During the latest edition of his “Confessions of the Hitman” podcast, Bret Hart commented on him and Vince McMahon “kind of” settling their issues over the years, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On resolving things with Vince McMahon: “I think me and Vince have reached an understanding where we don’t bring up a lot of old, dodgy stuff, and we kind of buried the hatchet. And Shawn Michaels and everyone else, like, I think in the end, I’m still proud of the way I handled myself through the whole Screwjob period. But in all honesty, I think they’re not proud of their conduct; I don’t think. I think they kind of realized now that that was kind of a dumb way to go, and unprofessional way to go, and it caused way more problems than they ever imagined, even though they made money off of the whole concept of what happened. Me and Vince, I think it goes back a number of years – we kind of buried the hatchet.”
On his bitterness towards McMahon: “I was pretty bitter towards Vince, especially after The Screwjob, and I didn’t like a lot of what happened with my brother Owen’s horrible accident. But I do believe in retrospect, when we look back, that Vince had probably very little to do with what happened to Owen. Like, he barely even knew what was going on there. I think that kind of proved itself to be true, so I didn’t hold a lot of grudges toward Vince for what happened to Owen, but I did hold some grudges over what happened in Montreal with just how much he misled me and betrayed me in the end with so many lies, really. And again, I don’t think he is proud of his conduct through that.”
On Vince calling him after his stroke: “[McMahon] called me up in the hospital, and I remember I was very stunned that he called me in the hospital. Maybe it was Day 3 of my stroke and I was in pretty rough shape still. I could hardly talk and I couldn’t sit up or anything. I was pretty frail, and when you have a stroke, you’re pretty messed up. But he gave me a very heartfelt pep talk. ‘You’re a fighter. You’re going to beat this. You’re going to show everyone you’re going to get through this. It really meant a lot to me.”
On those who blame Chris Benoit on wrestling: “It was really when Chris Benoit’s horrible tragedy happened, there was a lot of talk that it was steroids that was the cause of the deaths and all these kinds of things that they were talking about. And it was like– I just thought it was unfair to try to take what happened with Chris Benoit and apply it to all the [pro] wrestlers, and I said so. There was a lot of wrestlers that were speaking out. I think wrestlers that had grudges or an axe to grind with WWE and Vince and were coming forward, and I had been on that side of the fence too. I had a pretty big axe when The Screwjob happened, and even when my brother, Owen, passed, I was pretty bitter. But I felt that it wasn’t fair. I think what happened with Chris, and I still believe it was one of those time bomb situations where someone just went off. And as bad as it was, it certainly shouldn’t be a reflection on wrestlers in general. I don’t know many wrestlers– there aren’t many stories about wrestlers in that kind of mode where they’re actually killers.”
