MLW owner Court Bauer recently spoke with The Insiders podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Bauer talked about Bret Hart’s return to WWE and how it was originally planned for WrestleMania 22:
“Well, the original version was supposed to kind of, sort of, got off the ground in WWE in 2006, or seven. Bret was back in the orbit of WWE after coming to terms with Vince and doing the DVD and at one point was going to be Bret versus Vince at WrestleMania 22 in Chicago, and then Bret was a little uneasy about doing that. They eventually did it much differently a few years later.”
“But the original idea was gonna be the Harts and the Hart Foundation versus the WWE, Vince, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Shane, Shawn’s students at the time. The idea would be you know, you have Paul London. You had Brian Kendrick, and then they were gonna sign Bryan Danielson. So you had like all these interesting ways against the Hart Foundation, which would have been Bret, Neidhart, and a new generation, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Nattie, Teddy and so on.”
“So we started the process and I got Harry Smith, Davey Boy Smith Jr. signed, Nattie and TJ, Tyson Kid and Teddy. I remember Vince looking at me saying. ‘You know, self-masturbatory gimmick.’ It was like a warning, like this is on you when this goes south. I’m like okay.”
“Now truth be told Teddy outlasted me in WWE. I left the summer of 2007 and he stayed around for a little bit more. So I don’t know how that ended up going, but clearly he didn’t end up on air and the other guys did. Nattie is still there doing great things, Tyson is contributing behind the scenes, and Harry’s had his tours of duty there since, so it was interesting what could have been with that. I think Jericho at some point was figured into the Hart story too, I think. I don’t remember the details off the top of my head.”
You can listen to the complete podcast at AdFreeShows.com.
(h/t to Wrestling News for the transcription)
