Bret Hart Says Jim Neidhart Was Underrated as a Wrestler, Says They Never Got in Arguments

Bret Hart discussed his relationship with his longtime tag team partner Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart on a recent episode of his Confessions Of The Hitman series. Hart and Neidhart of course made up the Hart Foundation, and the Hitman recalled going out on the town with Neidhart and more on the episode. You can check out some highlights below (h/t to Wrestling Inc):

On going out on the town with Neidhart: “I can say I know with absolute certainty that there were no [pro] wrestlers that had as much fun as Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart and I did. We had so much fun. And we could have gone to jail many times, and we probably should’ve. And really, the saving grace of that whole thing was that they didn’t have cameras and film like they do today, because we would’ve been in a lot of trouble. But it was so much fun; it was so much fun every night. And Jim was one of those guys that I would say was scared of the dark. Like, he wasn’t going to go to bed until the sun came up, and he was kind of like that.”

On his relationship with Neidhart: “Tag team partners all end up hating each other. They all hate each other, even brothers, real brothers hate each other a lot of the time. The Rougeau Bros. don’t talk to each other even today. There’s a lot of that because you’re chained together at the ankle. A lot of the times one brother or one partner feels like the other partner isn’t carrying their end of the load; that kind of stuff. There gets to be jealousies and things like that, but for me and Jim ‘The Anvil’, not only did we never have an argument, we never had any coarse words with each other, or a disagreement about anything wrestling related. He was always of the understanding that I knew what I was doing, that he would never argue with me about anything. I would say to him, ‘this is what we’re doing,’ and it was never a question. He always had my back, he was always on-side with me with everything I was doing.”

On Neidhart being a party animal: “[Neidhart] was so much fun every night and every day. If you looked up ‘party animal’ in the dictionary, there would be a picture of Jim Neidhart’s face. He is the original party animal. I think John Belushi would have tapped out, and waved the white flag, and put ‘surrender’ up on his door.”

On Neidhart being underrated as a wrestler: “[Neidhart] was a very legitimate, world class athlete. You look at Jim Neidhart with that big belly on him, but he was one of the fastest sprinters. He was a really fast runner for his size. He could move. When he was wrestling guys like Dynamite Kid, and me, Davey ‘Boy’ [Smith], and The Rockers, if you watch those matches, Jim was upwards of 300 lbs. and he’s wrestling with guys who are 210 and 215 [lbs.] and he’s keeping up with them all the way through the matches. A lot of people don’t give Jim the credit he deserves, being the partner for me that he was. I have always said, with Jim, we were a 50/50 team. It was not just about Bret Hart. Jim did all the strongman stuff… Some of the moves that I did, like the finishing move where I clothesline the guy, Jim was actually the guy who had to pick up some of these 300-lbs. guys and lug them, and hold them up in the air, and hold them there. And Jim was third in the world as a shot-putter when he was 16 years old. He went over to Russia and competed against Russians. He had been all over the world. [Neidhart] was a world class athlete, but he was a party animal.”