Bret “The Hitman” Hart reveals all in his new autobiography

If you lived in Calgary in the ’80s and ’90s, you likely spent a few of your weekend afternoons watching Bret “The Hitman” Hart rise from the ranks of local Stampede Wrestling to the world stage at Wrestlemania. He has been heralded as one of Calgary’s favourite sons and one of CBC’s 50 Greatest Canadians, and now he is sharing his story with his fans.

Hitman: My Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling (Random House Canada, 592 pp.) follows Hart from his early childhood, through his days wrestling in small promotions, to his much-publicized fight with Vince McMahon in Montreal, to his career-ending concussion and subsequent stroke. The autobiography tells the story of a man who has seen family members feud, friends die and has become an international household name along the way.

While many of the wrestling biographies that litter bookstore shelves are ghost written and self-serving, Hart’s has been almost 10 years in the making, and comes from his own hand and his carefully recorded memories. Hart says he is proud to have written an autobiography that is far more accurate and personal than many in its genre. “In comparison to other books that wrestlers have done, I think the only one that I ever liked was Mick Foley’s. The rest of them are all just crap,” says Hart. “I wanted this book to be honest.”

Hart says that though he comes from an old-school wrestling background, where the secrets of the trade were guarded even from wives, it was important to be as honest about the business and his life as he could.

From the endearing tales of hijinx with the boys on the bus, to the many tragedies that tore both his birth and wrestling families apart, Hart says he made it a point not to pull punches or take cheap shots. Though some of his family and friends may be unhappy with how they are depicted, Hart says he hopes they see the book as an accurate account of events. “I never went out of my way to run anybody over,” says Hart. “I’ve braced myself for some blowback that maybe isn’t so good from family members, but at the same time I’m braced for compliments, I hope that they really appreciate it and like it.”

The first thing many wrestling fans will look for in the book is Hart’s discussion of what has become known as the Montreal Screwjob. Hart says he wanted to let fans know the real story of what happened behind the scenes of Survivor Series 1997, the actions of McMahon and Shawn Michaels and the punch that changed wrestling forever.

Hart comes clean about a lot of things in his autobiography, taking us into backrooms and hotel rooms filled with steroids, alcohol and drugs. He also openly discusses his many extramarital affairs, which he says took a toll on his conscience but might have saved his life. Hart says he needed an escape in order to deal with a gruelling schedule that would keep him from his family for months at a time, but he didn’t want to get caught up in the drugs that caused the downfall of so many of his contemporaries. “I think I survived by balancing that a little bit,” says Hart. “If I had to do it all over again, I’d do it exactly the same. I wouldn’t go back and say, ‘you know what, I’ll be faithful and good.’ I don’t think I would’ve made it, I think I’d have way more problems today. I might not even be here.”

Hart says he hopes that fans and wrestlers who read the book will understand the people depicted in it a bit better, whether it is his brother Owen, his father Stu or the tragic story of the very complicated “Dynamite Kid” Tom Billington. “I hope wrestlers can read this book and enjoy it instead of it being something that gets under their skin,” says Hart. “I didn’t want to do anything to hurt the business or take away from it.”