WHAT FLAIR SAID ABOUT BRET HART IN HIS BOOK
By: 1Wrestling.com
7/13/2004 6:48:35 PM
Bret Hart's comments directed at Ric Flair were a reaction to remarks made in Flair's book, "To Be The Man".
Here's are the excerpts from the book that contains the comments from Flair that set Hart off:
"Personally, I never saw dollar signs on Bret Hart. He was a good, sound physical wrestler, but with limited charisma and interview skills. He also could have been president of his own fan club. Bret truly thought that he was the best technical wrestler who ever lived, and he was stuck in a routine that he refused to break. When he'd make his comeback, he'd rely on the same sequence of moves - an atomic drop, a clothesline, a gut punch, a Russian leg sweep, a backbreaker, a fist drop from the second rope, and finally his finisher, the Sharpshooter - night after night, with no variation! Every well-known wrestler has patented things that he does in his matches, but you can still entertain your fans by putting things in different spots or doing them in different ways. If I tried adding things to Bret's comeback - like hitting him with a chop - he couldn't stand it. It had to be in rotation."
"Don't get me wrong - Bret could have a tremendous match when it really counted. But, day to day, I found him to be inflexible. And in 1997, when Bret punched out Vince McMahon over a finish in Montreal, I was apalled. At the time, Hart had just signed with WCW. Since he happened to be the World Wrestling Federation champion, he needed to drop the title. Vince wanted Bret to do it at Survivor Series, but Hart wouldn't. As a so-called Canadian hero - and I really don't think Bret has anything on Wayne Gretzky - Bret refused to lose in Canada. That would be the equivalent of me saying I'd never let anyone beat me in North Carolina. Give me a break!"
"Obviously, Vince could see that Hart thought that he was bigger than the World Wrestling Federation, and Vince did what was necessary to protect his company. When Shawn Michaels put the Hitman in a Sharpshooter, McMahon ordered the timekeeper to ring the bell. The match was over, Vince said, and Shawn was the new champion. When people argued that Vince had screwed Bret, McMahon accurately replied, "Bret screwed Bret.""
"The facts are this: Hogan, for all he did, right and wrong, drew a lot of money. Savage, for all he did, right and wrong, drew a lot of money. Roddy Piper, Dusty Rhodes, and Ric Flair drew big money. Bret Hart did not. Vince had other distractions at the time, but when Bret beat me for the title, the company went to hell for a while."
"Bret never regained the fame he'd had in the World Wrestling Federation. Part of it had to do with terrible booking, the other part with Bret's own deficiencies. What unnerved me most was the way he used his brother's death (Owen Hart slipped out of his harness and fell from the ceiling of Kansas City's Kemper Arena during a World Wrestling Federation Pay-Per-View in 1999). Through his column in the Calgary Sun, Bret relentlessly bashed Vince McMahon. I sympathize with the emotion - and even the anger - he felt over losing a brother, but I lost respect for him when he made the case into a public spectacle. Why didn't he take up the matter privately with Vince? It seemed to me that Bret cared more about getting "screwed" in Montreal than he did about Owen's death, and he used his brother's tragedy to grind his ax with Vince."
