Straight from the Hart (33 page)

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♥
BRUCE HART
♥

I was perplexed, because Bret had never trained anyone in his life, but even if he had been the world’s greatest trainer, he was still wrestling full-time in the WWF, so he wouldn’t be able to devote any time to it anyway. Owen said he totally agreed, but that for some reason Shane and Vince had changed their minds and decided to go that direction and that was that.

As things turned out, the only two wrestlers of any note who did eventually come out of Bret’s so-called training camp were Mark Henry and this big bodybuilder named Brakkus (Achim Albrecht), which pales in comparison to the number of world-class performers who had come out of the Dungeon. As far as I’m concerned, that was a huge blown opportunity for the WWF. I don’t think that too many people in the know will argue that the lack of a viable means of supplying talent not only continues to be a major cause for concern in the wrestling business today, but is the main reason why the WWE has had to continue to resort to sex, violence, second-rate comedy and other bullshit as a means of compensating for the dearth of decent talent.

Since Bret’s tantrum at my dad’s eightieth birthday show and his subsequent swerve with Shane, I didn’t have much to do with him, but in July 1996, our family was beset with a life-and-death situation: my thirteen-year-old nephew, Matt (the son of my sister Georgia), was suddenly stricken with the deadly flesh eating bacteria. We were all summoned to the hospital where he was fighting for his life.

When I arrived at the hospital, various members of our family were gathered there for the grim vigil and I ran into Bret. There was an uneasy pause on both of our parts, but I decided it would only add to an already stressful situation by continuing to grind my ax with him, so I extended my hand and we embraced, putting aside our differences out of respect for the situation. Sadly, Matt would pass away a couple of days later — the first in what would become a rash of tragedies and misfortune for our family over the next few years.

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For most of 1996, I was pretty much out of the wrestling business and can’t say I was really having any withdrawal symptoms. Just before Christmas that year, my brother-in-law Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart called me and told me he was now working for a new promotion called UCW (Ultimate Championship Wrestling) that was running shows in and around New York. They were looking for a booker and he’d recommended me for the job. Since I was still working for the Calgary Board of Education and had justifiable misgivings about the stability of any wrestling endeavor — the old bird in the hand being worth two or three in the bush adage — I wisely declined the offer. Jim persisted though and said that since the UCW was only running every second weekend, the promoter would be willing to fly me down for those shows and I could still keep my day job, so to speak. Since I was barely making enough to get by on teaching, I was happy to have the extra income and decided to take them up on the offer.

The UCW gig was interesting, to say the least. The shows were along the lines of what was shown in
The Wrestler
with a few out of work, ex-WWF stars, like Jim Neidhart, Marty Jannetty, King Kong Bundy, Tony Atlas and Tatanka, headlining the cards. The rest of the roster consisted of self-trained local guys,
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BRUCE HART
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who wore homemade outfits and had to set up the rings, take down the chairs, do all the grunt labor chores and got paid next to nothing for working, but were happy just to be able to have a chance to work — something I could relate to, having come from Stampede, where we often ran on a shoestring budget ourselves.

When I first arrived down there, the shows were pretty pathetic, with most of the WWF guys just going through the motions and collecting their salaries, while the UCW guys worked strictly in the opening matches and had no clue as to what they were doing and weren’t given any guidance. The crowds were small and most fans had come out to see the so-called names from the WWF, but after seeing the lackluster performance, they usually didn’t come back. Even so, I sensed that if we gave the fans decent shows — along the lines of what Stampede used to have — the fans were ready to come onboard. I therefore endeavored to light a fire under the local guys and also told the WWF guys that it would be in their best interests if the promotion got off the ground, because it would provide them a long-term employment option if other things didn’t materialize.

I came up with this concept of casting the ex-WWF guys as arrogant, fat-cat heels, looking down their noses at the inferior local guys and built up this feud between the two. The fans seemed to get into it and would be chanting “U–C–

Dub” loudly, and booing the ex-WWFers. In time, the story line began to take hold and our gates began to improve each time out. By springtime, things had improved to the point where the gates were pretty good and the promoter was close to getting a television show and looking to expand — which was encouraging.

Around about that time though, my brother Bret — who was still the WWF

champion and was in the midst of launching the revival of the Hart Foundation to stoke his feud with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin — called Neidhart and invited him to return to the WWF. Even though Neidhart had recently signed a two-year contract with the UCW, he headed back to the WWF. I couldn’t really blame Jim for jumping, but the way he handled it wasn’t very good. He didn’t explain his situation to the UCW promoters, who’d invested a lot of time and money into him, only to see him suddenly walk. Since I was Jim’s brother-in-206

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♥
STRAIGHT FROM THE HART
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law (and Bret’s brother), it was assumed that I’d been behind Jim’s defection, so I was let go as well. I couldn’t blame the promoters, but it was too damn bad, as the promotion was just starting to finally get off the ground.

That seemed to mark the end of the UCW; it would shut down a month or so later. I felt bad because it was just starting to get off the ground. It could have become a good place for guys to learn how to work and been a viable feeder territory for the WWF.

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A month or so after the demise of the UCW, my old buddy Brian Pillman called me up. Since I’d last seen him, he’d jumped from the WCW to the WWF

and had joined the reformed Hart Foundation — which consisted now of Bret, Owen, Jim Neidhart and Davey Boy — all of whom were now cast as anti-American heels. Although they were all great workers, none of them had been that strong on the mike, but with Pillman (one of the best mike men in the business) onboard, they were now the hottest heel aggregation in the industry.

Their feud with the All-American redneck “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and fellow American iconoclasts like the Legion of Doom (Hawk and Animal) was now the big ticket in the WWF. It was selling out all over North America.

In any case, Pillman told me the reason he was calling was that he’d been pitching Vince McMahon to bring me down to the WWF to join the Hart Foundation and that, as part of that, we could perhaps reprise our highly successful Bad Kompany tag team. He told me that Vince and Pat Patterson had been receptive and that they were coming to Calgary in a couple of months for a big pay-per-view called the Canadian Stampede and wanted to introduce me on that card.

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♥
STRAIGHT FROM THE HART
♥

I was pumped at the prospects of reuniting with Pillman. He and I had not only enjoyed great synergy in the ring, but he’d always been a great friend. At the same time though, since we’re talking about the WWF here, where talk is exceedingly cheap, I wasn’t about to count any of my chicks (or should I say, checks) until they hatched.

A couple of weeks later, my brother Bret — whom I was still on pretty good terms with — called me up. Unaware that Pillman had called me, he made out as if he’d been the one who’d gone to bat for me with Vince, but, in any case, divulged that they wanted me to come down for the big pay-per-view and were going to shoot some kind of angle on that card that would bring me into the Hart Foundation — and things would unfold from there. Bret said they were either looking to have me go after the cruiserweight belt, which would give the Hart Foundation all the title belts in the WWF, or, more likely, wanted me to tag up with Pillman. In any case, he said that they were quite keen on having me on the team and to prepare to raise a little hell with him and the boys.

When the WWF hit town that July for their first pay-per-view ever in Calgary, there was a huge buzz. On the finish of the match, which was a ten man tag pitting the Hart Foundation (Bret, Jim, Owen, Davey and Brian Pillman) against Austin’s redneck army (Steve Austin, Hawk, Animal, UFC

star Ken Shamrock and Golddust), they had me interfere with Austin, thereby costing him the match — and setting the stage, or so I thought, for some hot angle with Steve and company.

When the Harts went over on the finish, there was a huge pop among the 20,000-plus rabid fans in the Saddledome. Cheering went on and on, afterwards.

As the crowd continued to cheer, my brother Owen and Pillman invited my dad and me into the ring to join in the post match celebration. As we were getting in the ring, some of the third generation Harts, including Owen’s son, Davey Boy’s kids, my kids, Bret’s and others started climbing in the ring and soon there must have been about forty family members and friends in the ring, while the crowd continued cheering. I thought that was pretty cool — the Stampede Wrestling fans showing their love for the Harts, especially my dad — and never had any idea that it would be any kind of problem or issue.

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