Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World (31 page)

I sometimes forget how patient George was with me. He patted me on the shoulder and told me that with my face I could never be a heel, but not to worry, they’d come up with something. Being the booker, George had to feel like a butcher constantly carrying a tray of mouth-watering steaks past a pack of big, hungry dogs.

There was dread in the dressing room in Detroit. The 20/20 report had aired the night before, February 21, and it was clearly an attempt to hurt the business. But it didn’t turn out that way. The prime-time network exposure only made the business hotter, and Vince McMahon realized, perhaps for the first time, what would become a cardinal rule of his: Any publicity is good publicity.

Meanwhile, back in Calgary, at the very moment that John Stossel was on the air trashing the business, Bruce’s partner, Peter Rasmussen—the guy with all the money and with his name on the Calgary promoter’s license—told Bruce he didn’t need him anymore. Bruce had hooked him up with a TV slot opposite the WWF and helped him to trademark the Stampede Wrestling name. They had rings made and had hired the talent. What Bruce hadn’t taken into account was that he was unpopular with the wrestlers: Shortly after Bad News was hired, News told Rasmussen that the only thing wrong with the new endeavor was that he needed to get rid of Bruce. So, on February 22, 1985, Rasmussen ran the first Stampede Wrestling show in Calgary with no Harts involved.

Five days later, the WWF show came through town, and Bruce showed up hoping to pick up without missing a beat. Chief bluntly told Bruce the WWF didn’t need him anymore either.

After being left off the TV schedule one more time in early March, I decided it was time to stand or fall. If down was the only place for me to go in the WWF, I should get out and try my luck in Japan, where maybe I could earn enough of a name to come back someday.

So I worked up my nerve and phoned George first thing the following morning—and was completely caught off guard when he told me they were going to do exactly what I’d suggested. At TVs (our slang for TV tapings) on March 25, I’d walk out as a heel, they’d tag me up with Neidhart and call us The Hart Foundation.

Three days later, at the HoJo’s in Toronto, Tom and Davey were at the bar. Despite the fact that they’d kayfabed me about their Japan deal, I was more than happy to see them. More reinforcements! They’d just signed with Vince up in his hotel room. He’d told them they could make big money as his tag champs and keep their Japan deal too. “Goin’ to call us the fooking British Bulldogs, Gabe,” Tom chuckled. “We start on March 25.” Davey said that right after they signed with him, Vince climbed up on a small table and danced!

Much to my relief, Jim thought that tagging up with me was a great idea, especially if they put us against The British Bulldogs. For the next several days we tried to come up with a finishing move in time for TVs. I recalled watching two humungous mohawked wrestlers called The Road Warriors on AWA wrestling one night. For their finishing move, one of them scooped up their opponent, planting him on his shoulders, while the other one clotheslined him off the top turnbuckle. I groaned at how perilous it was: the helpless victim landed right on top of his head. I remembered thinking it would be easier and safer just to bearhug the guy and do a running clothesline off the ropes. When I ran the idea by Jim, he loved it. We now had a finishing move, which we named The Hart Attack.

The third part of the team was Jimmy Hart, our manager. In the early 1960s, Jimmy was a rock ’n’

roll singer-songwriter with a group called the Gentrys, who had a number-one hit called “Keep on Dancin’.” He was small, wiry and bearded, wore dark shades and a white blazer with huge black musical notes all over it; as a prop he carried a white megaphone with a siren on it. He was friendly but extremely jumpy, and he snapped his gum while talking a hundred words a minute in a high, shrill voice. We liked him.

Our first ever tag match took place at Brantford TV, to be aired after WrestleMania. With the much despised Jimmy leading the way, we walked out to boos and a shower of garbage. Like Jim, I wore mirrored sunglasses and did my best to act cocky as I strutted across the ring with my arms flung wide. We made quick work of the jobbers until the ref gave us the cue to go home. Jim tagged me in, then hoisted the jobber into a bear hug while I tore off into the ropes and came off with a vicious flying clothesline. It looked stiff, but it was as easy to take as a simple back bump. I covered him for the pin as Jimmy hit the siren. We sneered as we walked past the angry fans, loving every second of it.

Minutes later, Tom and Davey marched out to “Rule, Britannia,” wearing matching red tights with the word “BULLDOGS” up the legs in white lettering, red and white boots and Union Jacks sewn on the backs of their trunks. Davey was chest out, chin up, grinning, while Tom looked quite serious as they proceeded to tear the house down with some great high-flying and powerhouse moves. The crowd went crazy! The wrestlers, the agents and especially George and Vince all popped as they watched the TV monitors in the back.

The next day we all flew into Newark, jumped into a rental car and drove up to Poughkeepsie for the March 25 TV taping. None of us was on the bill for WrestleMania, which would take place six days later. We’d miss out on the big payday, but there was nothing we could do about it. At least I was headed for seventeen days at home.

Afterwards, the bar was packed with fans, ring rats and cocaine dealers. Don Muraco, a big, rugged Hawaiian who truly resembled the Incredible Hulk, with thick veins like earthworms up and down his massive arms and shoulders the size of bowling balls, chatted away with Ken Patera. Patera won four gold medals in weightlifting at the PanAmerican Games in 1971 and represented the United States at the 1972 Olympics and was perhaps legitimately the strongest pro wrestler of all time. Jim suspiciously disappeared with Adrian Adonis, a Cuban coke dealer named Robert and Robert’s thick, bullfaced bodyguard, Tarzan. Tom was chatting up the big-breasted Angel, who was talking dirty in his ear. Davey shook his head and laughed at how Tom was drooling all over her.

I went back to my room to call Julie, who was happy that I was finally coming home. When I headed back to the bar, I ran right into Davey coming down the hall with a big grin on his face. Behind him, Tom had Angel over his shoulder. As the three of them marched past, Don Muraco poked his head out of a room and broke up laughing. He called out, “I knew you Bulldogs were tough, but I didn’t know you were that tough!”

Home to bliss. I gave Julie a gold ring for her birthday. I presented a big white Gund teddy bear to Jade, soon to be two, and a smaller one to Dallas, to chew on with his two big teeth. When we headed in the door at Hart house, Stu’s big paw reached out to me as he called to my mom, “Dear, there’s someone here to see you!” The flip-flop of her slippers approached and there were more hugs.

Stu wasn’t happy that I turned heel. I told him it was my idea, but he still thought I was being punished on account of what Bruce did. As for Peter Rasmussen, his version of Stampede Wrestling folded in three weeks. On the home front, Alison, who was pregnant with her second child, was having marital problems with Ben. Cats, dogs and little Hart babies crawled everywhere.

During that time at home, I finally got my driver’s license reinstated. I also got an American Express card.

I never even bothered watching WrestleMania. It was the furthest thing from my mind.

18

THE PUSH BROTHERS

FOR WEEKS JIMMY AND I had been trying to come up with a nickname for me. One morning—April 27, 1985, to be exact—on a layover in Philadelphia, I read in the newspaper that Thomas Hitman Hearns was retiring from boxing after being KO’d by Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Hitman Hart. I liked the sound of it.

That night was going to be the first ever match between The Hart Foundation and The British Bulldogs, four brothers-in-law in the city of brotherly love. A certain pride began to take over: It was time to show America what Stu’s crew could do! George Scott was making a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Greenwich, Connecticut, just to see the match. I mentioned to Tom that if we did well George might give me and Jim a push, and so he started calling us The Push Brothers.

At the sound of “Rule, Britannia,” The Bulldogs marched out to face us. Fifteen minutes later, at the halfway mark, a lot of the fans were standing. I came across as a decent wrestler who was all too easily influenced by Anvil, his mean bully brother-in-law, and led astray by his shady manager. I made a point of showing the fans the occasional drop kick just to impress them. The crowd hated the fact that this one-time jobber could actually wrestle. It was a guilt trip; if these fans had only loved me, I wouldn’t be behaving this way.

Ah, the joy of being a heel! Anvil and I built heat masterfully. We were vicious, merciless and sneaky.

“Let’s go!” I called out to Jim and Davey.

I pulled Davey up off the mat and Anvil hooked him by the arms. I came off the ropes with a high knee, and at the last second Davey moved, and Anvil and I collided. Davey tagged, dramatically. I fed into Dynamite, bumping everywhere. Into Jim. Into turnbuckles. Snap suplexes. A clothesline that looked like it tore my head off. Anvil was hoisted up on Davey’s shoulders as I was flat on my back looking at the lights. I remember thinking, I love this heel bit. Dynamite gingerly stepped onto Jim’s back and dove, crashing head-to-head with me. When Jimmy Hart tried to come through the ropes to interfere, Davey added to the already huge pop by tossing Anvil over the ropes right on top of him! Dynamite hooked my leg for the one . . . two . . . three. “Thanks, Gabe,” he said.

I traveled all over the United States and Canada, but I was spending more time at the HoJo’s in Newark than anywhere else. All the wrestlers who worked the nearby towns would eventually find themselves planted on stools in the lounge, where they had a cheesy house band that played until 2

a.m. The boys on the B and C teams were talking about how the gates had dropped off after WrestleMania, despite a highly rated Saturday Night’s Main Event special on NBC that aired on May 12, 1985, and marked the return of wrestling to prime-time network TV in the United States after an absence of thirty years. The only guys still getting the big checks were the ones on Hogan’s undercard. Hulk was still as hot as ever.

Tom and Davey were lucky to be booked in all the big cities with Hogan right off the bat, but Jim and I more often worked small towns. Everyone got paid a percentage of the gate, and Tom and Dave were taking home checks between $5,000 and $10,000 a week, which was considerably more than Jim and I made. We were glad for them, and there were no sour grapes; better them than anybody else. We became a gang of four, looking out for one another as friends and brothers.

Of course none of us was perfect. Jim loved his beer and his recreational drugs, and he would party until all hours of the night. Tom and Davey loved their beer, their pills, their steroids and their workouts. My release, my amnesia or maybe my anesthesia, was women. Sex seemed like the lesser of all the sins that lay in wait for us.

One night I went looking for Jim in Adrian’s room. When I knocked on the door, asking if Jim was in there, I could hear Adrian’s hushed voice saying “Don’t open it!” Then I clearly heard Jim say, “It’s just Bret, he’s okay.” They unlatched the chain. What a crew! It was a clubhouse for bad boys: Jim, Adrian, Roddy, Muraco, The Iron Sheik, even Mr. Fuji, the old Japanese-Hawaiian wrestler with the bowlegged Charlie Chan gimmick. They’d filled the bathtub with ice and bottles of beer. On the table was a mound of coke. There was an awkwardness, a distrust of the promoter’s kid. Roddy offered me a rolled-up dollar bill. I hesitated more at the idea that I might have to pay for it rather than what it might do to me.

“How much does it cost?”

Muraco smiled. “It’s on us.”

I snorted two short lines.

A joint was rolled and passed around. Before long all of us were talking and laughing about everything from our childhoods to the territories we’d worked. Adrian loved to talk about workers and angles. At first I was reluctant to say much, but soon I opened up and told them about my life as a Hart. They seemed surprised that I had an interesting take on the business, finishes and workers.

While we were talking, Sheik stared at himself in the mirror while doing hundreds of free squats.

Then he’d twist his long handlebar mustache, the sweat dripping from his bald head down his huge traps and his rock-hard gut.

There were knocks at the door all night, but Adrian manned the peephole. Not just anybody was let in, in fact, nobody was. I think Roddy was starting to realize that I wasn’t a bad kid, just a young Canadian wrestler trying to find my way in the business, like he’d done not that long ago. Roddy said if Jim and I were going to make any money, we’d have to get them to let us do promos. He made me promise to practice doing promos in the mirror, on planes, in my room, anywhere.

The sun started to peek around the edges of the closed curtains. We ran out of beer, out of coke, but never out of stories. It was funny how we all did this as a way of keeping out of trouble.

Every few nights from there on in, it was the same scene: a group of wrestlers getting through the night, with camaraderie and other crutches. In the background the late-night TV news was my thread to the real world. There were wars in Iran and Iraq, the Philippines and El Salvador. A state of emergency had been declared in South Africa, where the ironfisted whites were losing their grip. The endless conflicts in the Middle East and Northern Ireland continued to flare. Meanwhile, in the world of wrestling, the tanks had rolled. Vince was like a triumphant Napoleon, his rivals broken and defeated.

One morning in late May, I left Jim snoring away like a hibernating bear and went down to the Newark HoJo’s restaurant. By now I’d tried just about everything on the greasy menu and had concluded that it had to be worse than prison food. The only ones who enjoyed it were the roaches darting everywhere.

While eating breakfast I noticed a new waitress with a great body, golden-brown skin, full red lips, eyes like a doe and dark hair. I was surprised when she said, with a Jersey accent, “You’re Bret Hitman Hart.” I was disappointed when she told me she’d be quitting at the end of the day.