Bret Hart Says Seeing Donald Trump in WWE Helped Inspire His Return

Bret Hart has revealed that an unexpected WrestleMania moment played a role in bringing him back toward WWE after years away from the spotlight. Speaking with Inside The Ropes, Hart explained that Donald Trump’s chaotic involvement at WrestleMania 23 sparked a shift in his thinking about returning to the ring.

Hart pointed to the infamous “Battle of the Billionaires” angle, where Donald Trump and Vince McMahon got physically involved at ringside. Watching that segment made him reconsider what was possible. Although ongoing concussion issues made a full-time comeback unrealistic, he felt there might still be a role for a meaningful storyline.

At the time, Hart was living comfortably in Hawaii. He said he was personally and financially content. Wrestling was not a necessity. Still, seeing Trump and McMahon brawl triggered a half-serious thought that he could manage something similar. That moment led him to make a call (via Inside The Ropes).

“I called Vince [McMahon]. I was living in Hawaii at the time and having a pretty good life down there and having a good life and happy and everything. I didn’t need wrestling or anything, but I called up WWF [WWE] and talked to some guy named Kevin Dunn was his name. He’s one of Vince’s right-hand guys. I said, ‘Yeah, I’d like to talk to Vince about maybe doing a storyline, an angle, and coming back. I just watched him wrestle Donald Trump yesterday. I could wrestle him.’ I can’t because of my concussion injury that I had at the time, which was very real.”

The discussions eventually led to Hart’s on-screen return years later, including Hall of Fame-related appearances and storyline segments. During that period, he also addressed unfinished business with Shawn Michaels. Their RAW segment allowed Hart to publicly move past the Montreal Screwjob.

“And so all of a sudden I was going down to RAW and–and I went out and did that whole thing with Shawn [Michaels], which I was kind of happy to do. I actually wanted to bury the hatchet with Shawn so that I would know that I would never have to kill him, actually, with my bare hand. I knew that it would be better for me to make peace with this whole thing. That’s my whole point, I guess, is that when you have something that weighs heavy on you a lot, I think it serves you well to find a way to make peace with it and move on because life is too short to carry around bad will and bad feelings.”

Hart described reconciliation as a conscious decision. While Hart did compete in a few carefully structured matches after his 2010 return, his final official bout came in 2011.