wrestling / Columns

For Bret: How ‘The Hitman’ Made Me a Better Person

February 14, 2016 | Posted by Dino Zee

Well, it’s been a rough couple weeks for this old wrestling fan. The news of Bret Hart’s cancer diagnosis got things off to a bad start, and then Daniel Bryan did what we’ve basically waited half a year to see him do and retired.

They say kayfabe’s dead. That we’re all in on the show now, that we get that these are actors playing a role. That we’re all okay with that knowledge. That it’s now a relic of a bygone era, no longer useful, and no longer applicable when we have instant information in front of our faces all the time. Kayfabe’s time has long since come and gone.

I just can’t fully subscribe to that thought. Not when I still think of Bret Hart as my hero. Not when I still think of Bret Hart in 2016 in the exact same way that I did in 1994. That despite all of his personal tragedy, despite illness, despite aging, despite his 2010 comeback and performances… despite all that, I still consider him to be the technically superior but undersized dog in the fight.

Bret Hart is “The Hitman” to me, even though I know better. At least, I should know better. Last summer, I had to split the guy from the character when Terry Bollea’s recorded drama made it so we couldn’t enjoy Hulk Hogan for the time being. Suffice to say, I don’t just live in a dream world with all the wrestlers, even when it’s someone, like Hogan, that I literally worshipped as a child.

With Bret, however, it’s always been a bit different. And I think it’s simply a matter of where I was in life at the time of him being a full time wrestler, and what he ended up representing to me. Because Bret was someone I knew of as a young kid. I was always aware of The Hart Foundation, but since they were heels, I just didn’t get too wrapped up in them. I was a much bigger fan of The British Bulldogs or The Killer Bees which, for the latter, is a little tough to admit.

When Bret and Jim Neidhart turned face, it was a cool moment to watch as a fan, and I soon found myself getting into the team. I still favored Demolition over them, but they quickly grew to be my second favorite tag team. When they’d split after dropping the tag team titles to The Nasty Boys at WrestleMania 7, I was a little concerned about just how effective either would be as singles wrestlers.

The announcement that Bret would challenge Mr. Perfect for the Intercontinental championship at SummerSlam ’91 honestly surprised the hell out of me. I was nine at the time, and while I felt that Mr. Perfect was the better wrestler, I really just hoped against all hope in my little mark heart that Bret would figure out a way to get the job done. So, when the VHS from Dad arrived in the mail, and I sat down and watched SummerSlam a few days after it originally aired, I flipped out when I saw Bret hook that Sharpshooter, and Mr. Perfect submit. From that moment on, I was 100% on board as a fan of Bret “Hitman” Hart.

Where Bret differs from other childhood favorites, such as Hogan, is the way that he managed to keep me convinced he was the best, even as my worldview of professional wrestling changed.

For Hogan, he was the conquering hero of my absolute youth. He preached the message that I liked to hear, and he’d go out there and smash whoever stood in his way. And that, for a while, was fantastic. However, things started to get a little boring for me. The WWF would also bring in some guys that I found myself rooting for over Hogan, like Sid Justice. Hogan started to seem like a real jerk to me, and when he pulled Sid out of the Rumble in a giant tantrum, some big time harm had been done as it pertained to my status as a Hulkamaniac.

At WrestleMania 8, I cheered as I again watched Bret win the Intercontinental Title, beating champion “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in a seriously fun mini-classic. Later that night, I’d cheer for Sid against Hogan, as Hogan’s talk of this possibly being his final match (hilarious) had me hoping Sid would powerbomb him straight out of the WWF. It didn’t happen, but Hogan did leave for a healthy chunk of time following the event. And while I never completely quit being a Hulkamaniac, it took a while to fully hop back on board. In fact, outside of his WCW debut against Flair (which was a glorified WWF vs. WCW match anyways), I didn’t really pull for Hogan again until he joined the nWo.

With Bret, however, there was never a time that I turned on him, and that had a lot to do with how consistent he kept things. He was there to wrestle opponents, win matches, and win championships. He was there to prove that he was the best. There was no need to preach a high moral code, only to immediately turn against your friends when things didn’t go your way like Hogan had demonstrated. At all times, Bret Hart was about overcoming the obstacles and persevering.

As an a pre-teen at the time Bret won his first WWF title, his message just resounded a lot better with me than Hogan’s, and it only improved as I entered into my teens. It was during this time that I started smartening up to the whole show, too. The way I picked my favorite wrestler would change, as I started finding myself appreciating the “smaller” guys, the ones capable of having fast pace, athletic contests over the bearhug battles with numerous tests of strength from the bigger muscle guys.

Again, Bret was the catalyst for all of this. I started noticing how all of his matches would have me not only watching intently, but actually emotionally invested. When I thought back, I realized he’d been doing that for a while- the Mr. Perfect title win, the Piper title win, Bulldog at SummerSlam, vs. 123 Kid on Raw, his fun match with Yokozuna at Mania 9- and it started to hit me that Bret was simply really, really good.

And whether that meant “really good” in a markish, kayfabe way or in a more smarkish, reality based outlook was, actually, irrelevant. Hart won more often than he lost, and he usually did so in the best matches on the card. Kids and adults could all see that he was great. As a fan, I loved watching him do what he said he was going to do – win.

It didn’t matter if he was the WWF Champion, or if he was in go-nowhere feuds with Hakushi, or Isaac Yankem, or Jean-Pierre Lafitte, because Bret still made sure that his matches stood out. When he was put back into feuds with higher up guys, of course it was like he never left at all, since he had proven just how far above the rest of the pack he truly was.

Hart was the perfect man at the perfect time for me as a fan. When Steve Austin started gaining cheers and I had friends telling me that Bret was garbage, it was nice to see Bret lash out at the same people that had cheered him for years. I felt he was completely right, and it was fun to engage the Austin fans in trash talk, and then to have them watch their guy learn, like everyone else before him, that he just wasn’t in the same league as Bret.

By the time Hart wound up in WCW thanks to the Screwjob, all mark-lenses had been removed from me as a fan. I hated how horribly WCW used him- constantly having him jump from heel to face, joining and leaving the nWo for no adequate reason, and all the usual gripes. However, Hart still managed to give me quite a few moments that I’ll remember forever, like the steel plate incident with Goldberg, getting a win over Goldberg in the WCW World Title tournament, winning the WCW World Title, and the feud with Sting, however misfired it may have been.

Plus, we got this:

So yeah, it wasn’t all bad in WCW for him. That said, I still watched him go out there and have fun matches with the entire roster, and it was clear that he was still the best. He just wasn’t going to be used as such all the time. And that was fine because he was Bret Hart, and no matter what the challenge, he was going to overcome.

And then Owen Hart died. And then Goldberg’s foot ended his career. And then he had his stroke. And I stupidly remained as dedicated a fan in 2003 as I was in 1993. Older, smarter, and not even able to enjoy any new stuff from my hero, but I always hoped he’d be okay. I think all of his fans did. We’d hear him painted as bitter and grumpy, and that he’d never be able to get over all of his anger towards those he felt had ruined his career.

In 2006, Bret Hart taught me yet another lesson in life, as he made up with WWE. The reasons weren’t all hugs and roses, though. Frankly, it appeared that WWE was going to make a DVD devoted to Bret that would not shine him in the best light. They had done this already to The Ultimate Warrior, and the rumors had Bret lined up to be next.

Instead, Hart swallowed some of his pride, but did so in order to keep everything else that remained. By making peace, he was able to work on the DVD collection, and a fitting 3-disc tribute was released. For us Hart fans that had sat in the cold for 6 years, it was a very warm welcome back.

In 2010, Hart showed he had one more trick left in him.

For a little over 12 years, the very real disdain Hart had for Shawn Michaels (among others) following Survivor Series 1997 was obvious. He didn’t have great things to say about Michaels in interviews, in his book, and even when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, I swear I remember hearing something about wanting to be assured he wouldn’t have to talk to Michaels. I could be making that all up, so take that with all sorts of grains of salt.

As a fan, I decided that I hated Shawn Michaels once Survivor Series 1997 was over. I never once believed that he didn’t know anything about what had happened, and I hated that he’d so freely lie to everyone. I hated that I’d have his lies repeated to me as proof that he didn’t. Really, I just hated that Hart was turfed from the WWF, but I put all the blame on Michaels.

For the rest of his career, I always rooted against him. I claimed “instant karma” when he injured his back and had to sit for four years, and I generally just trashed him, as a fan. I held onto that for way too long, but I did it as some sort of weird loyalty to Bret. As long as he was angry, I was going to be angry, too. Hey, rational thought isn’t always strong in a wrestling fan’s brain.

But when Bret returned in 2010 and had that brainbuster of a moment with Michaels, I realized just how stupid the whole thing was. I also took that as a learning moment, and went to go rebuild some bridges with people I had fallen out of favor in my own life. For the record, just so we’re all honest here, I was 28 years old in January of 2010, and I was still marking out and learning from Bret.

So, it’s no stretch when I say that Bret Hart is my hero. And that when I see Bret on TV nowadays, I don’t see anything different from the guy that was tearing down the house every time he wrestled in the 90’s.

That’s why I bristle at the idea of kayfabe being dead. Maybe, in nearly all usual applications, it’s definitely not what it used to be. But it’s still alive in us. I can’t possibly be the only one that can be wowed by a wrestler, and can, if even for a simple second, still fully believe that they are who they say they are.

Bret Hart’s fight against cancer is just his latest installment in amazing me with his bravery. No, he’s certainly not the only one to undertake this fight, but I’ve known many people who didn’t want to fight, for whatever reason. Cancer is horrible, and it takes indiscriminately. I don’t know what the final outcome will be, but the hope is that Bret caught it early enough that he’s going to be okay. I hope that he will be.

Thanks to him, I’ve kind of been conditioned to “know” that he’s going to win. It’s what he does.

This past November, I was lucky enough to actually meet my hero. It was a quick meet and greet, but I was able to tell him just how important he was to me not only as a fan, but as a man. The moment absolutely meant more to me than it did to him, but it was also something for which I had waited over 20 years.

As he had been all those years prior, he was the coolest guy in the room, personable, and had me geeking out to the absolute max. They say don’t ever meet your heroes. They also say kayfabe’s dead. Bret Hart will always be my counterpoint.