take a look at
the emotion she shows.

490
00:32:48,410 --> 00:32:51,370
I don't want them to fight. I don't want
them to hurt each other.

491
00:32:51,650 --> 00:32:53,410
They're all blood.

492
00:32:54,290 --> 00:32:56,690
I just can't stand it. That's all.

493
00:32:58,510 --> 00:33:03,710
Sorry. She'd pretend to cry or
something, because she was so torn up

494
00:33:03,710 --> 00:33:08,670
family fighting over this, and they even
had certain members of my family take

495
00:33:08,670 --> 00:33:09,670
Davey's side.

496
00:33:09,730 --> 00:33:14,110
Brett's ego was so damn big that he
can't get a grasp of reality.

497
00:33:14,670 --> 00:33:19,170
All that just came across as layers to
the truth of the story.

498
00:33:19,430 --> 00:33:21,710
Then it's like, okay, well, can you
deliver the match?

499
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:32,940
And they sold that out in less than 11
hours.

500
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:40,440
Before that, I think Madonna and Michael
Jackson had the record for selling out

501
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:46,160
the fastest, and over 80 ,000 tickets
were sold. Two great competitors about

502
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:47,160
collide here.

503
00:33:47,500 --> 00:33:50,820
This is my husband wrestling my brother.

504
00:33:52,860 --> 00:33:57,500
It was extraordinarily overwhelming for
me.

505
00:33:59,210 --> 00:34:04,710
My brother's kicking my husband in the
face. It's like... And then he suplexes

506
00:34:04,710 --> 00:34:06,030
Brett off the top rope.

507
00:34:07,470 --> 00:34:09,730
Brett grabs Davey by the hair.

508
00:34:14,570 --> 00:34:17,850
Davey slingshots him, and Brett goes
into the turnbuckle.

509
00:34:18,889 --> 00:34:21,270
Oh, my God.

510
00:34:43,060 --> 00:34:46,380
Thank God that's over and Davey won.

511
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,199
Davey boy won. I was so happy about
that.

512
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:01,940
Winning and losing when you're telling a
great story really doesn't matter.

513
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,720
What matters at the end of the day is
what does the audience remember?

514
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:19,440
Losing isn't always a bad thing. If it's
done in a dramatic way, an honest way,

515
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:20,720
and an emotional way.

516
00:35:24,650 --> 00:35:25,810
make me a bigger star.

517
00:35:26,090 --> 00:35:29,870
I don't know if that was ever in the
plans. And that's what makes me respect

518
00:35:29,870 --> 00:35:32,730
even more. He had to prove it.

519
00:35:33,490 --> 00:35:35,390
Night in, night out.

520
00:35:39,730 --> 00:35:43,410
He's about to slap it on. You're talking
about the shot shooter.

521
00:35:43,670 --> 00:35:44,910
You'll probably surrender.

522
00:35:45,470 --> 00:35:48,570
Shot shooter, there it is. Forget about
it.

523
00:35:49,090 --> 00:35:50,570
Kids like me showing up.

524
00:35:50,860 --> 00:35:54,160
always watching that Bret Hart match
because we just knew it was going to be

525
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:55,160
great.

526
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:02,540
That eventually springboarded to the
World Heavyweight Championship.

527
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:09,100
There was a fair number of people that
never imagined me being world champion,

528
00:36:09,220 --> 00:36:11,080
including fans and wrestlers.

529
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:25,700
Geez. Talk about a dark horse.

530
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:29,500
How

531
00:36:29,500 --> 00:36:44,700
do

532
00:36:44,700 --> 00:36:48,680
you express to an audience how happy I
was and how much of a dream this was?

533
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:55,660
You know what? Just tell the truth.

534
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:57,760
Just tell them the truth.

535
00:36:57,980 --> 00:37:02,680
You know, Gene, since I was this tall,
I've been involved in wrestling. My

536
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:08,100
family's been involved in wrestling.
I've dedicated my whole life to

537
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:14,820
I dedicate this moment to all the people
that believe that the biggest dreams

538
00:37:14,820 --> 00:37:16,640
can still come true.

539
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:27,460
Family is real, and family is something
that everyone has.

540
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,640
Anybody that has siblings know that
siblings fight.

541
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:37,240
There's nothing, nothing that will ever
stop the rocket,

542
00:37:37,460 --> 00:37:39,320
brother.

543
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:46,160
When people look at the hitman, they see
that I don't have 24 -inch arms, and

544
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,860
maybe I'm not 6 '8", but you know what I
am? The greatest.

545
00:37:50,500 --> 00:37:53,120
technical wrestler in the World
Wrestling Federation.

546
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:57,280
And he is a wrestler's wrestler.

547
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:01,540
This is man Bret Hart, one of the great
technicians in the WWF.

548
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,700
His execution of everything he did in
the ring was absolutely flawless.

549
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:09,140
His nickname is the excellence of
execution for a reason. Every suplex,

550
00:38:09,140 --> 00:38:13,680
backbreaker, every punch, everything
just looks so authentic and it was very

551
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:17,400
important to me that everything I do
look as believable and real as Bret.

552
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:25,680
Get a shot of Brent Hart doing a suplex
and put it side by side with mine. It's

553
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:26,680
exactly the same.

554
00:38:29,100 --> 00:38:31,500
This is some day that speaks to me.

555
00:38:34,380 --> 00:38:38,040
Brent looked at the ring as an artist
canvas.

556
00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:42,560
He was going to paint a picture every
time he got into the ring.

557
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:44,700
He was an artist in real life.

558
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:46,600
Everybody.

559
00:38:46,830 --> 00:38:47,830
Good at something.

560
00:38:48,070 --> 00:38:51,410
Sometimes you don't even know yourself
what it is, and one day you're just

561
00:38:51,410 --> 00:38:54,670
to stumble upon it. I really love to
draw cartoons.

562
00:38:57,210 --> 00:39:02,490
Everybody has a gift hidden inside
themselves, and you've just got to find

563
00:39:05,050 --> 00:39:09,050
These are my old cartoons from years and
years ago.

564
00:39:09,740 --> 00:39:13,580
Or WrestleMania, where I fought Roddy
Piper for the Intercontinental belt. I

565
00:39:13,580 --> 00:39:15,960
went through Piper, and I did go through
Flair to get the title.

566
00:39:16,180 --> 00:39:21,600
Here's one with me and Davey at
SummerSlam, which is kind of funny. It's

567
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:22,600
actually a good cartoon.

568
00:39:24,500 --> 00:39:26,420
Goldberg and Hogan, two of my favorites.

569
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:31,660
What has four years done to the warrior?

570
00:39:32,300 --> 00:39:34,580
Which warrior would laugh really hard at
that cartoon?

571
00:39:34,860 --> 00:39:36,360
Here's Yoko and Lex Luger.

572
00:39:39,050 --> 00:39:40,050
And the Mountie.

573
00:39:41,990 --> 00:39:43,790
And of course this is one of my
favorites.

574
00:39:44,110 --> 00:39:45,510
Owen Jim and my dad.

575
00:39:45,730 --> 00:39:46,850
I had fun drawing Jim.

576
00:39:47,050 --> 00:39:48,270
He was always a fun character.

577
00:39:48,510 --> 00:39:49,650
Here's an old one of Steve Austin.

578
00:39:52,550 --> 00:39:55,510
And there's Vader and Undertaker.

579
00:39:56,330 --> 00:39:57,330
Hoban.

580
00:39:57,630 --> 00:40:00,530
I would get the story from somebody what
happened the night before.

581
00:40:00,770 --> 00:40:02,990
And then I would draw some kind of
cartoon about it.

582
00:40:03,870 --> 00:40:07,190
To make everyone laugh. And Andre used
to love him. He used to laugh all the

583
00:40:07,190 --> 00:40:11,130
time. This one was pretty special in a
way because it was about Andre, and it

584
00:40:11,130 --> 00:40:13,030
was Andre basically carrying the
territory.

585
00:40:14,710 --> 00:40:18,990
I was probably about 12 or 13. I don't
know what possessed me or what the

586
00:40:18,990 --> 00:40:22,390
reasoning behind it was because I loved
my brother Owen. He was seven years

587
00:40:22,390 --> 00:40:27,790
younger than I am, but it was my job
often to put Owen's shoes on or get Owen

588
00:40:27,790 --> 00:40:31,670
dressed or make sure Owen ate dinner or
given the task of making sure Owen was

589
00:40:31,670 --> 00:40:32,730
being taken care of.

590
00:40:33,100 --> 00:40:37,620
But I remember Owen loved it when I drew
him. I remember drawing him in the

591
00:40:37,620 --> 00:40:39,460
story. You're going to be the bad heart.

592
00:40:40,780 --> 00:40:44,460
He had a little stubble on his chin. He
was always in a mad mood.

593
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:52,620
Years later when we were wrestling, we
enjoyed bringing that storyline we made

594
00:40:52,620 --> 00:40:54,520
up as kids to reality.

595
00:40:55,020 --> 00:40:58,440
We're going to be the champions. Here is
two brothers that come from a wrestling

596
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,180
family. We're like a fine -tuned
machine.

597
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:01,900
One had ascended.

598
00:41:02,230 --> 00:41:03,430
to championship status.

599
00:41:06,050 --> 00:41:11,090
The younger brother, Owen, was damn
good, but had never really had that shot

600
00:41:11,090 --> 00:41:12,090
be in a main event.

601
00:41:12,410 --> 00:41:14,790
They didn't have much going for Owen,
and they never had.

602
00:41:15,010 --> 00:41:19,090
They'd made promises to him, but they
never panned out. I think he got hurt

603
00:41:19,090 --> 00:41:23,230
different things happened, but Owen got
so discouraged that he told me that he

604
00:41:23,230 --> 00:41:24,870
was quitting and he'd be a fireman.

605
00:41:25,350 --> 00:41:29,570
I thought he was such a great wrestler,
and I really wanted to give him that

606
00:41:29,570 --> 00:41:34,620
chance. Brett knew that if Owen had this
opportunity to have this rivalry with

607
00:41:34,620 --> 00:41:37,440
him, it could be what catapulted Owen
into stardom.

608
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:41,220
We're going to go at each other and it's
going to be a war between me and you

609
00:41:41,220 --> 00:41:44,760
and we're going to make this real and
try to make people believe that we

610
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:45,598
hate each other.

611
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:49,180
Deep down inside, Brett, in your heart,
you know I'm better than you.

612
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,180
Owen played his part so well.

613
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,700
You've tried to hold me back. You've
tried to keep me down.

614
00:41:56,140 --> 00:41:58,320
He was just that bratty.

615
00:41:58,970 --> 00:42:00,390
little younger brother.

616
00:42:00,710 --> 00:42:05,050
You, Brett, you've been a problem for a
long time for me and never getting any

617
00:42:05,050 --> 00:42:09,850
recognition. It's always you, Brett.
Your ego is too big. You only worry

618
00:42:09,850 --> 00:42:15,450
yourself, Brett. Brett was just like on
the knife of the foolishness.

619
00:42:15,710 --> 00:42:18,410
I'm going to ask you one thing. You sit
down with me, mom, dad, and we're going

620
00:42:18,410 --> 00:42:21,110
to settle this thing. Get it all worked
out. Everything's got to be fine.

621
00:42:21,370 --> 00:42:22,370
This is family.

622
00:42:22,830 --> 00:42:26,910
You know I'm better than you. And come
WrestleMania 10, Brett, I'm coming at

623
00:42:26,910 --> 00:42:30,250
like a freight train, and I'm not
stopping. I'm going to beat you, Brett.

624
00:42:30,470 --> 00:42:33,070
Welcome to WrestleMania 10.

625
00:42:34,090 --> 00:42:35,130
This is the moment.

626
00:42:35,370 --> 00:42:38,550
Bret Hart thought he would never see
that he would actually be facing his

627
00:42:38,550 --> 00:42:41,490
brother. Oh, what a flip. And yes.

628
00:42:42,190 --> 00:42:43,610
Putting on the brakes, nice maneuver.

629
00:42:43,890 --> 00:42:45,630
And now, pile driver.

630
00:42:46,130 --> 00:42:47,510
Yeah, here comes the hitman.

631
00:42:47,830 --> 00:42:49,950
Full slide over the top to the outside.

632
00:42:50,590 --> 00:42:53,310
Damn, those brothers are beating the
hell out of each other.

633
00:42:54,250 --> 00:42:58,910
Look at Owen yelling and screaming at
his brother. What a matchup this is.

634
00:42:58,970 --> 00:42:59,970
Unbelievable.

635
00:43:00,190 --> 00:43:03,310
It's the best opening match of any
WrestleMania.

636
00:43:03,670 --> 00:43:06,550
It might be the best opening match of
any pay -per -view. Owen shocked the

637
00:43:06,550 --> 00:43:07,550
by winning the match.

638
00:43:09,230 --> 00:43:16,170
The one opportunity that you had in
front

639
00:43:16,170 --> 00:43:19,250
of a worldwide stage, you couldn't beat
me, Brett.

640
00:43:19,870 --> 00:43:25,470
I am the best there is, the best there
was, and the best there ever will be.

641
00:43:25,790 --> 00:43:27,450
Don't you forget it, brother.

642
00:43:28,350 --> 00:43:29,350
Woo!

643
00:43:30,610 --> 00:43:32,650
This is why it's such brilliant
storytelling.

644
00:43:33,850 --> 00:43:36,530
WrestleMania tends to be a very unique
WrestleMania in the sense that Bret Hart

645
00:43:36,530 --> 00:43:37,530
has two matches.

646
00:43:37,930 --> 00:43:44,550
So after losing to Owen in the opening
match of the show, Bret goes to the main

647
00:43:44,550 --> 00:43:49,090
event, and he beats Yokozuna, and he
becomes the champion.

648
00:43:49,530 --> 00:43:55,410
The hitman at WrestleMania 10, he's done
it. All the good guys come out to the

649
00:43:55,410 --> 00:43:59,910
ring and they hoist Bret up on their
shoulders. Somehow, he's done the

650
00:43:59,910 --> 00:44:04,670
impossible. And Owen is just looking at
Bret with such contempt.

651
00:44:05,270 --> 00:44:09,090
You did it again. I beat you. This was
supposed to be my night.

652
00:44:10,830 --> 00:44:15,290
We have forgotten about Owen again, and
we are now applauding Bret.

653
00:44:15,570 --> 00:44:18,050
The World Wrestling Federation champion.

654
00:44:19,930 --> 00:44:24,010
And it carries from April all the way
into the summer.

655
00:44:30,330 --> 00:44:37,310
Owen's getting the mom to

656
00:44:37,310 --> 00:44:40,430
throw in the towel. I mean, Owen cost
Brett his championship.

657
00:44:54,040 --> 00:45:01,020
Mom and dad, you fell right into my
trap. You threw the towel

658
00:45:01,020 --> 00:45:07,340
in, and Brett, you're not a champion
anymore. You're a loser, and I'm a king.

659
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:16,980
When the cameras stopped rolling and
there was nobody around,

660
00:45:18,570 --> 00:45:24,330
I don't know if I ever saw a more
respectful, loving relationship between

661
00:45:24,330 --> 00:45:25,330
brothers.

662
00:45:28,490 --> 00:45:34,090
Owen was so happy. He was on top of the
world. He loved the storyline that we

663
00:45:34,090 --> 00:45:39,610
had. And working with Owen, we
definitely did become closer as we

664
00:45:39,610 --> 00:45:40,610
together.

665
00:45:42,050 --> 00:45:47,810
The love for what we were doing for each
other mattered so much to both of us.

666
00:45:49,230 --> 00:45:54,350
I love that about wrestling and
especially

667
00:45:54,350 --> 00:46:01,210
with Owen, how it was,

668
00:46:01,350 --> 00:46:07,710
there's this appreciation for one
another that

669
00:46:07,710 --> 00:46:09,030
supersedes everything.

670
00:46:10,890 --> 00:46:12,790
Put the old ankle right down.

671
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:19,080
And then he was all... Mesmerized, I'm
sure. In a disarray. Yeah. All right.

672
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:20,400
Let's get serious, all right?

673
00:46:20,820 --> 00:46:24,900
Brett, how would you compare yourself to
previous World Wrestling Federation

674
00:46:24,900 --> 00:46:25,900
champions?

675
00:46:27,380 --> 00:46:30,700
Well, I mean, I'll be honest with you,
and I have the utmost respect for all

676
00:46:30,700 --> 00:46:36,020
previous champions, you know, but I'm a
completely different breed of cat than

677
00:46:36,020 --> 00:46:37,020
all of them.

678
00:46:38,260 --> 00:46:39,820
Brett's an unusual cat.

679
00:46:40,720 --> 00:46:42,740
Man, that was a real...

680
00:46:43,300 --> 00:46:47,940
That was the credibility factor with
Brett, I think, will be the highest of

681
00:46:47,940 --> 00:46:49,000
anyone we've ever had as champion.

682
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:56,180
He took every aspect of being champion
to heart.

683
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:02,180
It was a true honor for him. I mean,
he's an old school guy, right? I mean,

684
00:47:02,180 --> 00:47:06,740
know, his daddy, all his brothers were
in the business. So it meant a lot for

685
00:47:06,740 --> 00:47:07,900
him to be champion.

686
00:47:08,780 --> 00:47:11,080
Brett never looked at his titles as a
prop.

687
00:47:14,030 --> 00:47:17,750
There was something honored, earned, and
privileged to have.

688
00:47:19,410 --> 00:47:22,290
Brett liked being a role model.

689
00:47:23,910 --> 00:47:29,830
And I would give wrestling fans and
little kids all around the world

690
00:47:29,830 --> 00:47:34,250
that they can look up to. I didn't yell
at my fans. Like, I didn't yell what I

691
00:47:34,250 --> 00:47:35,730
was going to do, and I'm going to do
this.

692
00:47:36,070 --> 00:47:40,450
I'm the first wrestling hero that
communicates and talks.

693
00:47:55,010 --> 00:47:59,270
There's something that he has tapped
into here.

694
00:48:00,870 --> 00:48:07,710
He became this different type of hero,
but a much more realistic

695
00:48:07,710 --> 00:48:08,710
hero.

696
00:48:13,300 --> 00:48:14,660
Wasn't this over -the -top character?

697
00:48:15,060 --> 00:48:16,120
He was still cool. He was a hitman.

698
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:20,180
But it was Bret who just happened to be
a wrestler.

699
00:48:20,460 --> 00:48:21,860
Everyone can relate to that.

700
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:25,220
Everyone can feel like they're a part of
that.

701
00:48:25,660 --> 00:48:26,720
C -H -A -Z.

702
00:48:27,660 --> 00:48:28,660
All right.

703
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:33,840
Everything was just a natural extension
of the real Bret Hart.

704
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:38,240
And the fans then will make that all
-important emotional investment.

705
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:40,400
into your TV persona.

706
00:48:40,740 --> 00:48:42,200
Let me tell you something, boys.

707
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:44,860
I am the World Wrestling Federation
champion.

708
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:47,080
The excellence of execution is on top.

709
00:48:47,340 --> 00:48:50,940
The best there is, the best there was,
and the best there ever will be.

710
00:48:54,020 --> 00:48:58,460
When I hit my music and I walked out,
that place went crazy. They stampeded

711
00:48:58,620 --> 00:48:59,620
It was like Beatlemania.

712
00:49:03,980 --> 00:49:08,500
Brad had a rock star persona. He really
had this kind of grungy vibe that was...

713
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:15,200
cool this energy and the presence that
was ahead of its time

714
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:24,120
brett

715
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:30,480
was also a heartthrob he was so handsome
women were just very very drawn to him

716
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:31,980
he had a huge female audience

717
00:49:37,130 --> 00:49:41,050
Well, that's kind of weird that I'm,
like, giving a poster of my dad to my

718
00:49:41,050 --> 00:49:42,410
friend for a birthday present.

719
00:49:44,210 --> 00:49:48,550
I was the star, Vince's top guy, with or
without the belt.

720
00:49:54,170 --> 00:49:58,170
I was the top draw. I sold the most T
-shirts and merchandise.

721
00:50:06,860 --> 00:50:10,540
All the right things came into place at
the right time, and it just made me

722
00:50:10,540 --> 00:50:13,540
stand out above and beyond all the other
wrestlers.

723
00:50:15,420 --> 00:50:16,800
Hi there. Hi.

724
00:50:17,240 --> 00:50:19,200
Welcome back. Yeah, it's been a while.

725
00:50:19,460 --> 00:50:22,600
A cowboy on a television show, you could
have asked me that when I was five

726
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:24,560
years old, and that's what I would have
wanted to be.

727
00:50:24,860 --> 00:50:28,240
I was lucky they were shooting Lonesome
Dove up here in Calgary.

728
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:29,600
Lose the roots.

729
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:36,080
Who is the thirstiest, the hottest, and
the hungriest man in the valley?

730
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:37,780
You, if you're buying. That's right.

731
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:40,520
Carson, three whiskeys. Set them up.

732
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:44,980
I was always throwing somebody out of
the bar. They'd come find me in the

733
00:50:44,980 --> 00:50:47,420
whorehouse. It's such a fun role to
play.

734
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:48,940
Well, I heard you were in trouble.

735
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:50,480
Who says I'm in trouble?

736
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,640
There's one scene in there where I have
a fight with a big guy.

737
00:50:53,860 --> 00:50:56,260
He hauled off and just drilled me as
hard as he could.

738
00:50:57,460 --> 00:51:00,240
Right smack in the teeth. Busted my lip.

739
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:04,680
I've always said I got hurt more in
acting than I ever did in pro wrestling.

740
00:51:06,140 --> 00:51:08,440
Lonesome Dove was the most fun I ever
had in my life.

741
00:51:10,380 --> 00:51:15,080
At that time, my contract completely
expired, and I was actually a free

742
00:51:15,260 --> 00:51:19,040
This was in the middle of the most
heated national wrestling war that

743
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:20,040
ever been.

744
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:26,100
WCW was a group out of Atlanta owned by
Ted Turner, and they had made a

745
00:51:26,100 --> 00:51:32,820
concerted effort to compete with WWE and
had started to entice our top

746
00:51:32,820 --> 00:51:33,820
talent to come.

747
00:51:34,570 --> 00:51:38,090
And so I found myself in a meeting with
Eric Bischoff. He said, look, what's it

748
00:51:38,090 --> 00:51:40,230
going to take to bring you to WCW?

749
00:51:41,090 --> 00:51:44,370
Give you the exact same contract as Hulk
Hogan, plus one penny.

750
00:51:44,790 --> 00:51:49,030
They called me the very next day and
said, 2 .8, plus royalties.

751
00:51:50,190 --> 00:51:53,750
To me, it was $3 million a year. They're
going to give it to me for three years.

752
00:51:54,530 --> 00:52:01,110
$2 .8 million for a pro wrestler in 1996
is money at the level that they could

753
00:52:01,110 --> 00:52:02,110
not have dreamed.

754
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:05,580
Now all of a sudden, it's like, how can
I turn this down?

755
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,980
Geez, I got a guy offering me $3 million
a year, three or four times what I'm

756
00:52:09,980 --> 00:52:10,759
making for Vince.

757
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:15,300
I got four kids, and I'm in the twilight
of my career right now, and I got to

758
00:52:15,300 --> 00:52:16,740
think about what's right for my family.

759
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:17,960
I didn't want to lose Brett.

760
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:22,940
Hogan was gone, Razor Ramon, you know,
all those guys were gone. They just

761
00:52:22,940 --> 00:52:27,000
get them all, you know, so I wanted to
hang on to Brett. He said, I can't match

762
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:30,100
it. And I said, well, I don't expect you
to match it then, but, I mean, give me

763
00:52:30,100 --> 00:52:34,340
the best offer you can. The one I had
from WCW was for $9 million for three

764
00:52:34,340 --> 00:52:41,060
years, and the one he came up with was
$10 .5 million for 20 years.

765
00:52:42,940 --> 00:52:49,020
A lot less than WCW, but we'll give you,
over the course of 20 years, a good

766
00:52:49,020 --> 00:52:52,140
amount of money, and you'll be part of
the WWE family for life.

767
00:52:52,660 --> 00:52:55,320
Basically, I was going to take whatever
offer he gave me because I didn't want

768
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:56,480
to go to WCW.

769
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:58,260
Who turns down $2 .8 million?

770
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:00,720
I can't imagine anyone doing that, and
he really did do it.

771
00:53:02,900 --> 00:53:07,520
I was very loyal to Vince, and I was
going to stay with Vince kind of no

772
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:08,520
what.

773
00:53:08,740 --> 00:53:11,060
I shook his hand. I accepted the
agreement.

774
00:53:14,700 --> 00:53:18,340
I was a WWE guy all along, always was.

775
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,000
I would have jumped in front of a train
for Vince McMahon.

776
00:53:26,180 --> 00:53:29,280
Vince called me, and he goes, I want to
turn you heel.

777
00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:31,360
I don't want to turn heel.

778
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:34,600
I'm making almost half a million dollars
a year on my merchandise.

779
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:38,500
It's not like I'm no good as a good guy
anymore. My stuff's selling like crazy,

780
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:41,800
and I'm super popular, and I don't want
to mess with that. And Vince was like,

781
00:53:41,900 --> 00:53:43,620
you're only going to be a bad guy in
America.

782
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:46,580
This is going to be a whole different
thing. We've never done this before.

783
00:53:47,220 --> 00:53:49,380
You're going to be a good guy everywhere
else.

784
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:54,460
Okay. It's always more fun being a bad
guy.

785
00:53:55,850 --> 00:53:57,770
Stone Cold Steve Austin shows up.

786
00:53:58,510 --> 00:54:04,730
It's just a beer -drinking badass who
has no respect for anybody, including

787
00:54:04,730 --> 00:54:05,950
the Hitman.

788
00:54:06,170 --> 00:54:10,150
If you put the letter S in front of
Hitman, you have my exact opinion of

789
00:54:10,150 --> 00:54:12,630
Hart. It sounded cool, and it worked.

790
00:54:12,870 --> 00:54:17,750
If you put the letter S in front of
Hitman, you've had my exact opinion of

791
00:54:17,750 --> 00:54:18,750
Hart.

792
00:54:19,670 --> 00:54:24,310
He was always lurking behind a corner or
a wall or something to jump me. Bret

793
00:54:24,310 --> 00:54:25,310
Hart!

794
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:28,760
They have been building really nicely
from a storyline standpoint.

795
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:36,320
I remember walking out to the ring at
WrestleMania 13 and there's kids holding

796
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:39,620
signs for me and I'm high -fiving and
everyone loves me.

797
00:54:42,300 --> 00:54:45,880
It's going to have to be a bare -knuckle
brawl. I'm just going to go to kick his

798
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:50,280
ass big time. We've got him hooked right
from the get -go. And so we took him on

799
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:52,660
a ride. We brawled up. We came back.

800
00:54:53,180 --> 00:54:54,360
I got busted open.

801
00:54:55,640 --> 00:55:00,120
Blood just started flowing out of my
head and ran down my cheek and between

802
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:05,460
teeth. And I'm thinking to myself, God
dang, this feels good because I'm

803
00:55:05,460 --> 00:55:06,460
listening to the crowd.

804
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:12,660
He's agonizing. He's screaming in pain.

805
00:55:12,860 --> 00:55:13,880
And he won't quit.

806
00:55:14,580 --> 00:55:15,740
And he passes out.

807
00:55:23,530 --> 00:55:24,870
That gets you respect.

808
00:55:25,670 --> 00:55:29,350
People just love me because they knew
that I would go through thick and thin

809
00:55:29,350 --> 00:55:32,850
through anything and never, ever give
up. Come on, Brett.

810
00:55:33,490 --> 00:55:34,490
Enough's enough.

811
00:55:34,810 --> 00:55:36,770
I'm a Bret Hart fan, but that's enough.

812
00:55:37,150 --> 00:55:40,330
Now you're going back to do more to a
packed -out man?

813
00:55:41,050 --> 00:55:44,650
And that audience went, whew,
immediately.

814
00:55:45,070 --> 00:55:48,370
He went from being the best there is,
the best there was, to being an asshole.

815
00:55:52,970 --> 00:55:56,030
I'm walking back to the dressing room
and people were giving me the finger and

816
00:55:56,030 --> 00:55:59,190
flipping me off. And I knew that I was
the bad guy.

817
00:56:02,130 --> 00:56:07,130
Steve has been the lousiest, rottenest
bad guy. Everyone fell in love with him.

818
00:56:07,230 --> 00:56:09,930
It was like falling in love with the
shark on Jaws.

819
00:56:11,150 --> 00:56:16,670
He blamed Americans for idolizing people
like Steve Austin. He blamed Americans

820
00:56:16,670 --> 00:56:20,450
for idolizing antiheroes. All you have
to do is look at OJ Simpson.

821
00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:24,000
There's no such thing as justice in
America.

822
00:56:24,260 --> 00:56:28,100
It was fun being a bad guy and pushing
all their buttons, going to the American

823
00:56:28,100 --> 00:56:30,320
cities and being food out of the
building.

824
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:34,120
Bret Hart has appalled this capacity
crowd.

825
00:56:34,720 --> 00:56:37,540
Canada and Britain and everywhere else
around my big name.

826
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:43,780
I'm still the hero. I'm still Bret Hart
the good guy. I'm standing up against

827
00:56:43,780 --> 00:56:44,780
Americans.

828
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:56,800
While I was crusading against America, I
was also feuding with Shawn Michaels.

829
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:04,960
Unrelenting youth and freedom. A
sexuality that was open.

830
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:12,660
Was absolutely 100 % full -on prick as a
character and as a personality.

831
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:19,220
Things were changing. I didn't think you
could still do the same mom -and -pop

832
00:57:19,220 --> 00:57:23,540
storylines. I felt that we could
continue to grow, evolve, change. And

833
00:57:23,540 --> 00:57:25,120
me want to puke.

834
00:57:25,500 --> 00:57:29,620
You're a guy that has degraded the World
Wrestling Federation Championship belt.

835
00:57:30,740 --> 00:57:36,120
Sean's cockiness and attitude in general
irritated Brett.

836
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:39,760
I don't like him, I don't trust him, and
I don't believe him. I don't believe in

837
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:42,960
anything about the guy. He's a phony
little shit.

838
00:57:44,190 --> 00:57:49,690
The storyline, dislike for one another,
became very real very quickly. People

839
00:57:49,690 --> 00:57:52,010
can feel real animosity.

840
00:57:52,270 --> 00:57:57,470
Hitman, I seen you on the road, and bro,
you ain't no role model.

841
00:57:58,010 --> 00:58:03,730
I felt like I got pushed to a point and
I just, you know, on live television and

842
00:58:03,730 --> 00:58:04,730
that ain't good.

843
00:58:04,930 --> 00:58:11,050
You couldn't go ten minutes in any
situation, even though lately you've had

844
00:58:11,050 --> 00:58:13,440
some. Sunny days, my friend.

845
00:58:13,660 --> 00:58:18,860
He made some reference to me having
sunny days, and I remember thinking,

846
00:58:18,860 --> 00:58:20,340
days. Sunny!

847
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:24,740
There was a young lady there who worked
for the company. Her name was Sunny. She

848
00:58:24,740 --> 00:58:27,480
and I used to run around, and all I'd
know was that we were about to become

849
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:31,740
friends, and so I made a comment that
they were more than friends, so to

850
00:58:31,900 --> 00:58:34,600
and that he wasn't happy about it,
understandably so.

851
00:58:35,700 --> 00:58:40,360
When I got home the next day after that
Monday Night Raw, my oldest son asked me

852
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:43,040
if I had something going on with Sonny,
and my daughter asked me.

853
00:58:43,460 --> 00:58:46,900
I had enough problems with my marriage
at that time without Sean's little

854
00:58:46,900 --> 00:58:52,300
comment. We were in Hartford,
Connecticut, and that's where I made up

855
00:58:52,300 --> 00:58:55,480
that I was going to straighten Sean out
once and for all about this Sonny thing.

856
00:58:55,620 --> 00:58:58,380
And I just beelined straight over to him
and pushed the door in.

857
00:58:58,640 --> 00:59:01,740
He takes a swing. Oh, I move out of the
way. Well, we get into it, so we're

858
00:59:01,740 --> 00:59:05,200
just... I grabbed him by the hair,
pulled him down, and...

859
00:59:05,450 --> 00:59:09,570
Dragged him all around the dressing room
by his hair. The big old chunk of hair

860
00:59:09,570 --> 00:59:10,570
comes out of my head.

861
00:59:13,610 --> 00:59:17,430
The end of 1997 is a wild time in WWE.

862
00:59:17,690 --> 00:59:18,690
It starts in August.

863
00:59:18,950 --> 00:59:20,310
Bret Hart becomes the champion.

864
00:59:20,730 --> 00:59:25,650
Now all this is going on, Vince goes to
Bret and says, you know that lifetime

865
00:59:25,650 --> 00:59:26,990
contract we signed?

866
00:59:28,070 --> 00:59:29,070
Can't do it.

867
00:59:29,540 --> 00:59:34,580
WCW was pretty far ahead of WWE when it
came to popularity at that point. WWE's

868
00:59:34,580 --> 00:59:37,240
finances were weak at the time. They
were losing money.

869
00:59:38,780 --> 00:59:43,000
They were taking out loans at the time
to make payroll, but all of a sudden

870
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:47,700
you've got Bret, who turned down $2 .8
million a year, and now all of a sudden

871
00:59:47,700 --> 00:59:49,440
he's being asked to take a pay cut.

872
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:51,160
Went from that to...

873
00:59:51,710 --> 00:59:55,250
Well, maybe you should call WCW and see
if you can still get that offer. I'm

874
00:59:55,250 --> 00:59:59,170
sure I'll get you a fatter contract, a
lot more money, and we'll work it

875
00:59:59,170 --> 01:00:03,270
together so you can go to WCW and earn
far more money than what I was paying

876
01:00:03,270 --> 01:00:04,270
you.

877
01:00:05,530 --> 01:00:08,850
Brett's flabbergasted. He never wanted
to go to WCW.

878
01:00:09,250 --> 01:00:14,710
Vince kind of left him with no choice.
So the contract gets torn up, and Brett

879
01:00:14,710 --> 01:00:17,050
Hart signs with WCW.

880
01:00:19,049 --> 01:00:24,350
He's the WWE champion at the time. Vince
wants Bret to lose it to Shawn Michaels

881
01:00:24,350 --> 01:00:25,350
in Montreal.

882
01:00:26,870 --> 01:00:30,870
So I went to Shawn. I said, hey, Shawn,
I want you to know I have no problem

883
01:00:30,870 --> 01:00:31,890
dropping the belt to you.

884
01:00:32,250 --> 01:00:36,050
Shawn looked at me and said, well, I
appreciate that, but I just want you to

885
01:00:36,050 --> 01:00:38,230
know that I'm not willing to do the same
thing for you.

886
01:00:39,070 --> 01:00:43,630
And that really floored me. Why would I
do the honors for somebody that has no

887
01:00:43,630 --> 01:00:44,630
respect for me?

888
01:00:45,690 --> 01:00:48,050
Why would you expect me to? To hell with
him.

889
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:53,060
I can't drop the belt to a guy that
can't be professional with me.

890
01:00:55,220 --> 01:00:59,420
He's been so disrespectful, for lack of
a better word, such a d***.

891
01:01:00,540 --> 01:01:06,660
Because it was me, it was a flat -out
no. And look, that just causes a

892
01:01:07,920 --> 01:01:13,840
Brent going into Montreal, signed with
WCW to start in December.

893
01:01:14,060 --> 01:01:17,220
And it's November, and he's the WWE
champion.

894
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:18,840
How did Vince...

895
01:01:19,100 --> 01:01:23,980
get himself into this predicament but
here it is he did i didn't want him to

896
01:01:23,980 --> 01:01:29,600
to wcw with our championship so the
request for brett would be okay let's

897
01:01:29,600 --> 01:01:35,560
this championship back to someone here
in wwe where it belongs and uh and that

898
01:01:35,560 --> 01:01:39,200
didn't happen so i had to do what i had
to do

899
01:01:42,460 --> 01:01:46,500
I had it in the initial contract that I
had creative control for my last 60

900
01:01:46,500 --> 01:01:50,560
days. So I knew I had my rights. I was
covered. I could protect myself.

901
01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:54,320
I'll drop the belt to Steve Austin. I'll
drop it to Steve Lombardi. I'll lose it

902
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:57,980
to anybody you want, any way you want.
But I will not lose to a guy that has no

903
01:01:57,980 --> 01:02:02,140
respect for me. I truly believe that I
am the best. On top of it, I'm not going

904
01:02:02,140 --> 01:02:05,220
to let you do this to me in my home
country. And the last thing I could ever

905
01:02:05,220 --> 01:02:09,380
dream of is letting that lousy, rotten,
stinking little degenerate.

906
01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:13,400
Take the World Wrestling Federation
Championship belt from me in front of my

907
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:14,178
home people.

908
01:02:14,180 --> 01:02:15,340
It's not going to happen.

909
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:21,960
After refusing and refusing and refusing
to lose to Shawn Michaels, this plan is

910
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:22,960
presented to Bret Hart.

911
01:02:23,660 --> 01:02:29,460
The entire time, a documentary called
Wrestling with Shadows was being filmed

912
01:02:29,460 --> 01:02:33,500
independent of WWE about Bret Hart.

913
01:02:34,020 --> 01:02:37,980
Bret Hart has one last meeting with
Vince McMahon.

914
01:02:38,590 --> 01:02:43,730
I got to just talk about what the finish
of the Survivor Series 97 match is

915
01:02:43,730 --> 01:02:44,730
going to be.

916
01:02:44,950 --> 01:02:48,250
And he's still miked by the documentary
crew.

917
01:02:49,370 --> 01:02:53,270
The way this whole thing has been
depicted, it's really hard for me as a

918
01:02:53,270 --> 01:02:55,230
here to come up short this weekend.

919
01:02:56,419 --> 01:02:58,820
What would you want to do today, then?
I'm open to anything.

920
01:02:59,160 --> 01:03:01,200
I think what I'd like to do is get
through today.

921
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:05,120
I think tomorrow I should just go in and
do my speech and forfeit the title. I

922
01:03:05,120 --> 01:03:08,800
think it allows me a chance to leave
with my head up and leave in a nice way.

923
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:11,860
mean, I don't have speech on. We could
have a schmoz or whatever you want.

924
01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:14,300
I would think it'd be a run -in type
thing.

925
01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:16,260
Yeah. But I'm open to anything. No, hang
on.

926
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:17,720
I'm open to anything.

927
01:03:18,040 --> 01:03:20,980
Like I said before, I'm determined this
is going to wind up quite well.

928
01:03:23,900 --> 01:03:25,420
We taped the whole conversation.

929
01:03:25,880 --> 01:03:29,640
It was made perfectly clear to me it was
going to be a run -in, a

930
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:34,200
disqualification. In wrestling dressing
room jargon, it's a schmoz with outside

931
01:03:34,200 --> 01:03:39,260
interference from various wrestlers
coming in. The title was not going to

932
01:03:39,260 --> 01:03:46,120
hands. Vince goes in there with the
suggestion of the finish, which Brett

933
01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:47,880
is what the finish is. It's going to be
a DQ finish.

934
01:03:48,140 --> 01:03:49,660
Brett's getting his hand raised in
Montreal.

935
01:03:51,760 --> 01:03:54,040
It was all done. There was nothing to
fight about anymore.

936
01:03:54,480 --> 01:03:55,480
I won.

937
01:03:57,080 --> 01:03:58,280
Brett did meet with Vince.

938
01:03:59,200 --> 01:04:03,180
Then when it went down, it was like,
okay, we didn't do that.

939
01:04:03,540 --> 01:04:07,160
It's no different than an actor in a
television series who at the end of it

940
01:04:07,160 --> 01:04:10,440
refuses to die or refuses to do the job,
so to speak.

941
01:04:11,140 --> 01:04:12,140
What do you do?

942
01:04:12,500 --> 01:04:16,460
Look, Vince, I want you to know that
I'll do whatever it is you need me to

943
01:04:16,720 --> 01:04:19,380
You ever read Sammy the Bull Gravano's
book?

944
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:27,740
And especially at that time in my life,
there was a sense of validation that he

945
01:04:27,740 --> 01:04:29,500
trusted me enough to do the dirty work.

946
01:04:30,980 --> 01:04:32,940
We were getting that belt off of Brett
tonight.

947
01:04:34,340 --> 01:04:36,180
This is what I have to do.

948
01:04:38,900 --> 01:04:41,520
It goes off the rails right away.

949
01:04:41,740 --> 01:04:45,960
I clothesline him over the top rope, and
I'm fighting him in the crowd, and I'm

950
01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:47,160
beating him all over the place.

951
01:04:50,090 --> 01:04:53,210
We've got all these moves and different
things planned to keep telling this

952
01:04:53,210 --> 01:04:54,210
great story.

953
01:04:58,410 --> 01:05:04,670
One of the spots called for Sean to

954
01:05:04,670 --> 01:05:06,870
try to put a sharpshooter on me.

955
01:05:10,070 --> 01:05:16,390
Suddenly I look over and I see Vince
McMahon yelling at the timekeeper to

956
01:05:16,390 --> 01:05:17,049
the bell.

957
01:05:17,050 --> 01:05:18,170
Ring the effing bell.

958
01:05:21,900 --> 01:05:23,400
And all of a sudden, we hear the bell
ringing.

959
01:05:24,020 --> 01:05:28,660
And I was just like... Brett did not tap
out. What the F was that?

960
01:05:28,980 --> 01:05:29,980
We just screamed Brett.

961
01:05:30,120 --> 01:05:31,220
He got screwed.

962
01:05:32,300 --> 01:05:36,540
The bell was ringing. The referee was
already signaling that I supposedly

963
01:05:36,540 --> 01:05:37,600
out and gave up.

964
01:05:38,380 --> 01:05:42,860
Clearly, I was reversing the hold, and I
was not giving up. It was a screw job.

965
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:47,340
We're seeing something that we can't
hardly believe.

966
01:05:48,170 --> 01:05:49,510
that we didn't know what was going to
occur.

967
01:05:49,850 --> 01:05:52,490
He got jobbed out of the title, for
real.

968
01:05:54,710 --> 01:05:55,830
The deed was done.

969
01:05:56,090 --> 01:05:57,910
It was unlike anything I'd ever seen.

970
01:05:58,510 --> 01:06:01,010
Real guttural emotion.

971
01:06:02,310 --> 01:06:07,690
When they screwed me, I just was so
angry and so disappointed that Vince

972
01:06:07,690 --> 01:06:08,690
to go that way.

973
01:06:08,890 --> 01:06:14,070
When the, as he calls it, Montreal screw
job occurred, I wanted to make sure

974
01:06:14,070 --> 01:06:15,470
that Brett saw me.

975
01:06:16,080 --> 01:06:20,640
Out at ringside and know that what I did
was the right thing to do, at least

976
01:06:20,640 --> 01:06:21,640
from my standpoint.

977
01:06:21,820 --> 01:06:25,840
He's really good at spitting, I'm sorry
to say.

978
01:06:31,860 --> 01:06:35,100
I could have hidden. I could have not
gone out to the ring at all.

979
01:06:35,360 --> 01:06:38,040
You know, I could have left the
building. I could have done a lot of

980
01:06:38,260 --> 01:06:41,960
Rick Rude and Davey Boy came in the
shower and they go, Vince is waiting for

981
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:43,780
you. He wants to talk to you.

982
01:06:44,060 --> 01:06:46,720
As soon as I get dressed, if you're
still here, I thought I'm going to knock

983
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:47,678
out.

984
01:06:47,680 --> 01:06:50,880
And he gave me one right in the temple
on the left side.

985
01:06:51,220 --> 01:06:55,840
I hit him as hard as I could. I remember
going 14 years for this guy.

986
01:06:56,540 --> 01:07:00,400
Christmases and birthdays, all the front
turnbuckles, all the body slams I ever

987
01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:01,400
gave this guy.

988
01:07:01,480 --> 01:07:05,460
All the times I worked harder than I
needed to. And the gratitude that he

989
01:07:05,460 --> 01:07:08,960
me for all those years of working for
him, I was going to connect.

990
01:07:10,970 --> 01:07:17,770
It was the greatest punch I ever threw.
When it had just first happened

991
01:07:17,770 --> 01:07:23,670
backstage, I was kind of confused, like,
what's going on? Like, Dad's mad, and

992
01:07:23,670 --> 01:07:25,310
it was more scary, kind of intense.

993
01:07:25,850 --> 01:07:31,430
And then on the flight home, I saw how
it really hit him. It's actually the

994
01:07:31,430 --> 01:07:33,670
first time I ever saw my dad crying.

995
01:07:33,950 --> 01:07:37,910
It broke my heart to see him so upset by
that.

996
01:07:38,270 --> 01:07:41,510
I don't think people understood how much
that really meant to him.

997
01:07:41,970 --> 01:07:46,090
He felt very hurt. And it was like the
ultimate betrayal for Brett to have

998
01:07:46,090 --> 01:07:49,010
do that to him. Nothing like that had
ever happened before in WWE.

999
01:07:49,470 --> 01:07:53,770
It was a part of the biggest shaft,
certainly of the wrestling business

1000
01:07:55,410 --> 01:07:59,190
I wanted to go down in history in this
business. I didn't imagine it being like

1001
01:07:59,190 --> 01:08:03,910
this. And it was just, you knew you were
part of something incredibly big, but

1002
01:08:03,910 --> 01:08:05,510
something that wasn't incredibly
positive.

1003
01:08:05,910 --> 01:08:07,570
Did you or did you not?

1004
01:08:08,450 --> 01:08:14,710
Screw Bret Hart. Bret screwed Bret. I
have no sympathy whatsoever for Bret.

1005
01:08:17,510 --> 01:08:21,630
What I asked for was to be treated with
respect on my way out. And if I had to

1006
01:08:21,630 --> 01:08:24,010
do the whole thing again tomorrow, I'd
do it exactly the same way.

1007
01:08:24,950 --> 01:08:29,970
I resent people that intimate to me that
I overreacted or I didn't do the right

1008
01:08:29,970 --> 01:08:32,390
thing or I should have just done what I
was told.

1009
01:08:33,689 --> 01:08:35,050
The hell with all those guys.

1010
01:08:37,479 --> 01:08:42,500
It was a huge insult to me and really
bothered me for a long time to the point

1011
01:08:42,500 --> 01:08:47,120
that it was really tough for me to move
on from it.

1012
01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:54,300
Growing up in wrestling, being Stu
Hart's kid, is all part of that.

1013
01:08:55,640 --> 01:08:59,760
I wasn't just some guy that got into
wrestling. Wrestling was my whole life.

1014
01:09:08,720 --> 01:09:15,460
When Brett joined the WCW, it just was
not the same. It was just so hard, and

1015
01:09:15,460 --> 01:09:17,100
was disillusioned and disappointed.

1016
01:09:17,560 --> 01:09:21,260
The day I got there, I wanted to turn
that company around and just stuff it

1017
01:09:21,260 --> 01:09:22,420
right down Vince's throat.

1018
01:09:22,760 --> 01:09:26,040
But they were so stupid, they didn't
know what they were doing.

1019
01:09:26,380 --> 01:09:29,939
I spun my tires from the day I got there
to the day I left.

1020
01:09:41,359 --> 01:09:47,340
May 23rd, 1999, it was like the worst
thing that's ever happened in pro

1021
01:09:47,340 --> 01:09:48,340
wrestling ever.

1022
01:09:49,840 --> 01:09:54,920
I got on a plane and headed to Los
Angeles to do the Jay Leno show.

1023
01:09:58,020 --> 01:10:03,120
So I just was on the plane sitting there
in a kind of a mostly empty cabin and I

1024
01:10:03,120 --> 01:10:07,380
just had the strangest, darkest thought.
I knew something bad happened. I could

1025
01:10:07,380 --> 01:10:08,420
feel it in my bones.

1026
01:10:10,340 --> 01:10:14,640
Finally, I checked my voice messages,
and I got a message from a friend of

1027
01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:20,840
that worked in WWE that Owen had died
doing a stunt in the ring.

1028
01:10:22,340 --> 01:10:26,960
Tragedy befell the World Wrestling
Federation and all of us. Owen Hart was

1029
01:10:26,960 --> 01:10:31,060
to make an entrance from the ceiling,
and something terribly, terribly went

1030
01:10:31,060 --> 01:10:36,200
wrong. I don't know if the harness broke
or what the malfunction was.

1031
01:10:37,130 --> 01:10:39,870
I had to say something from my heart and
from my soul.

1032
01:10:40,390 --> 01:10:42,450
And he fell from the ceiling.

1033
01:10:42,750 --> 01:10:48,450
When someone dies that you love, it just
brings you to your knees.

1034
01:10:48,750 --> 01:10:54,750
Unfortunate responsibility to let
everyone know that Owen Hart has died.

1035
01:10:55,930 --> 01:11:00,630
Owen Hart has tragically died from that
accident here tonight.

1036
01:11:00,930 --> 01:11:03,470
I had blocked so much of it out of my
memory.

1037
01:11:04,150 --> 01:11:06,450
He was special. He just was.

1038
01:11:07,020 --> 01:11:10,220
One of the most legitimately lovely men
that I've ever known.

1039
01:11:10,640 --> 01:11:16,420
To this day, I never heard anybody ever
say one negative word about Owen Hart.

1040
01:11:17,120 --> 01:11:19,560
It's never a good time to lose a friend.

1041
01:11:21,860 --> 01:11:24,960
But he was young and just so much going.

1042
01:11:25,340 --> 01:11:27,080
It was just really, really hard.

1043
01:11:35,630 --> 01:11:42,510
The actual funeral procession that went
through town, Calgary, came out great

1044
01:11:42,510 --> 01:11:48,590
and strong for that. It was really
impressive to see how much they cared.

1045
01:11:50,390 --> 01:11:56,550
It was very sad to see, to lose a child
like that, and to a sport that

1046
01:11:56,550 --> 01:11:59,810
created your family persona.

1047
01:12:00,860 --> 01:12:04,940
And now that's the very thing that has
taken away your child. I really felt a

1048
01:12:04,940 --> 01:12:06,680
lot of sympathy for Helen and Stu.

1049
01:12:10,060 --> 01:12:15,080
He'd left a widow and two beautiful kids
behind. Owen missed out on being a

1050
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:19,320
husband and a dad to his wonderful kids,
and they missed out on growing up with

1051
01:12:19,320 --> 01:12:22,260
their dad and the wonderful memories
they would have had with them.

1052
01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:29,340
Owen was the last heart. His little,
golden, big, blue -eyed...

1053
01:12:29,560 --> 01:12:30,560
little boy.

1054
01:12:36,920 --> 01:12:42,040
He was so loved and cherished and he was
so funny.

1055
01:12:43,300 --> 01:12:47,340
We will never get over Owen. We will
never stop missing him. We will never

1056
01:12:47,340 --> 01:12:48,340
thinking about him.

1057
01:12:48,760 --> 01:12:50,320
We will never stop grieving.

1058
01:12:52,000 --> 01:12:54,460
I had as much reason as anybody to hate
wrestling.

1059
01:12:56,000 --> 01:13:00,510
The more I thought about it, then I
realized that Owen loved wrestling just

1060
01:13:00,510 --> 01:13:01,510
same way I did.

1061
01:13:04,390 --> 01:13:08,550
I can think of so many funny memories
about Owen and the jokes he pulled and

1062
01:13:08,550 --> 01:13:09,550
things he did.

1063
01:13:12,130 --> 01:13:15,210
And so many wrestlers loved Owen the
same way.

1064
01:13:17,810 --> 01:13:22,290
I wish a lot of times that I could talk
to him and remember some of the great

1065
01:13:22,290 --> 01:13:23,290
memories we had.

1066
01:13:25,410 --> 01:13:26,630
We had so much fun.

1067
01:13:27,210 --> 01:13:28,670
being Bret Hart and Owen Hart.

1068
01:13:30,890 --> 01:13:34,750
My mother and father, they did not
recover.

1069
01:13:35,750 --> 01:13:37,370
It was like a light went out.

1070
01:13:37,670 --> 01:13:39,450
It aged my parents considerably.

1071
01:13:39,930 --> 01:13:44,670
My mom died a few years later, and then
my dad was somewhat brokenhearted after

1072
01:13:44,670 --> 01:13:45,670
she had passed away.

1073
01:13:47,710 --> 01:13:52,410
He loved wrestling so much. You could
wake my dad up at 4 in the morning and

1074
01:13:52,410 --> 01:13:55,630
tell him that there's some Chippendale
dancer down in the basement that wants

1075
01:13:55,630 --> 01:13:56,630
learn how to wrestle.

1076
01:13:57,020 --> 01:13:59,500
And I'm telling you, he couldn't get his
pants on fast enough.

1077
01:14:01,460 --> 01:14:04,140
His whole life was wrestling, and he
loved every bit of it.

1078
01:14:08,140 --> 01:14:13,600
I was in the room when he passed, and it
was a very peaceful passing.

1079
01:14:15,240 --> 01:14:17,700
And I could feel the power drain from
the room.

1080
01:14:20,200 --> 01:14:23,300
So I've always felt that it was an honor
for me to be there.

1081
01:14:24,540 --> 01:14:28,660
I've always been grateful for it and so
glad that I was there at the end for

1082
01:14:28,660 --> 01:14:29,660
him.

1083
01:14:33,240 --> 01:14:37,520
There was a string of years there, like
from 99 to 2004.

1084
01:14:38,040 --> 01:14:39,800
I went through a lot of tough stuff.

1085
01:14:40,760 --> 01:14:43,960
My career ended, which was really hard
for me to accept.

1086
01:14:45,500 --> 01:14:49,480
Bill Goldberg was a guy that, on a scale
of 1 to 10 as a wrestler, he was a

1087
01:14:49,480 --> 01:14:52,740
zero. He was just so reckless, so
dangerous.

1088
01:14:53,530 --> 01:14:54,910
He didn't know wrestling wasn't real.

1089
01:14:55,170 --> 01:14:58,930
He kicked me so hard, he would have
knocked bricks out of a wall.

1090
01:15:07,550 --> 01:15:12,510
Finally got home off the road, and my
doctor checked me, and he goes, you are

1091
01:15:12,510 --> 01:15:17,270
really messed up. You are so concussed.
You need to stop everything right now.

1092
01:15:17,490 --> 01:15:20,070
You know, you can fix certain things,
but you only got one brain.

1093
01:15:21,680 --> 01:15:23,020
That's it, my career's over.

1094
01:15:25,720 --> 01:15:27,380
I don't know where I had my stroke.

1095
01:15:27,660 --> 01:15:31,520
After falling from his mountain bike,
the crash triggered an acute stroke.

1096
01:15:31,800 --> 01:15:35,460
I was in a wheelchair for three months.
My left side was completely dead.

1097
01:15:35,740 --> 01:15:40,760
Essentially, he had been reduced to an
infant, learning to talk and walk all

1098
01:15:40,760 --> 01:15:41,599
over again.

1099
01:15:41,600 --> 01:15:46,220
The fact that I survived it and had the
recovery that I did, I count my

1100
01:15:46,220 --> 01:15:48,320
blessings and I thank everyone that
helped me.

1101
01:15:48,910 --> 01:15:52,470
My first wife did help me a lot through
that time period, which says a lot about

1102
01:15:52,470 --> 01:15:57,630
her. Well, he was the father of my
children, and we were still kind of

1103
01:15:57,630 --> 01:16:02,690
back and forth, still kind of seeing
each other and still one foot in the

1104
01:16:02,810 --> 01:16:03,810
one out.

1105
01:16:04,330 --> 01:16:10,710
My first wife, Julie, we went through a
lot together, and we just grew apart. We

1106
01:16:10,710 --> 01:16:13,830
got along really well, about 50 % of the
time.

1107
01:16:14,160 --> 01:16:18,980
And we really got along really badly the
other 50 % of the time. Right until we

1108
01:16:18,980 --> 01:16:21,820
had all the kids, it seemed like he was
always gone.

1109
01:16:22,100 --> 01:16:28,120
So I think I've always been a single
parent. The whole time we were married,

1110
01:16:28,120 --> 01:16:29,660
never took a break.

1111
01:16:30,220 --> 01:16:31,380
Never took a break.

1112
01:16:32,140 --> 01:16:36,020
We were both going through a lot, even
myself.

1113
01:16:36,440 --> 01:16:39,280
You know, pull away, come back, pull
away.

1114
01:16:40,020 --> 01:16:42,200
And eventually...

1115
01:16:43,130 --> 01:16:44,490
Nah, it's not going to work.

1116
01:16:44,810 --> 01:16:47,150
We're not even the same people anymore.

1117
01:16:47,790 --> 01:16:50,550
Finally, I reached a point where there
was no turning back.

1118
01:16:50,910 --> 01:16:55,290
And we got divorced, and I don't want to
sit here and pretend that it was all

1119
01:16:55,290 --> 01:16:58,790
her. I mean, I failed in a lot of ways
as an unfaithful husband.

1120
01:17:03,270 --> 01:17:06,890
Once I got divorced, I just wanted to be
alone.

1121
01:17:07,110 --> 01:17:11,250
I was just doing nothing. I had a lot of
dark thoughts, and I really questioned

1122
01:17:11,250 --> 01:17:12,250
a lot about myself.

1123
01:17:17,090 --> 01:17:20,750
Everywhere I went, the first question I
got asked was about the Montreal

1124
01:17:20,750 --> 01:17:25,670
Screwjob, whether it was real, how it
happened, did I really hit Vince

1125
01:17:26,410 --> 01:17:29,710
It just was like a constant downer in my
life.

1126
01:17:31,830 --> 01:17:36,390
It changed me in a lot of ways. It made
me a bit of an angry man and bitter

1127
01:17:36,390 --> 01:17:37,390
about what happened.

1128
01:17:39,270 --> 01:17:41,670
It was kind of like carrying around a
big bag of rocks.

1129
01:17:43,210 --> 01:17:46,190
You pick it up every day and you put it
over your shoulder and you carry it

1130
01:17:46,190 --> 01:17:51,590
around. And the best way to put it to
bed was to drop the rocks, drop the

1131
01:17:51,590 --> 01:17:53,050
bag and make peace.

1132
01:17:54,670 --> 01:17:59,110
What if I called Vince McMahon up and
said, hey, let's bury the hatchet so I

1133
01:17:59,110 --> 01:18:00,390
don't have to worry about it anymore.

1134
01:18:02,950 --> 01:18:07,450
It's been 12 long years since anyone's
seen Bret Hart.

1135
01:18:12,270 --> 01:18:15,190
After all these years, he deserved that
moment.

1136
01:18:15,750 --> 01:18:17,350
It's like he had never left.

1137
01:18:18,110 --> 01:18:20,110
People were dying to see him.

1138
01:18:20,370 --> 01:18:25,590
They were dying to acknowledge him, to
give him a standing ovation. All those

1139
01:18:25,590 --> 01:18:26,590
things are beautiful.

1140
01:18:28,150 --> 01:18:29,690
Bret's legacy is timeless.

1141
01:18:30,070 --> 01:18:35,350
Bret's body of work is timeless. Our WWE
universe has never forgotten that.

1142
01:18:35,610 --> 01:18:36,970
It's been 12 years.

1143
01:18:37,930 --> 01:18:42,210
Since I've been back in the WWE, and I
thank you from the bottom of my heart

1144
01:18:42,210 --> 01:18:44,230
carrying me in your hearts for all these
years.

1145
01:18:44,470 --> 01:18:48,670
And the very first thing I want to do is
I want to call back there and ask Shawn

1146
01:18:48,670 --> 01:18:49,930
Michaels to come out here.

1147
01:18:50,910 --> 01:18:57,730
Now we both were realizing, oh my God,
there's more to

1148
01:18:57,730 --> 01:19:00,270
life than just the wrestling business.
Who knew?

1149
01:19:01,950 --> 01:19:05,110
I was good friends with Shawn Michaels
when we were younger.

1150
01:19:05,680 --> 01:19:08,440
You know, I had a hand in all that
stuff, too, that happened with Sean.

1151
01:19:08,700 --> 01:19:11,180
And it wasn't just me, the victim.

1152
01:19:11,980 --> 01:19:13,280
You know, we're both guilty.

1153
01:19:14,080 --> 01:19:17,520
We're synonymous with each other. We're
such a big part of each other's lives

1154
01:19:17,520 --> 01:19:18,520
and careers.

1155
01:19:18,900 --> 01:19:24,340
But I do put myself in his shoes, and I
have deep regret and deep remorse. You

1156
01:19:24,340 --> 01:19:28,060
want to end it. You want to end it for
him and certainly for yourself.

1157
01:19:28,400 --> 01:19:29,640
You're not the only one,

1158
01:19:30,720 --> 01:19:34,300
Brett, that's been carrying this around
for 12 years.

1159
01:19:35,040 --> 01:19:39,520
You're not the only one that wants to
bury the hatchet. I think he did

1160
01:19:39,520 --> 01:19:44,460
understand the real remorse and sorrow
that I had about that entire time.

1161
01:19:44,900 --> 01:19:49,240
I call for a truce, and I call for you
to shake my hand, and if you want to

1162
01:19:49,240 --> 01:19:51,260
the hatchet, let's bury it right now.

1163
01:19:59,100 --> 01:20:03,780
It's a similar feeling for both of us.
It was a release of those rocks.

1164
01:20:04,390 --> 01:20:05,090
And a

1165
01:20:05,090 --> 01:20:11,710
good

1166
01:20:11,710 --> 01:20:14,750
lesson in my life, and I think it was a
good lesson for Sean.

1167
01:20:15,230 --> 01:20:21,650
Healing's good for everybody, even pro
wrestling. And it sounds silly, but

1168
01:20:21,650 --> 01:20:25,550
are real -life aspects of it that make
it serious.

1169
01:20:28,570 --> 01:20:33,470
With Vince, you know, I never forget
what happened, but I also know that

1170
01:20:33,930 --> 01:20:37,690
Did a lot for me. The man that I am
today, I owe so much of it to Vince.

1171
01:20:37,930 --> 01:20:42,090
One of the reasons that this whole
Montreal thing was so personal between

1172
01:20:42,090 --> 01:20:43,890
and me, I was like a father figure to
you.

1173
01:20:44,450 --> 01:20:47,570
And I'd like to thank you for being the
best there is.

1174
01:20:48,670 --> 01:20:52,330
I'd like to thank you for being the best
there was and the best there ever will

1175
01:20:52,330 --> 01:20:53,330
be.

1176
01:20:53,970 --> 01:20:58,290
Of course there were shenanigans. I
mean, you can't have a WWE show without

1177
01:20:58,290 --> 01:21:00,050
somebody getting kicked in the crotch.

1178
01:21:09,160 --> 01:21:13,180
My match with Vince wasn't the greatest
match of my career by any means, but

1179
01:21:13,180 --> 01:21:17,100
people laughed and people enjoyed it,
and it was a happy ending for me.

1180
01:21:17,380 --> 01:21:22,760
Mr. McMahon taps to the sharpshooter.
Bret Hart's signature submission hold

1181
01:21:22,760 --> 01:21:27,400
brings an end to one of the most
volatile rivalries in WWE history.

1182
01:21:27,840 --> 01:21:31,040
Bret Hart definitely screwed Mr.

1183
01:21:31,300 --> 01:21:35,040
McMahon. Bret was right back where he
belonged. Mr. McMahon, grandest stage of

1184
01:21:35,040 --> 01:21:36,040
all.

1185
01:21:37,210 --> 01:21:41,190
His character reminds me a lot of the
Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne.

1186
01:21:42,230 --> 01:21:46,750
WWE is like the asylum, and Bret
survives the asylum, and he's lived to

1187
01:21:46,750 --> 01:21:50,570
story. And more than anything, Bret
gives people hope.

1188
01:21:55,630 --> 01:21:58,830
Like Andy Dufresne said in the movie,
Shawshank Redemption, hope is a good

1189
01:21:58,830 --> 01:21:59,830
thing.

1190
01:22:03,150 --> 01:22:04,750
We met in 2008.

1191
01:22:06,920 --> 01:22:10,080
We have a mutual friend of ours that
introduced us.

1192
01:22:11,460 --> 01:22:14,660
I moved up to Canada in 2009, and we got
married in 2010.

1193
01:22:17,220 --> 01:22:21,560
I know a lot of people on the outside
think, what the heck could they see in

1194
01:22:21,560 --> 01:22:26,560
each other, especially when they look at
our racial differences and our age

1195
01:22:26,560 --> 01:22:27,560
difference.

1196
01:22:27,790 --> 01:22:31,630
But it's just really hard to explain how
well we get along with each other, if

1197
01:22:31,630 --> 01:22:35,770
anything. I like to joke that I feel
like sometimes I'm the 63 -year -old and

1198
01:22:35,770 --> 01:22:37,010
he's the 38 -year -old.

1199
01:22:37,270 --> 01:22:40,250
Because he is so young at heart and I'm
an old soul.

1200
01:22:41,970 --> 01:22:42,970
You look great.

1201
01:22:43,090 --> 01:22:44,270
It was such a beautiful day.

1202
01:22:44,570 --> 01:22:45,870
This was magical.

1203
01:22:46,090 --> 01:22:50,670
Just a great little bond that we just
take good care of each other and get

1204
01:22:50,670 --> 01:22:54,410
really well. You can just tell how happy
everyone is. Steph's really hard not to

1205
01:22:54,410 --> 01:22:56,810
like. What you see is what you get.

1206
01:22:57,630 --> 01:23:00,450
Just a really kind person, and I'm
really lucky.

1207
01:23:03,790 --> 01:23:08,870
Steph's birthday's on the same day as my
mom's, and Steph kind of reminds me a

1208
01:23:08,870 --> 01:23:11,230
little bit of my mom in the sense that
she was an American girl.

1209
01:23:11,570 --> 01:23:16,130
There was a big gap between my mom and
dad's age, and I feel like my mom and

1210
01:23:16,130 --> 01:23:18,230
were kind of cheering us on.

1211
01:23:18,950 --> 01:23:25,630
Like, even in the beginning, I knew his
kids were reluctant about me.

1212
01:23:25,930 --> 01:23:31,880
I had to really... earn their love and
earn their respect and i think i did

1213
01:23:31,880 --> 01:23:37,200
time once they saw us and saw how happy
he was and saw how happy i was my

1214
01:23:37,200 --> 01:23:41,220
relationship with them has only gotten
stronger with steph i think when they

1215
01:23:41,220 --> 01:23:43,780
me with stuff that they know that we're
happy

1216
01:23:43,780 --> 01:23:48,840
his

1217
01:23:48,840 --> 01:23:55,810
house here is kind of like

1218
01:23:55,810 --> 01:23:58,690
his dad's house. It was like the nucleus
for the family.

1219
01:23:59,410 --> 01:24:02,470
We always come here for dinner. This is
where our family meets.

1220
01:24:08,010 --> 01:24:12,290
Family is everything to him. My
grandpa's legacy, and now my dad's

1221
01:24:12,290 --> 01:24:15,810
within the footsteps of that. He's
created his own legacy, of course, but

1222
01:24:15,810 --> 01:24:18,230
you put it all together, it's actually
such a beautiful story.

1223
01:24:22,190 --> 01:24:26,830
I think it's one of a kind, which makes
the Hart family as a whole so unique.

1224
01:24:28,410 --> 01:24:31,370
We shared him with the whole world.

1225
01:24:35,490 --> 01:24:39,970
Which is why I am enjoying his
retirement so much, because we kind of

1226
01:24:39,970 --> 01:24:40,970
more to ourself.

1227
01:24:43,550 --> 01:24:49,270
With grandkids, my dad is just so happy
to be able to spend time with them and

1228
01:24:49,270 --> 01:24:51,630
kind of make up for the time that he
missed with us.

1229
01:24:54,390 --> 01:24:57,570
Resilience. There's nothing that can
stop him. He's the hitman.

1230
01:24:59,730 --> 01:25:05,250
I got to live my dreams.

1231
01:25:05,750 --> 01:25:07,130
The good and the bad.

1232
01:25:07,670 --> 01:25:09,350
The sorrow, the tragedy.

1233
01:25:11,270 --> 01:25:14,190
A difficult life makes you a better
person.

1234
01:25:18,170 --> 01:25:21,370
I'm very content and very satisfied. I
had a good life.

1235
01:25:21,610 --> 01:25:22,950
I wouldn't change any of it.

1236
01:25:26,670 --> 01:25:31,990
How do you want the fans around the
world to remember Bret the Hitman Hart

1237
01:25:31,990 --> 01:25:32,809
from now?

1238
01:25:32,810 --> 01:25:36,890
I just hope they reflect on me. I think
you fade once you're off the TV.

1239
01:25:37,470 --> 01:25:41,030
And if you're talking about WrestleMania
or a big show or, you know, it's

1240
01:25:41,030 --> 01:25:43,510
Madison Square Garden, I'm still the
best.

1241
01:25:43,770 --> 01:25:47,130
You want somebody that stands up for
right and wrong and someone that speaks

1242
01:25:47,130 --> 01:25:51,770
justice, someone who's not afraid to
come forward and to take on anybody and

1243
01:25:51,770 --> 01:25:54,630
fight fire with fire, that's me.

1244
01:25:55,270 --> 01:25:56,270
That's me.