Will Sasso Discusses Working With Bret Hart for WCW Storyline

– During a recent interview with Casual Conversations, actor and comedian Will Sasso discussed his onscreen feud and storyline with WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart that took place in WCW in early 1999. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Will Sasso on the first time he worked with Bret Hart on MADtv: “It started in our bit. There’s this writer/producer, Canadian, from Winnipeg, wrote on Kids in the Hall, Brian Hartt, he was co-executive producer on MADtv and the first head writer. He was a big wrestling fan. We had Bret Hart come in in 97, right before the screwjob, and we did a sketch. At the end of the second take, Brian goes, ‘Go back in,’ it was all about this family bullying the son and now I’m friends with Bret Hart, so they can’t bully him anymore. At the end of the bit, Bret leaves and we go back to razzing the son, and Bret comes back through the door. This is the take they use. He comes in, starts messing around with me. Like a dumbshit, I’m like a 400 pound 20-something, I pick him up on my shoulder and spin him around a bit, which Bret didn’t have a problem with because I’m a big looking guy and he’s a nice guy. We’re not in his world at this point, maybe it pissed him off, I don’t know. We come up with this idea to have him come back the next year and be pissed at me.”

On the 1999 sketch where Will Sasso portrayed Jesse Ventura and hired Bret Hart as his bodyguard: “Here’s the thing, only a handful of people knew that was going to happen, when he attacked me. It was mostly the actors in the sketch and a couple of stunt performers who were dressed as set PAs with headsets. It was not a good idea in some ways because people were like, ‘What the f***.’ We had like a stunt pad on my knee, so he could wail off on my knee and put me in the sharpshooter. The first thing he was going to do was hit me in the back. In the sketch, I’m playing the Governor Jesse Venture and it’s, ‘Here’s my new Minister of Defense, Bret Hart.’ Bret comes out, he’s cutting a promo on the press, he gets a little rowdy with some of the cast, and he hits me in the back with a chair, in the sketch. Before we go out there he goes, ‘You want me to pull back on the chair shot?’ I’m delighted to say that Bret Hart and I are pals at this point. I go, ‘Nah, go for it. It’s just a chair, you can’t hurt me.’ You want it to look good. I’m telling you, there were raised welts on my back for like a week. He hit me so f***ing hard. It wasn’t even a metal chair, it was a metal-framed plastic chair. He hit me so f***ing hard, but right in the meaty area, Bret has never hurt anybody. I did ask for it. Then we went on with the storyline.”

On their WCW Nitro match in February 1999: “We did it in Tampa, it was a Nitro, and he goes, ‘Let’s go to the ring and feel it out.’ The first thing he does is a Russian leg sweep. ‘Oh, that’s fucking fun, cool.’ The ring has a little bit of give. He goes, ‘You horse around, do physical comedy, and played football. You get it. You watch this.’ ‘No, I don’t, Bret. I don’t get it.’ The reason he’s saying that is he’s the Excellence of Execution, he can have a match with a sack of potatoes. That’s what he did that night. For me, it was no offense. The whole point was Bret Hart is looking at this like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ Brian Hartt and I, we hate it when you see Jay Leno put Hulk Hogan in a headlock. Fuck that. if you respect this art form, this should be a joke. Bret was happy to hear that. He gets in there, looking at the crowd, looking at the ref. ‘What am I supposed to do with this? What the fuck?’ He slaps me around, beats the shit out of me, and goes off. We go for a test of strength, he kicks me in the nuts, does a clothesline, and that should be it. He goes, ‘Don’t move, I will move you whenever I want to do something.’ I can’t wait to sell the shit out of it because I love physical comedy. ‘Please throw me around.’ At the end of it, just throws me in the sharpshooter. At the end of it, I’m fine. He’s stomping me in the corner and his boot is moving so fast, then it just stops. It was like being in a dream and I got to experience just what makes him, in my opinion, the best.”