VIDEO: Bret Hart – Martha is “Erasing” Owen Hart’s Career
Via John Pollock:
Bret Hart was a guest this past week on Fight Network and The LAW and spoke about the recent passing of Roddy Piper, his issues with the upcoming Owen Hart DVD and Martha Hart and more. The full video is below, along with excerpts from the interview.
On the death of his close friend, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper:
Roddy’s a really hard one; that’s like losing a brother. I can’t say I’ve gotten over it. If anything, I haven’t even really absorbed it yet. I find myself reaching for the phone all the time to give Roddy a call. He was so much more than any of the other wrestlers who worked with me. He was a guy that mentored me and helped me in the very beginning of my career. He gave me advice back at a time when nobody was giving advice to me. Always good advice. When I wrestled him at WrestleMania VIII, I look back at those times – Mr. Perfect would be another one – there’s a few guys who would reach down and help pull someone like me up to the next level. You can take your Jake Roberts and your Hulk Hogans and your Ultimate Warriors and a lot of these guys that were big names back then, but they never did anything for me. They never helped me, they never thought of helping me, and when they had a chance to help me they never did. But Roddy Piper was a guy that looked after guys like me, and a lot of the younger talent when the opportunity came for him to help make my career and pull me up to the next level. I owe a lot to Roddy Piper.
On the recent release of “The Kliq Rules” DVD:
They were literally a cancer in the dressing room, all of them. I don’t doubt that Shawn Michaels is sorry for a lot of that kind of behaviour. Kevin Nash was a great wrestler and a good guy, but I don’t think he could be that proud of that association. It was a cancerous environment in the dressing room with those guys and they certainly did more negative than positive to the business. Scott Hall, all you have to do is just look at him. He’s a train-wreck with his own life and he was a malcontent, or a guy that when you were close to him long enough you start to feel the same way he did; you just felt so self-destructive and unhappy with your life and your job and everything. He was a guy that was infectious with his bad, bad sort of moods and unhappiness in his own life that would spread to all the other wrestlers. And you know, I’m glad I’m not remembered for that kind of stuff. I’m remembered – I think if you talk to different wrestlers from that era, the Savio Vegas and those kinds of wrestlers that were on my cards – they’re all pretty proud of how I conducted myself, how I related to them and how I may have been the top guy but I didn’t act like a superstar; not to my friends and not to my peers.
On the upcoming “Owen: Hart of Gold” DVD:
I’m looking forward to it but I’m not really optimistic that it’s going to be a great job. Martha [Hart, Owen’s widow] handcuffed them so much. I don’t know if they’re even allowed to use any pictures from the past. It’s a poorly done DVD because of all the restraints and the limitations that Martha put on it. To me, that’s such a lousy thing to have happen. I think Owen would turn in his grave if he knew how much trouble Martha has gone to erase his career and make sure that nobody enjoys anything about his career today. It’s a bitterness and selfishness that I can’t stand by anymore. I think Martha’s taken the wrong approach and she should understand that, you know, we all miss Owen. I lost a brother, I lost a great friend and maybe one of the closest people I knew on this earth. I want to celebrate his career, I want to watch his matches back – not just with me, but with everybody he worked with. His time with WWE, they got so much footage and so many great memories with Owen, and here she is standing in the way of that saying, “Nobody can see these videos. No one should see anything that brings back any of his career.” […] They couldn’t use any pictures from his childhood, they couldn’t use anything from Stampede Wrestling. They had so many restraints. Even the interviews, the questions that they did with me were so bullshit. The whole thing was so bullshit that sure, there’s an Owen Hart DVD, but it’s the shits. […] I think WWE maybe had good intentions, but I’m not very impressed with the quality that it’s going to be. I haven’t seen it, I’m not optimistic but I’m hoping that it’ll be better than I think. But I could tell by the questions that they asked me and the interview that they did with me that it was a very short version of [Owen’s story]. I’m not really gonna hold up hope that it’s gonna be as great as it should be, and I feel bad because that’s Martha’s fault.
