Bret Hart Q&A: The ‘Hitman’ Talks Owen Hart, Dream Opponents, And More

During a Q&A session with fans at Legends of Wrestling in Citi Field alongside Ric Flair, Tommy Dreamer, Matt Sydal and Tyrus, WWE Hall of Famer Bret “The Hitman” Hart answered a bevy of questions about his storied career in the professional wrestling industry. Hart was on the receiving end of a ton of inquiries and did not shy away from answering all questions coming his way, just prior to his appearance in the evening’s main event.

From questions about the legacy of his brother Owen Hart, the state of wrestling today or just some funny stories from the road, the former five-time WWE champion kept a smile on his face and even threw in a few jokes to keep the Cesar’s Club at Citi Field alive.

On Owen Hart going into the Hall of Fame: “Right now, it’s a serious consideration for next year.”

The origin of his sunglasses: “That’s an old story. The truth is when I first tagged up with Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, the whole thing was kind of thrown together. I didn’t have high hopes that we were gonna go a long ways at that time. I remember for the longest time, the first few weeks that we started, we had no music, we had no ring outfits or jackets, we weren’t getting any kind of a push or anything, we were just there. I remember I had my very first WWE interview I ever had, interviews weren’t my strongest suit, I was much better at being a wrestler than talking about being a wrestler. I did my very first WWE promo and if you’re familiar with the technical side of things, when something happens when they do these interviews, if any kind of a noise, or someone slamming a door, or sneezing or something in the background, we have to do it all over again. And they have to be exactly one minute or one minute and 45 seconds like they used to do back then. And I did my first interview with Jimmy Hart and Anvil, I thought it went pretty good but there was some kind of noise in the background. They had to play it back and see if it’s good and they played it back and it wasn’t good, there was a noise and they had to redo it. When I watched them play it back, I could see that I was really scared and nervous, my eyes were twitching all over the place and I was struggling with what to say and when to speak up. I just remember when I saw the interview back and they said we had to do it over again, I said ‘hold on’ and I ran out of the room and ran down the hall to my locker. I found a pair of sunglasses and I put the sunglasses on so no one could see how nervous I am and that’s where it came from.”

Wrestlers he would have loved to face: “Oh, there’s a lot of guys. I would have really liked to have wrestled John Cena, for starters. I think I would have had some great matches with John, just my style matched up against his style. Kurt Angle is another guy. I would have loved to work with CM Punk for sure. You know, I could just go on naming guys, a lot of the wrestlers. Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, there’s so many, I could go on all night. Brock Lesnar would be another guy I would have loved to work once, it would have been an interesting match up, there’s a ton of guys. And probably the Bella Twins in a handicap bikini match.”

Toughest match he ever had: “I think the toughest match I ever had was probably the iron man match[with Shawn Michaels]. I had some great, tough iron man matches with this fella right here [points to Ric Flair]. Believe it or not, before I wrestled Shawn in an iron man match, me and Ric had lots of them. I had great iron man matches with my brother Owen.”

Who Hart thinks is the best wrestler of today: “Best wrestler today, I mean if you take it pound-for-pound I think Tyson Kidd is the most accomplished and most creative wrestler out there. But you can’t take anything away Daniel Bryan and CM Punk, I think they really raised the bar, to me, they were phenomenal wrestlers. The young guys today, I’m going to talk about Cody Rhodes a lot because he’s really the excellence of execution in my opinion. Every move he does is really well done, he’s a really smart wrestler that’s really skilled and I enjoy watching him.”

The best wrestler of Hart’s era: “The best wrestler of my era, leaving myself out of the equation, I would say Mr. Perfect, and Shawn Michaels was a great wrestler.”

Kids realizing that wrestling isn’t a legitimate sport: “I grew up watching wrestling, I remember Abdullah The Butcher biting my dad’s head, kinda freaking out watching wrestling. My dad never smartened me up, wrestling should be fun for kids, I always tried to put on a wrestling style that was fun for kids. My kids, I always thought they would figure it out themselves. At the same time, when I had my big feud with my brother Owe, as an example, I think it was the only time I pulled my sons aside and we sat down and explained to them we weren’t really enemies and it was a storyline but they didn’t know what the hell a storyline was. We explained to them not to overreact to it and I think it was one of the few times I went about it that way, I didn’t want my sons thinking I have a serious hatred for Owen. We were really, really close and Owen’s kids were close with my kids. That would be the only time but kids figure it out, I figured it out [laughs].

The story of Yokozuna’s “incident” on an airplane: I’m not sure of the authenticity of this story. There was a flight from Hawaii and we were all going to Japan and we got on the plane and most of the wrestler’s were in first class. I guess Mr. Perfect leaned over and asked Yokozuna if he wanted a little chocolate or a piece of chocolate from a candy bar, which turned out to be a laxative. You can just imagine it’s pretty hard to fit in those bathrooms. The story I heard was they took Yoko to the back of the airplane because they couldn’t fit him in the bathroom and the Japanese stewardess held up a bunch of sheets and he went to the bathroom on some newspaper and I was glad to be up in first class. I’m not sure how true that story is but that’s one of the stories I’ve always heard.”

If Hart could bring back one wrestler from the dead, who would it be?: “I’d bring my brother Owen back in a heartbeat.”

[Image via WWE]