Rumours that Bret Hart might return to the WWE...

[Bob Morris]

Bret Hart is really no different from most any other wrestler who got pushed as a promotion's top guy.

 

He believes his own hype too much. He points to how certain fans worship him as if it makes him larger than life. He criticizes other wrestlers for their weaknesses when some of those arguments could be applied to him.

 

I'm a Bret Hart fan. I still take his side more with regards to Montreal, but since Montreal, there are just certain things he just refuses to let go and he seems hellbent on ending his career on a "high note" on his terms, when we all know that is the exception, not the rule.

 

I'm not offended by Bret going back to WWE for the short term. I can only shake my head in disbelief as to what he is doing, not because "WWE screwed him in Montreal" but because "he is in no condition to be getting back into the ring and no way will this run mean anything unless he gets back into the ring."

[Bix]

He believes his own hype too much. He points to how certain fans worship him as if it makes him larger than life.

I would expect it from someone married a woman who, as a preteen, wrote in her diary that she would marry him when she was old enough.

[Resident Evil]

Bret Hart is definitely a hero to me in some ways. Not in all ways as almost nobody is perfect but in some ways for sure.

[sek69]

He believes his own hype too much. He points to how certain fans worship him as if it makes him larger than life.

I would expect it from someone married a woman who, as a preteen, wrote in her diary that she would marry him when she was old enough.

 

 

I never knew that. Who'd have guessed Bret would have something in common with Tom Cruise?

[Loss]

I think what distinguishes Bret from most people in wrestling is that I at least get the idea that Bret knows he's screwed up and his surroundings have been screwed up, while Ric Flair probably thinks he's a perfectly functional member of society, and misses the days when men were men and could grab women's asses in public and drink until the wee hours of the morning. And considering how absolutely terrible Bret's 40s were for him, that he hasn't gone even further off the deep end is a credit to him.

[Guest John O'Neill]

My theory on why people see Bret as some kind of hero relates to his character.

 

When I was still relatively new to wrestling Bret was my favourite character because his character felt real. Other guys were decked-out in stupid costumes and ridiculous gimmicks, yet Bret came across as a real human being. At times it blurred the line between reality and fantasy because it was easy to accept the Bret you saw on camera was the Bret in real life. It created a different kind of connection between the wrestler and his fans.

 

Of course the list of tragedies Bret has endured has helped him in terms of gaining peoples sympathy and more to the point, empathy.

 

I think what distinguishes Bret from most people in wrestling is that I at least get the idea that Bret knows he's screwed up and his surroundings have been screwed up, while Ric Flair probably thinks he's a perfectly functional member of society, and misses the days when men were men and could grab women's asses in public and drink until the wee hours of the morning. And considering how absolutely terrible Bret's 40s were for him, that he hasn't gone even further off the deep end is a credit to him.

After reading Bret's book I disagree with that statement a lot. I think it was John D Williams who said Bret clearly loves his father Stu, and it's true he does. Yet Bret seems completely oblivious to the way he portrayed his Dad in his book. Stu comes off as a terrible man. His mom doesn't always come off good in the book either.

 

At times reading his book I have to say I can't think of another wrestler so unbelievably trapped in another reality... well maybe Hogan or Warrior. Hogan's book is a classic for ridiculous shit being said.

[jdw]

Bret does love his mother and his father.

 

He also seemed pretty aware in the book that his dad was fucked up, and that his mother had issues. It's clear that he thought his entire family was screwed up, with the exception of Owen and about 50% of himself. But plenty of people love family members who they know are fucked up to a degree.

 

Bret probably isn't fully self aware, but really how many of us are? If any of us wrote at that length about out lives, other folks would read it and find similar moments where we just weren't really getting it. I think Bret's willingness to portray Stu and Helen as they are in the book is a sign of awareness and honesty on his part. Perhaps a good contrast would be how Foley has portrayed Mrs. Foley in his books. One could argue that Mick is well to aware and thus doesn't want to expose here, so he's not being honest. One could also argue that he's oblivious, which goes in the other direction.

 

I tend to agree with Bix's posts in here, along with Loss's. I think if we remove the words "hero" and "admire" from talking about Bret and instead toss out something like "compelling", it might be closer to what some of is see. I don't see any wrestlers as heros, and long ago seemed to lose my ability to admire any of them. But Bret is pretty compelling as a person. The book is, and the items Bix ran through in the list above make a very compelling arc.

 

We may think Flair's career *in the ring* is compelling, and that some of the arc of his "wrestling persona" are compelling. But as a person, he hasn't been terribly compelling through the majority of his career. If he has become one over the past decade, it's largely for the trainwreck aspects.

 

Hogan probably is similar.

 

Bret is a nutter. But he's been a far more interesting nutter than most people in the business. Like all of them, there's plenty to get tired off.

 

John

[Log]

Other guys were decked-out in stupid costumes

[Loss]

Come on, for the time, that was actually not that bad.

[El-P]

At least, Bret was colorful, which is more than what you can say about the dull and bland generic look that has been the rule for the past decade. Austin and Rock's black tights were a breath of fresh air in the late 90's, but the 00's have been the decade of blandness also in term of look. More bland than HHH or Orton, you can't do. I miss the times when wrestlers had tons of differents and colorful outfits (Savage, Bret, Jake Roberts, Rick Rude, Ric Flair etc...). I don't think the "look" aspect of wrestling would capture my imagination if I was a child now. Not enough variety, not enough color, expect for Rey Rey.

[ohtani's jacket]

Is Vince counter programming against Hogan's debut or booking towards Wrestlemania?

[Grimmas]

Is Vince counter programming against Hogan's debut or booking towards Wrestlemania?

Since Bret has signed on through WrestleMania, it would mean the later.

[Resident Evil]

I'd say both.

[Marty]

Certainly both, to some degree on the competition part. For those who haven't already seen, they've removed Hogan and Flair from that opening montage of theirs. Hogan (and "Hulkamania is running wild") is replaced by DiBiase (and "Everybody has a price") and Flair is replaced by a Jeff Hardy highspot.

[rovert]

Hart Dynasty & Bret vs DX & Hornswoggle for Wrestlemania

[Herodes]

Is Vince counter programming against Hogan's debut or booking towards Wrestlemania?

For Vince I'm sure the main thing is the satisfaction that despite all the shit these wrestlers talk about him, they always come back eventually, just like Superstar Billy Graham...privately I bet he would be thrilled to have the last holdout Bruno to come crawling back too so he can be smug in the knowledge that he did.

[Guest John O'Neill]

He also seemed pretty aware in the book that his dad was fucked up, and that his mother had issues. It's clear that he thought his entire family was screwed up, with the exception of Owen and about 50% of himself. But plenty of people love family members who they know are fucked up to a degree.

I disagree. Here's a story from Bret's book:

 

"Stu was hard on us sometimes, but he did what he needed to do to keep order in a family of twelve kids. Fearing him is what kept me in line. My dad had his own way of doing things, and a good example of what kind of man he was came one winter's night when we were all awakened at two in the morning by the sound of spinning tires. Stu saw one of his cars stuck in a snowdrift by the Hart house gates and, thinking it was Smith, he went down to help push him out. I looked out the window and saw the ar in the drive-way with the door hanging open and the engine running... and Stu hauling someone up to the house. Dean, Ross, Owen and I hear the pors and pans banging around all over the kitchen, punctuated by yells of agony. All the boys snuck to the stairs and listened to hear which older brother was in trouble. But we soon realized we were all accounted for.

I didn't find out until the next morning that Stu had caught some guy in the act of trying to steal the car. Most people would have just phoned the police, but Stu's instinct was to apply his own form of dicipline. Being stretched by Stu is a humbling experience. My father taught humility, not humiliation. He eventually phoned the kid's parents to come pick him up, and later even gave him a job working as an usher at the matches. He got that kid a life, and a second chance, when others would have called the cops and washed their hands of him."

 

In Bret's eyes what Stu did was perfectly fine and resulted in a good end.

 

I think Bret's willingness to portray Stu and Helen as they are in the book is a sign of awareness and honesty on his part.

Honesty maybe, but not awareness. Truth be told there are probably better stories from Bret's book that illustrate what a nutter his father was, but I can't be stuffed trying to remember them. In short he portrays his father as a man who used violence to control his family, and to him it's perfectly normal.

 

While there are things Bret can be honest about - Neidhart (who apparently was pissed with the book), his womanizing, and drug use - there are certainly plenty of stories in his book where I don't feel Bret was being honest.

 

Honesty is a tricky notion - few people are honest. We are all influenced by our biases and prejudices. Sometimes when people say things they're not lying, they're being their approximation of truthful, but what they're saying isn't the truth - if that makes sense. I have the sense Bret wasn't being completely honest in his book when he talked about his sister Ellie, whom he took every opportunity to portray as short-tempered and spoiled (perhaps another reason why Neidhart hated the book). I'd accept a lot of what he says about Shawn and Vince, but really there were a few things that seemed embellished, especially with Vince. Bret was Vince's biggest advocate in 1997 - a guy who defended him at every turn as a good man and a good friend.

 

Most of all his stories involving Bad News Allen seems influenced by his own personal bias as well. Bret talks about him as being dangerous and basically "Bad News". There was a story that Bret once gave Bad News a concussion by hitting him over the head with a chair. Bad News had given Bret clearance to hit him across the back. In his book Bret made some excuse about how Bad News was feeding him an unprotected shot to the head, and he just randomly flipped out. It's a little hard to believe. In Dynamite Kid's book he talks about how News snapped at Bret one night in the ring after Bret kept on bouncing forearms off his chin etc. While Dynamite Kid's book is littered with his own bias, and he comes off as a bully without intending it, there really wasn't any reason for Dynamite to tell anything but the truth with that story. He and Bret were still friends at the time etc.

 

So yeah I think Bret did hurt Bad News a couple of times, but in Bret's book he goes to a large effort to portray News as an out-of-control anger freak. People such as Chris Benoit (dare I say it), Lance Storm, and Chris Jericho, have talked about what a great guy Bad News was and how he helped them out. I guess it would make Bret look bad if he admitted to hurting a guy in the ring, what with all the self-promotion he's done over the years.

 

In my opinion Bret probably thinks he's telling the truth, but his perceptions are coloured as they generally are.

 

People talk about how his book was a cold, hard, honest book. There was some harsh honesty in the book, but there was also crap - loads of stories where Bret's just going easy on himself.

 

One could argue that Mick is well to aware and thus doesn't want to expose here, so he's not being honest. One could also argue that he's oblivious, which goes in the other direction.

Non-disclosure doesn't mean dishonesty IMO.

 

Bret is a nutter. But he's been a far more interesting nutter than most people in the business. Like all of them, there's plenty to get tired off.

I agree he's a more compelling case than most wrestlers.

 

"I'm John O'Neill - play by my rules"

[tomk]

I'm a Bret Hart fan. I still take his side more with regards to Montreal, but since Montreal, there are just certain things he just refuses to let go

Don't really understand the link between being a fan of Bret's and takling his side in Montreal case.

 

I’m not a particular fan of Bret Hart.

He’s been in a bunch of matches I’ve liked a lot. Been in a bunch of matches that I didn’t care for.

 

But I’m a guy who has held jobs, has signed contracts with employers, has subcontracted, and had folks sign contracts with me. If someone violates a contract they are in the wrong. Bret wanted the terms of his contract met, the WWF violated those terms.If someone violates a contract I don't work with them again. If someone fails to pay me, I don't work with them again. If I fail to pay someone I don't expect them to want to work for me again. In the real world you let alot of shit slide but you don't let that shit go.

 

Wrestling is full of whores who are willing to let things go. Promoters bounce checks to, take advantage of, violate contracts of and fail to pay their employees. And for the most part the employees let it go, suck it up and go back to work for them.

 

Letting things go isn't an admirable quality here. It's a sign that you're just another whore.

[El-P]

Well, maybe Bret wants to one-up Flair in terms of whoring out yourself. Gotta love that feud.

[jdw]

He also seemed pretty aware in the book that his dad was fucked up, and that his mother had issues. It's clear that he thought his entire family was screwed up, with the exception of Owen and about 50% of himself. But plenty of people love family members who they know are fucked up to a degree.

I disagree. Here's a story from Bret's book:

 

I think we're looking at different things in the book. It's pretty clear that Bret thinks his father was fucked up. Loved him. Accepted some of the things he did. Admired some of them. But it's also clear that in many he thought his dad was fucked up.

 

We can find examples where *we* thing Stu was fucked up, but Bret didn't. That's not what I'm talking about, anymore than this things about Bret that we think are fucked up and he doesn't think are unusual. One can find those in his relationship with Julie where half the time he's copping to causing many of the issues with his lifestyle and life on the road. And in turn we can find plenty where he thinks Julie was just being a pain in the ass for not accepting the lifestyle and life on the road.

 

That was one of my points: he's more self aware than most people who have written books and are completely delusional. But he still has blinders on.

 

This one of the issues with people like Bret or Shawn. If you're half critical of him, you're not critical enough for the Bret Haters and are too critical for the Bret Luvers. Bret's fucked up. But in his books he's remarkably more aware of how fucked up his life and the things around him and himself are compared to say Flair, or even Foley. That's coming from someone who enjoyed Foley's first book at the time.

 

John

[Bix]

You're forgetting the passage from the introduction where Bret talks about how when he was young, he referred to his father as two different people. "Dad" was the nurturing homemaker, while "Stu" was the scary abuser. He's definitely somewhat realistic about his father in that passage at least, though the one quoted above contradicts it.

[Slasher]

Forgive me for asking but what has Foley shown to be unaware of? Any examples?

[Bix]

Stuff about Collette that only John and the TOAers have ever reported to the best of my knowledge (not saying it's false, though).

[jdw]

Setting even that aside, Foley went to the WWF to get away from the hardcore stuff he was doing in ECW and in Japan. Working a safer style, career longevity, and bascially admitting at the time he was willing to sell out.

 

Except he went back to being a hardcore, little more than a junky for a pop of the crowd and fame, The Hardcore Legend. Made him shitloads of money as well... but he never really came across as self aware in the first two books or the movie that he was lying to people, and largely himself, in what he was doing in that career path from 1995/96 on forward. He might rub up against the truth on occassion, but slip away from it.

 

In the end, he's fairly similar to Dynamite in laying out a chunk of warts in an attempt to be "honest", but avoiding others and true introspection.

 

Again, that's setting aside the stuff Bix mentions, and a fair number of things I heard back at the time. People can dimiss that if they'd like. I never found the person I heard a fair amount of Mick info to be incorrect on Mick stuff. In fact, one of the funny things I recall was someone ripping him about Mick's role in Barry's movie while it was still in production... and the person doing the ripping turning out to be laughably wrong. But yeah, I could be talking out of my ass, Mick & Mrs. Foley are saints, and there isn't a more self aware person in wrestling with his head screwed on straight than Mick.

 

John

[Guest John O'Neill]

That was one of my points: he's more self aware than most people who have written books and are completely delusional. But he still has blinders on.

But what about the Bad News story John? Bret admitted in his book that Bad News told him not to hit him in the head, but by Bret's way of logic Bad News had to have been feeding him a chair shot to the head.

 

Here my point: the fact that he writes about a hell of a lot of stuff (and wrote a lot more than was published apparently) doesn't mean he's self-aware. It's a deep long book, but choc-full of Bret believing what Bret wants to believe. The Bad News story is a fine example. If Bret was truly aware he'd be able to see that he did something stupid that injured a fellow wrestler. As I said I'm inclined to believe Bad News' story of events because Dynamite Kid re-affirmed it back when he and Bret were friends. But in Bret's mind he never seriously injured a professional wrestler and therefore he never gave Bad News a concussion, or constantly stiffed him as Dynamite once recalled.

 

That reminds me, Bret talks about Dynamite taking liberties with him when they first got together. He talks about Dynamite having no good reason for constantly stiffing him. In his book Dynamite talks about Bret working rigidly and having to stiff him to sort of loosen him up. That comes across as dumb bullshit as well.

 

If you watch the Jake Roberts DVD the WWE put-out you'll see in the extras that Jake recalls how when Bret started he was incredibly stiff and very clumsy. After a match when Bret stiffed Dynamite too much, Dynamite went to Jake and said, "Jake, which eye? Left eye or right eye, what's it gonna be? Which one am I gonna do Bret?" etc. It's clear that neither Bret nor Billington's accounts are very accurate. Roberts has the most believable account because he has no motive and no bias on this matter that I'm aware of. In fact during a shoot interview a few years ago Roberts talks about what a nice guy Bret is. Yet Roberts was able to talk about how clumsy and stiff Bret was.

 

If Bret was truly as aware as you say he is, he'd be able to mention in his book that when he started he was stiff and clumsy and hurt wrestlers, and that's why Dynamite was angry with him. But no in Bret's mind he never hurt anybody, it's one of the three reasons he's the best there is the best there was and the best there ever will be (which reminds me that he also discloses a story in his book where he refused to lose to Hunter).

 

John, don't let the fact that Bret was able to talk about everything and anything in his life from marrital issues, drug issues, backstage issues etc, fool you into thinking he's aware of everything that happened. He isn't aware - he has his own ideas and accounts of what happened and they often display bias in his favour. There were some things he was able to accept he was at fault, but there's more stuff where he's just living in his own fantasy land.

 

I could honestly go through his book and probably find 20 good examples of Bret having a warped idea of events, and then find enough testimony from other wrestlers to show he's absolutely full of shit. I guess in Bret's defence I could do that with most wrestling books because wrestlers seem to have gigantic egos and can't accept things about themselves.

 

As I said, the fact that he disclosed so much doesn't amount to awareness.