Guest Column: Bret Hart

Growing up as a fan of wrestling, I was often lucky enough to have the best seat in the house, right next to the timekeeper at ringside. As a wide-eyed kid, this allowed me to watch the matches up close, and see just how good these wrestlers really were - although some were better than others, of course.

The wrestlers seemed to know a lot more basic wrestling back then. More often than not, they had a background in the sport somewhere along the line, and that was usually your ticket into the business - that you had wrestled at a certain college or had been trained by so-and-so. Despite how good some people were, though, there were still times when I would see somebody miss a dropkick by a couple of feet, and yet his opponent would still take a big bump. Even as a kid, I thought that was an immediate fail as a wrestler. You’d get a big “F” on your scorecard from me!

I’ve always been a stickler for the tiny little details in matches. Too many wrestlers are guilty of talking while in the middle of the ring, in front of the fans. I’ve seen such big names as Chris Jericho, John Cena, and even my brother Owen doing that. There are a lot of wrestlers who don’t seem to have any qualms about it, and they don't seem to think the fans can't see them doing it. I really don’t understand why somebody doesn’t pull these guys aside and warn them about it.

What I'm getting around to is that today, so many of the wrestlers that I really admire don’t make that extra effort to be realistic. I think that’s a grave mistake, and it’s important to note that the ones who ignore the importance of realism in pro wrestling consistently do not make it to the top.

If you look back at almost all of my matches, I always tried to make things look as real as I could - to make it seem like it was important to me to win, and that what you were witnessing was as close to a genuine contest as possible.

Off the top of my head, I only had a few matches where you saw things you shouldn’t have. At SummerSlam in 1992, The British Bulldog went blank on me within the first few minutes of the match, and I had to talk him through it. That’s one of those matches where I can be seen calling highspots, but I’m not sure I had much of a choice given the circumstances.

But anyway, why am I telling you all this right now? Well, it’s because I feel realism in professional wrestling is as important as anything, and it's maybe even the underlying theme of the entire sport. And I think that with the return of Brock Lesnar to WWE, the realism factor just went up.

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One of my favourite matches is Brock’s bout against Kurt Angle from WrestleMania XIX. It looked like a real contest, a real struggle, and it made you appreciate how hard wrestlers work, and the lengths they are willing to go to with their bodies. That’s exactly the kind of wrestling that I love, and I’ve told Kurt many times how much I enjoyed that match. As a fan of great pro wrestling, I’m also a fan of Brock Lesnar, and I’m really glad to see him back.

There’s such a contrast between that Brock versus Kurt World title match, and the one at this past WrestleMania between Daniel Bryan and Sheamus. As probably the best technical wrestler on the card, anyone who is a real wrestling fan was looking forward to seeing Bryan wrestle. To beat him in 18 seconds… I think only an imbecile could come up with something like that. Someone who doesn’t know anything about actual wrestling came up with that one, and I wish I could have been in the room when they were discussing it. I would have told Vince that it was perhaps the worst idea they could run with, as they’d be disappointing a lot of people who, believe it or not, came to watch the actual wrestling. It was a poorly thought-out idea, and one I hope they learn lessons from.

Let me be clear that I mean no disrespect to Daniel Bryan or Sheamus, because you do what you’re told. I think the talent in wrestling today is as good as it’s ever been, but a lot of it is being misused. There
are a bunch of guys who could be doing more for the company, if they were handled better than they are now.

The wrestlers today are getting advice from older guys who were middle-of-the-road wrestlers, and perhaps never drew a dime. When I was first in WWE, Vince McMahon surrounded himself with certain people who understood wrestling. It was men such as Pat Patterson or Chief Jay Strongbow, who both understood the intricacies of the matches, what order to place them on the card et cetera. They knew what the endings of the matches should be, so that when people were driving home that night, they were happy. Vince filled his inner dressing room with real wrestlers who had walked the walk; they had great comments to make to you after each match, and they could also tell you what you needed to do to improve. You learned, and you did get better with each passing match.

I won’t mention any names, but a lot of the guys Vince has passing out advice now never really made a lot of money for the business, nor had that great understanding of wrestling. There’s no Steve Austin, Bret Hart, or Shawn Michaels back there - there’s a bunch of guys who were mid-card talent, telling main event-level players what to do, and they don’t have the knowledge to do that. In my book, sometimes the business is guilty of losing track of what’s important - that the best wrestling needs to come across to the fans as real.

WWE seem to have lost focus on that over the past couple of years, treating everything as just a show that’s all about the hype and characters. I’m a big backer of WWE, and I enjoy a lot of the wrestlers and their styles, but I’m just not very happy with the booking or management aspect, because I don’t think they have the right people who care about wrestling there. I know the whole show can’t just be Brock Lesnar or Kurt Angle, or guys like that; it’s got to be a mix of everything, but essentially as a fan the most important thing
is that authenticity.

The “Hitman” character I portrayed was who I was 24 hours a day, and it was very real. It was the same with Steve Austin, who lived his own character. In many ways it was actually very close to a kind of method acting, and the important thing about both “The Hitman” and “Stone Cold”, and the feud we had, was that it was all very natural. We made everybody in the business believe that we hated each other’s guts, and there was so much perceived bad blood between us, both backstage as well as in front of the fans. When we'd walk past each other in the hall, we'd kind of glare at each other; when we were talking about things and coming up with ideas for our matches, we knew it wasn’t real, but we’d try to think how our actual characters would react in any given situation.

On the day of WrestleMania XIII, I wanted to give a big boost to Steve's character, and he wanted to do the same for me. That’s the beauty of how wrestling should work, and I think that match stands out as a clinic of how to achieve that.

If they’re making money [in WWE], then I really don’t think they care whether the actual wrestling is important or not. If they’re not making money, and there’s a drag in business, then I think WWE will shake things up, given time. Wrestling is cyclical, and I think the entire industry is waiting for the next guy to pull the sword out of the stone. John Cena has been the top guy for a long time now and, much like my “Hitman” character, there comes a point where people want to see what else you have. I like John, but I think we need somebody new. In saying that, I don’t see anyone on the horizon who could fill his shoes - that next big superstar who has that right look, presence and ability to lead the charge and give the business something a little more genuine.

Who that guy is, and what he represents in wrestling, is the big mystery. How wrestling works, and how it needs authenticity, is not.