Arda Ocal once again sat down with WWE Hall of Famer Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Here are some highlights.
On Wrestlemania 8 with Roddy Piper and his chance with the Intercontinental Title: “When I realized I was going to wrestle Roddy Piper, my gut instinct told me that Piper was going to keep the title for a while, and I would sort of be back up to him. It didn’t work out like that, and I’m glad it didn’t because I kind of had my heart set on a good healthy long run as the Intercontinental champion. I thought at the time I got the title that I earned it and I wanted to have my chance. When I lost it to The Mountie, I thought ‘They never gave me my chance.'”
On Piper ‘passing the torch’ to him and other wrestlers not doing the same: “For him to pass the torch down to me, kind of thing, was a pretty big step for me. At that time a lot of wrestlers didn’t want to make that kind of effort for me, and I’m not sure why or what their arguments might have been. So many guys when I look back on my career, like even when I won the World Title I was supposed to go over on Warrior, I would have gone over on Warrior at the Rumble… never happened. I was supposed to wrestle Jake Roberts first at Survivor Series… never happened. It’s too bad in the case of Jake Roberts, he’s a guy that, I had this great career and never wrestled Jake Roberts one time.”
On creating the ladder match and Shawn Michaels stealing the idea: “[Vince] told me to pick anybody I wanted, I said ‘I’ll pick Shawn’ because I was good friends with Shawn back then. I went to Shawn and said ‘We’re going to do a ladder match’ and he didn’t know what it was either. I tried to explain it to him. I knew it was a million dollar idea. Once I showed him how to do it I knew it would be a great idea… and then Shawn stole then idea from me. It was the idea that was the the million dollar idea. A lot of guys could have had a great ladder match, a lot of guys have. But it was the idea that I brought forth that they stole from me.”
