Bret “The Hitman” Hart recently spoke with HN Live for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the WWE Hall of Fame legend explained why he feels WWE and AEW are taking the pro wrestling business in “bad directions.”
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he sounds off on this subject with his sentiments.
On why the current WWE and AEW products have shifted away from the realism factor, a trait that he believes many fans miss from the good old days: “The old kind of wrestling is sorely missed by a lot of people. If the old wrestling was around, like my dad’s wrestling, we’d come see it. I’m trying to advise my son Dallas and help him deliver the kind of wrestling show that I would enjoy watching where the wrestlers actually know what a headlock is rather than doing the scripted ballet and leaping, twirling, and dancing around like a bunch of ballet dancers. I don’t really enjoy today’s wrestling for those reasons. They’ve lost a lot of steps towards the reality and credibility of wrestling. Wrestling, in my opinion, needs to pretend to be real. It always has pretended really hard, almost to the point that you believe it is real. Wrestling is so far fetched today. When I think of WWE and see 20 wrestlers crowded together outside on the floor and someone dives over the top rope and knocks them all down like bowling pins, I roll my eyes at how pathetic wrestling is today. Top to bottom, all the top wrestlers and all the middle bottom wrestlers in WWE and AEW, all slapping their leg on every punch and slap. It’s to the point where I can’t watch wrestling today. Sadly, it’s getting too phony. I really question the direction that the people that are in charge are taking wrestling. AEW has gone in a bad direction with all the violence and gore. I watched an episode, Dr. Martha Hart doing her big press conference, I’m watching AEW and [Jon Moxley] is sticking a fork in somebody’s head for five minutes with a close-up. This isn’t wrestling. I would recommend turning all that off and not watching because it’s not very good. Wrestling is going in bad directions because people don’t know what wrestling is or was.”
On how whoever is in charge of WWE or AEW should be fired because they know nothing about the sport: “It’s the people in charge that I question, and I’m not sure who is in charge anymore, especially in WWE, you never know who is in charge from one day to the next. It seems to me that somebody is not paying attention to the details. Back in my day, there was Chief Jay Strongbow, Pat Patterson, Jack Lanza, who knew exactly what needed to be done and knew the orders to carry out from Vince (McMahon) each night. There was a better understanding. When you came back after a match, Chief Jay would say, ‘Don’t do this anymore, don’t do that, change this.’ It was always the best advice and people who knew what they were talking about. I don’t think that’s happening today. I think the people talking to the young wrestlers have absolutely zero idea of how wrestling is. They are all guys who never made it in wrestling and none of them ever had any ideas. I don’t know who is doing the thinking anymore, but someone needs to fire everybody that’s in charge in both companies, in all companies. They lack credibility, they are not believable, and the 1980s wrestling was 100 times better than the wrestling today. The best professional wrestling needs to pretend to be real, when it stops pretending to be real, which is all of what they’re doing today, it’s ridiculous.”
H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
