The Miami Herald has an interview up with WWE Hall of Famer Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Here are some highlights.
On his book about his wrestling career:
“I think the book is pretty accurate. I don’t think there are wrestlers out there reading my book saying, `That’s not what happened,’ or I wasn’t there when that happened. There aren’t guys out there who are going to refute what is in the book. The fact that I was as honest as I was is because I was in a position to be. That was also a big difference than say Chris Jericho’s book.”
His thoughts on Chris Jericho’s book:
“I did enjoy Jericho’s book to a certain degree, but there is a lot of sanitizing to sort of make the company look good and protect themselves. I think the company sort of handcuffs whether they can say this or say that. I didn’t have that kind of restraint.”
On surprising reactions to his book:
“I’ve been surprised by the amount of females that have come up to me saying they loved the book and the honesty of it, specifically older, mature women. They had a lot of empathy for me. I didn’t expect that. Where I found that the sports media and male media people were a little judgmental of the choices I made. I was surprised at how many men were taken back from my book, where the women appreciated the dynamic of all things going around. They showed a lot more understanding than the male critics. I don’t know why that is. Before I wrote it, I would have thought it was the other way around.”
On what made his wrestler career different from others:
“It wasn’t so much about Bret Hart the character than Bret Hart the matches. I still hold up my matches to anybody else and how I made each story play out. I made titles mean something and wrestling matches mean something. You remember Hulk Hogan and remember the titles, but I don’t think anyone really goes back and looks back at his matches and says this was a classic. Maybe the one with Andre the Giant was a classic, but every match he had was the same. I think I took wrestling to another level, and if I look back at my contributions over the years, I made everything seem real. It was really important to win and lose a title. For me, it was real. My income was cut in half when I lost the title. I will always be proud of what I represented in wrestling.”
To check out the full interview, click here.