Hitman Nl Subs Nl Team
Chris Troupe
Bret Sergeant Hart (born July 2, 1957) is a Canadian-American retired professional wrestler. A member of the Hart wrestling family and a second-generation wrestler, he has an amateur wrestling background, wrestling at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal College. A major international draw within professional wrestling, he has been credited with changing the perception of mainstream North-American professional wrestling in the early 1990s by bringing technical in-ring performance to the fore. Hart is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time; Sky Sports noted that his legacy is that of "one of, if not the greatest, to have ever graced the squared circle". For the majority of his career, Hart used the epithet "the Hitman".
Hart has held championships in five decades from the 1970s to the 2010s, with a total of 32 held throughout his career, and 17 held between the WWF/WWE and WCW. Among other accolades, he is a five-time WWF Champion and a two-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Hart has most combined days as WWF Champion during the 1990s (654) and was the first WCW World Heavyweight Champion born outside the United States. He is the second WWF Triple Crown Champion and fifth (with Goldberg) WCW Triple Crown Champion, and the first man to win both the WWF and WCW Triple Crown Championships. Hart is also the 1994 Royal Rumble match winner (with Lex Luger), and the only two-time King of the Ring, winning the 1991 tournament and the first King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1993. Stone Cold Steve Austin, with whom Hart headlined multiple pay-per-view events as part of an acclaimed rivalry from 1996 to 1997, inducted him into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2006. In 2019, Hart became one of seven people to enter the WWE Hall of Fame twice, when he was inducted again as a member of The Hart Foundation, with brother-in-law Jim Neidhart.
Outside of wrestling, Hart has appeared in numerous films and television shows such as The Simpsons as well as featuring in several documentaries, both about himself specifically and others about his family or the wrestling industry in general. Hart also helped found and lent his name to the major junior ice hockey team the Calgary Hitmen and has written two biographies along with a weekly column for the Calgary Sun for over a decade. After his retirement, Hart has spent much of his time on charitable efforts concerning stroke recovery and cancer awareness, due to his personal experiences with the two.
The eighth child of wrestling patriarch Stu Hart and his wife Helen, Bret Hart was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada into the Hart wrestling family. He is of Greek descent through his maternal grandmother and of Irish descent through his maternal grandfather.[13][14][15] His father was of Scottish, Irish and English ancestry.[16][17] Hart is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States since his mother Helen was born in New York.[18][19] Hart has stated that he considers himself to be North American and that he is equally proud of his U.S. and Canadian nationality.[20] His maternal grandfather was long-distance runner Harry Smith.
Hart grew up in a household with eleven siblings, seven brothers Smith, Bruce, Keith, Wayne, Dean, Ross and Owen, as well as four sisters, Ellie, Georgia, Alison and Diana. As a child he was the closest with his older brother Dean who was the nearest to him in age of all his older brothers, being three years his senior. Together they would often fight with Bret's two older sisters, Ellie, who was two years older, and Georgia, who was one year older.[21] Hart's family were non-denominational Christians, but he and all of his siblings were baptized by a local Catholic priest.[21]
Hart spent the vast majority of his childhood in the Hart family mansion which was owned by his father. During one period his father was housing a bear known as Terrible Ted chained under the building, the bear had had all of its teeth removed and Hart would sometimes as a very young child let the bear lick ice cream off his toes since he thought it was a good way to keep them clean.[22]
His introduction to professional wrestling came at an early age. As a child, he witnessed his father training future wrestlers like Superstar Billy Graham in the Dungeon, his household basement which served as a training room. Before school, Hart's father, also a wrestling promoter, had him hand out fliers to local wrestling shows. In the 1998 documentary Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows, Hart reflected on his father's discipline, describing how Stu uttered morbid words while inflicting excruciating submission holds that left broken blood vessels in Bret's eyes. Hart claimed his father had an otherwise pleasant demeanour.[23]
Hart's first work in wrestling involved pulling out lucky numbers out of a metal box during intermission at the Stampede Wrestling shows when he was four years old. When he got slightly older, he would sell programs to the shows, something all Hart's seven brothers would do. He would often compete for customers with his little brother Ross since the fans would often want to buy from the youngest Hart child.[24]
By 1977, Hart was collegiate champion at Mount Royal College, where he was studying filmmaking;[26][29] his coaches and other people around him felt that he had shown sufficient promise to compete at the following year's Commonwealth Games and encouraged him to begin training for the event. Hart, however, was beginning to find amateur wrestling unrewarding amid injuries and fluctuating weight.[26][30] Stu still believed his son capable of making it to the Olympic or Commonwealth Games if he put forth the effort.[31] Hart has expressed that he believed that even if he became an exceptionally successful sports wrestler it would not have led to a career afterwards which he was interested in, stating that he thought that he would end up as a wrestling coach or phys-ed teacher at a high-school if he pursued the Olympic route.[32] Hart felt that the only way to give up amateur wrestling without disappointing his father was to become a professional wrestler. His college grades became poorer as his interest in filmmaking waned; he dedicated himself to professional wrestling and began training with his father's Stampede Wrestling promotion.[26] Hart has spoken of how helpful his amateur background was in his professional wrestling career, and also of what a positive effect amateur wrestling has on junior high school and high school-aged boys in terms of building self-confidence.[33]
In 1976, Hart began working for his father's Stampede Wrestling promotion in Calgary. Hart first began helping the promotion by refereeing matches.[10] At a 1978 event in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a wrestler was unable to perform his match, forcing Stu to ask his son to stand in as a replacement. Before long, he became a regular contender, eventually partnering with brother Keith to win the Stampede International Tag Team Championship four times.
Hart gained some of his most prominent experience with Japanese combatants and real-life trainers Mr. Hito and Mr. Sakurada. Hart also had high-impact matches against Tom Billington, who was better known by his in-ring name as the Dynamite Kid. In the midst of wrestling alongside his family, Hart made a point not to ride on the shoulders of his elders. Hart faithfully jobbed as requested of him, taking pride in the believability of his performances. As he said himself, "No one could take a shit-kicking like Bret Hart".[26] Although he dreaded partaking in interviews and speaking in front of a crowd, Hart went on to win the promotion's top titles, including two British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championships, five International Tag Team Championships, and six North American Heavyweight Championships. Hart also wrestled Tiger Mask in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), a promotion for whom he often wrestled during the early to mid-1980s. He remained one of Stampede's most successful performers until the promotion, along with several wrestlers, was acquired by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in August 1984.
In 1986, Hart began his first singles program with Ricky Steamboat, and in a singles match originally planned for WrestleMania 2,[40] he lost to Steamboat at the Boston Garden on March 8, 1986, which would be included on Hart's 2005 DVD as one of his all-time favourite matches.[26] At WrestleMania 2, Hart instead participated in a 20-man battle royal which was eventually won by Andr the Giant.[41] He lost to Steamboat again on the July 28, 1986, episode of Prime Time Wrestling.[42] Hart headlined his first televised WWF card when he beat Ray Rougeau, of The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, in the main event of the November 3, 1986, episode of Prime Time Wrestling.[42]
The Hart Foundation won their first of two WWF Tag Team Championship on the February 7, 1987, episode of Superstars of Wrestling when they defeated The British Bulldogs. They then teamed with Danny Davis to face The British Bulldogs and Tito Santana at WrestleMania III. They won the match when Davis pinned Davey Boy Smith after hitting him with Jimmy Hart's megaphone.[43]
The Hart Foundation lost the WWF Tag Team Championship titles to Strike Force on the October 27 episode of Superstars of Wrestling. Hart subsequently competed in his most high-profile singles contest to date on the November 28, 1987, episode of Saturday Night's Main Event XIII, when he faced "Macho Man" Randy Savage in a losing effort.[47] He began 1988 with a decisive victory over Paul Roma of The Young Stallions (who had scored an upset victory over The Hart Foundation the previous year)[48] on the January 11 episode of Prime Time Wrestling,[42] and, at the Royal Rumble in January 1988, was the first entrant in the inaugural Royal Rumble match. He lasted 25 minutes and 42 seconds before being eliminated by Don Muraco.
Entered into another battle royal at WrestleMania IV, Hart was again one of the final two combatants as he was enlisted by former frequent Stampede opponent Bad News Brown to eliminate Junkyard Dog before Brown turned on Hart, eliminating him to win the event. This turned Hart back into a fan favourite and triggered a feud between the two. Neidhart soon came to Hart's side in the feud, but manager Jimmy Hart discouraged the feud, leading to a fallout between the team and manager. This led to matches pitting Hart against Davis and also his first singles championship opportunity, in which he challenged The Honky Tonk Man for the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship in the main event of the July 18 episode of Prime Time Wrestling, with the match ending in a double countout.[42] As relations between the Harts and their former mentor further deteriorated, Jimmy Hart assisted tag team champions Demolition in a successful defence of their belts against the Harts at SummerSlam in August 1988, before enlisting old enemies The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers, who had recently turned heel, to resume their feud with the Harts.
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