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Post by Amazing Kitsune on Nov 24, 2013 17:44:27 GMT -5
So, some of you have probably noticed from my posts that I've been reading Bret Hart's autobiography as of late. I finished it last night and here are my thoughts on it.
It's one of the best wrestling autobiographies ever written. It's more detailed than Mick Foley's or Chris Jericho's comparable works. Bret gives a very detailed account of his life and his years in the business from the very beginning until the very end. I'd recommend it to any wrestling fan because he gives an illuminating glimpse into the world of wrestling and into the minds of people from Vince McMahon to Jake "The Snake" Roberts.
Some major things I noticed that stuck out me:
Bret Hart tells some great road stories of the WWF's golden age, especially the story that's kind of famous already of Vince partying with the boys one last time before. His stories are probably the best parts of the book.
Unfortunately, the Hart Family is messed up and don't get along well, at all. This was true before Owen's death and it was made even worse afterwards.
Despite occasionally being critical of him, Hart has nothing but kind words for Hulk Hogan.
You get a really good idea of how Vince does business from Hart's account in the sense that he really doesn't want one person to feel like they're truly on top. He seems to enjoy keeping the locker room divided against one another, to a degree.
Bret Hart has sex. He has a lot of sex. Sometimes with multiple partners. He will tell you about it and, while he will acknowledge it as a bad thing for a married man to do, he will also kind of defend it. It was just kind of an awkward thing to include in the book in some respects, but it also made it seem like a more legitimate autobiography, because he doesn't just white wash what he did.
So what did everybody else think?
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Post by kidtamagotchi on Nov 24, 2013 17:53:31 GMT -5
I loved it, though a lot of it gets hard to get through starting with the Screw job. So sad what happened to his family. The story of how he carried Davey Boy Smith in their Summer Slam match was amazing to me. Shows what a tough business being a wrestler is.
One of the criticisms of his book is how Bret Hart thinks his matches are so great. Well, he is writing about his personal favorite matches and the important matches of his career in this book. Of course he thinks highly of those matches.
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Post by jason1980s on Nov 24, 2013 18:04:12 GMT -5
The best thing about it is it's length. For a $20-30 price tag normally for books one should get their money's worth and with a 500+ page book they get it. The book flows from birth to the ending and it's hard not to want to read it as quick as possible because it is a good read and successfully flows from one time period to the next chapter of a time period. There are sad stories and the ending to me if kind of an acceptance. Nothing can probably be worse than Owen's death but there are some other bad things for the family like Davey's death, Stu and Helen's death, family breakup and conflict. As a wrestling fan and reading it from a person writing it who loves wrestling, what sticks out most is that he felt Michaels and Triple H destroyed wrestling as he knew it. I wouldn't doubt him. We all make mistakes and do silly things when we are younger but I'd love for WWE stock holders and potential business partners to see the "s*ck the cook" skit or the Katie Vick skit starring the next generation.
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Boo!
Dennis Stamp
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Post by Boo! on Nov 24, 2013 18:33:48 GMT -5
I didn't really like it. It reads like someone who feels they have a legacy deficit to make up for. As if what happened to him in 1997 needed somehow over-compensating for so the book is full of people walking up to him holding back the tears to tell him how great he was.
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Post by Amazing Kitsune on Nov 25, 2013 14:11:09 GMT -5
Another person he had heat with that surprised me was Dean Malenko.
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dav
Hank Scorpio
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Post by dav on Nov 25, 2013 14:19:05 GMT -5
I admit to almost bursting out laughing when he said he felt he let Canada down over the Montreal Screwjob. I was really annoyed with how much he lied and crapped over Davey Boy for SummerSlam '92. I got the impression he really just wanted to take credit for the match. His really petty snipes at Kevin Nash hurt him in my estimation.
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Post by kingoftheindies on Nov 25, 2013 14:24:23 GMT -5
I really enjoyed the book. The thing I always tell a lot of people before reading it is to remember that Bret literally has never known anything outside of wrestling. He was brought up being taught how to protect it so some of the more egocentric things he says makes a bit more sense when you realize that.
Still, as much as I like the guy, he makes some statements that even as a supporter I don't really believe.
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mizerable
Fry's dog Seymour
You're the lowest on the totem pole here, Alva. The lowest.
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Post by mizerable on Nov 25, 2013 14:27:01 GMT -5
It was a great book, up until the last couple paragraphs.
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Boo!
Dennis Stamp
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Post by Boo! on Nov 25, 2013 14:50:18 GMT -5
I really enjoyed the book. The thing I always tell a lot of people before reading it is to remember that Bret literally has never known anything outside of wrestling. He was brought up being taught how to protect it so some of the more egocentric things he says makes a bit more sense when you realize that. Still, as much as I like the guy, he makes some statements that even as a supporter I don't really believe. That's why I found his reaction to being 'screwed' so bizarre. Like he thought he'd be allowed to go out on Raw, relinquish the belt and wave goodbye. Even if you know little about the industry you'd be a bit dim for thinking that was likely.
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Post by RowdyRobbyPiper on Nov 25, 2013 14:53:33 GMT -5
Having read my share of rock bios, I am used to have very, very flawed human beings as my heroes. While, I was initially shocked at how much like rock stars these guys' behavior was like, I kind of accepted it as part and parcel of the life of a celebrity.I get the impression that getting all of this down on paper might well have been like therapy to Bret. Growing up in that family could not have been easy and the fact that he came out of it relatively sane (or as sane as you could get - He really isn't "right" by average standards) is quite remarkable. If nothing else, it is an eyewitness account of the history of wrestling as it transitions from the territory days to the heady McMahon/Hogan era and the effects both positive and negative on the people who ran and worked in those territories. As much as he boasts of his matches with the Bulldogs, Owen, Hennig, the almost romantic way he recounts the Stampede days gives you the impression that he thinks that wrestling had changed too much and not for the better during the 80's boom.
I enjoyed it a lot because of his elegant candor. And yes, I agree that the current WWE shareholders should be shown some of the raunchy Attitude era DX skits that featured HHH.
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Post by RowdyRobbyPiper on Nov 25, 2013 14:54:53 GMT -5
I really enjoyed the book. The thing I always tell a lot of people before reading it is to remember that Bret literally has never known anything outside of wrestling. He was brought up being taught how to protect it so some of the more egocentric things he says makes a bit more sense when you realize that. Still, as much as I like the guy, he makes some statements that even as a supporter I don't really believe. That's why I found his reaction to being 'screwed' so bizarre. Like he thought he'd be allowed to go out on Raw, relinquish the belt and wave goodbye. Even if you know little about the industry you'd be a bit dim for thinking that was likely. But Shawn was allowed to forfeit belts on more than one occasion.
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Boo!
Dennis Stamp
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Post by Boo! on Nov 25, 2013 14:56:35 GMT -5
That's why I found his reaction to being 'screwed' so bizarre. Like he thought he'd be allowed to go out on Raw, relinquish the belt and wave goodbye. Even if you know little about the industry you'd be a bit dim for thinking that was likely. But Shawn was allowed to forfeit belts on more than one occasion. Irrelevant
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2013 15:03:52 GMT -5
I've heard that it's a good book, but I don't have any real desire to read about how awesome Bret thinks that he is or how many chicks he's banged to get to the parts of the book where he actually has something worthwhile to say. I've always thought the dude to be a fair bit overrated as is.
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Post by RowdyRobbyPiper on Nov 25, 2013 15:04:23 GMT -5
But Shawn was allowed to forfeit belts on more than one occasion. Irrelevant Why? Why let Shawn forfeit but not Bret?
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Boo!
Dennis Stamp
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Post by Boo! on Nov 25, 2013 15:07:40 GMT -5
Why? Why let Shawn forfeit but not Bret? Because Shawn hadn't signed contract with WCW. It's quite obvious. It's quite a big difference. They were in the middle of the war. Vince was NEVER going to let his champion ride into the sunset to competition. For someone in the industry to think he'd be allowed to is just odd.
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Post by Todd Pettengill on Nov 25, 2013 15:19:40 GMT -5
I admit to almost bursting out laughing when he said he felt he let Canada down over the Montreal Screwjob. The Canadian pride thing has always puzzled me, a little. Like, I totally understand that he's proud to be a Canadian, and that he wanted to project himself as a Canadian hero. That's fine w/ me. I can understand not wanting to lose in your hometown. Maybe even your own Province... But, Bret is from Alberta. Not Quebec. Quebec (especially in the late 90s) is the "weird Province that sometimes doesn't even want to be a part of Canada," and they speak "french" not "english." It's like another country within the borders of Canada.
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Post by kingoftheindies on Nov 25, 2013 15:51:24 GMT -5
I've heard that it's a good book, but I don't have any real desire to read about how awesome Bret thinks that he is or how many chicks he's banged to get to the parts of the book where he actually has something worthwhile to say. I've always thought the dude to be a fair bit overrated as is. Actually Bret really doesn't talk that much about all the grils he banged. There are a couple instances he tells the story, but they only last a few paragraphs. But the book as a whole from when he first started up to when he's about to leave WWF is REALLY good. The WCW part kind of sucks (really not much interesting to say), and the stuff dealing with Owen is heartbreaking (not just cause of the death, but seeing how it tore apart the family even more) but interesting. Bret's stuff on his stroke is also a good read. Really only boring parts to me are his childhood (boring isn't the right word, it's just kind of there) and as I said WCW.
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Post by kamero00 on Nov 25, 2013 16:33:32 GMT -5
I admit to almost bursting out laughing when he said he felt he let Canada down over the Montreal Screwjob. The Canadian pride thing has always puzzled me, a little. Like, I totally understand that he's proud to be a Canadian, and that he wanted to project himself as a Canadian hero. That's fine w/ me. I can understand not wanting to lose in your hometown. Maybe even your own Province... But, Bret is from Alberta. Not Quebec. Quebec (especially in the late 90s) is the "weird Province that sometimes doesn't even want to be a part of Canada," and they speak "french" not "english." It's like another country within the borders of Canada. Quebec fans are oddly loyal to athletes and pro wrestlers. They gave Hogan a 10 minute standing ovation once. Between that 10 minute standing O in Montreal and his reception in Toronto at WM 18, you can argue that Hogan was more over in Canada than the US.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2013 16:34:30 GMT -5
I admit to almost bursting out laughing when he said he felt he let Canada down over the Montreal Screwjob. The Canadian pride thing has always puzzled me, a little. Like, I totally understand that he's proud to be a Canadian, and that he wanted to project himself as a Canadian hero. That's fine w/ me. I can understand not wanting to lose in your hometown. Maybe even your own Province... But, Bret is from Alberta. Not Quebec. Quebec (especially in the late 90s) is the "weird Province that sometimes doesn't even want to be a part of Canada," and they speak "french" not "english." It's like another country within the borders of Canada. Did you watch RAW back then? He was getting insane pops in Toronto, and Montreal, and I would imagine many other places in Canada, during that Hart Foundation phase of 1997. His whole angle was that America sucks, something I'm sure flowed well across the borders up there amongst the wrestling crowds (crowds who, whether it's Canada or the US or wherever, have historically always been strongly pro-domestic, especially when something foreign comes along and threatens the things/characters you like). I'd gather that his Canadian pride was probably bolstered quite a bit by the Canadian fans of all provinces who blew roofs off when his music hit.
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Post by jason1980s on Nov 25, 2013 16:50:23 GMT -5
Only part that struck me as odd was in the chapter around late 1990 where he named about a dozen guys who were let go. A few were guys who had their last match around Survivor Series but Haku and Greg Valentine, who were both names I recall, were still around. They were in limbo around that time so perhaps they were about to get their walking papers but maybe an extra was needed for the upcoming Royal Rumble.
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