Jerry Lawler Recalls His Feud With Bret Hart, Bret Not Liking the Feud and Taking Lawler’s Insults to His Family Personally

On the latest Steve Austin Show, Jerry Lawler looked back on his feud with Bret Hart and said that he felt Hart didn’t enjoy working with him because of some of the insults levied at his parents. Lawler and Hart very memorably feuded in WWE from 1993 to 1995. Lawler recalled how he heard Hart didn’t like working with him and recalled how Hart thought at the time that some of the insults Lawler levied toward his parents hurt their feelings, though he later realized they enjoyed it and made up with Lawler. Highlights are below:

On if he enjoyed working with Hart: “Yeah, I absolutely did. And I always had the feeling that he did not feel the same way … I felt like he didn’t like working with me. And I felt that way, I guess, because I sort of heard it through the grapevine that — and I think I’ve said this before. I think some of the stuff that I said about his parents that, at the time it was so sensitive. And I believe that Bret thought that it was really hurting his parents feelings. And it wasn’t until years later, we were in Canada one night and they had brought Bret out. And he told me that night, he said, ‘You know what?’ He said, ‘I was always a little pissed off about the stuff you’d say about my parents, because I thought it hurt their feelings.’ And he said, ‘But I swear to you, my mom came to me one time and said, ‘I really miss Jerry Lawler being on there because I loved when he would talk about us.” And he said, ‘What do you mean, you loved it?’ She said, ‘Oh, yeah! We loved it, me and your dad. Because it made us feel like we were part of the show.’ And so he said, ‘I had a whole different outlook after my mom told me that they enjoyed that stuff.'”

On the shots he took at the Harts: “But you know, the thing when I look back on that, though. The stuff I said about his parents was so personal. And you know, Steve, that’s what we always look for. A personal issue. When you can get — because the fans can recognize a personal issue. And when I’m going out there and Bret had this whole big family, all his brothers and sisters. And when I go out there and say, ‘Stu and Helen Hart produced more tragedies than Shakespeare.’ That’s the kind of stuff. And I said, ‘You know, Stu really embarrassed everybody by asking for seconds at the Last Supper’ [laughs] and stuff like that. And that, the people could see where that would piss Bret off, you know?”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Steve Austin Show with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.