Bret Hart

Bret "Hitman" Hart is joining WWE's Wrestling hall of fame. This in and of itself is something we wrestling fans thought wouldnt happen.

Today there are two wrestling promotions with nationwide Television access, TNA and WWE (formerl the WWF). Once upon a time there were wrestling companies all over the place with local TV contracts and for some Network contracts. One of these was Calgary Wrestling owned and run by Stu Hart. Brets dad.

• The owner of the WWF Vincent McMahon(sp) found that buying other wrestling promotions was more cost effective then buying up talent and fighting for TV coverage. Eventually the WWE bought up pretty much everyone. Calgary was of key importants because of what Stu Hart has built, a stable of over the top technical wrestlers. To name a few:
• Ben Bassarab
  Abdullah the Butcher
  Chris Benoit
  Chris Jericho
  Larry Cameron
  Justin Credible
  The Junkyard Dog
  The Dynamite Kid
  Superstar Billy Graham
  Bret Hart
  Bruce Hart
  Keith Hart
  Owen Hart
  Ross Hart
  Smith Hart
  Billy Jack Haynes
  Jason Helton
  Mark Henry
  Jos Leduc
  Paul Leduc
  Jushin 'Thunder' Liger
  Jim Neidhart
  Brian Pillman
  Kensuke Sasaki
  Gama Singh
  Davey Boy Smith aka British Bulldog
  Lance Storm
  Greg Valentine
  Edge
  Rowdy Roddy Piper
  Bad News Brown
  Fritz Von Erich

Thats quite a legacy. At the height of its popularity there were the big two promotions with nationwide audiance, WCW backed by Ted Turner and the WWF. They had shows on the same night at the same time and it was great for the fans. Bret was the champ at WWF and was given an oppertunity at WCW for an ungodly sum of money. Bret, seriously did not know what to do, the owners of the WWF told him that they couldnt match that and he should take the money. So he did. This resulted in the 'screw job' which is still being talked about today. The DVD Wrestling with Shadows was being filmed at the time and they caught every nasty moment.

So Bret left WWF with less then a good taste in his mouth. WCW could never figure out a plan for him so he floundered around until a farily green wrestler gave him a career ending injury to the head.

Brets was one of 12 kids most of whom are in the wrestling business. After Bret and Stu, Owen Hart was arguably one of the most talanted of the brood. He was working for the WWF when an accident caused him to plunge from the rafters of an arena to his death. Bret held the McMahon's personally responsible.

The feud that followed was nasty and took place both in WWF WCW and in various newspapers that Bret's weekly column appeared. The WWF erased Brets existance, then bought WCW and thus owned the legal rights to everything Bret did.

Bret himself suffered a stroke before\during or after a bike accident and had to struggle back to being able to walk and talk again. Fast forward to last year. Bret was able to make a working relationship with the WWE and produce a box set of some of his best matches. Evidently this lead to his being nominated to the Wrestling hall of fame (owned by the McMahons).

Despite all that happened no one's life work should be erased out of a feud. So I'm happy that Bret is once again in the limelight.