Transcript credit: www.mondaynightmayhem.com
"The Excellence Of Execution" joined The Monday Night Mayhem Radio Network for his second-ever MNM appearance, this time to discuss his work with Ring Of Honor as part of their "Final Countdown Tour." Bret was very candid with The Mayhem Crew about how happy he has been in this latest chapter, in working with ROH, since the summer. "Everything’s been really good. I’ve had a lot of fun so far with being part of this Ring Of Honor stuff for the last few months. I had a great time in Chicago, and I’m looking forward to going back to The Manhattan Center in New York. I have a lot of memories there, and I’m hoping a lot of my old fans come down just to say hi. For me, I always had my best fans in New York. If I could have one match in one place, it would be Madison Square Garden."
Bret was part of the Ring Of Honor show last weekend in "The Windy City," and many who attended the event have gone public about the tremendous fan interaction with Bret & the fans in attendance. Mosh asked "The Hitman" how has been working with Ring Of Honor so far to this point. "I have a lot of respect for the company & the wrestlers that work the shows. The wrestlers work really hard on the shows I’ve watched, and I just have respect for anyone who can just leave it on the field. For me it’s been a lot of fun, I’m kinda riding the coattails of the guys that are really doing all the work on these shows. I’m quite honored to be aligned with them & to help a little more attention to them."
As part of "The Summer Of Mayhem 2009" this July, Ring Of Honor’s Owner, Cary Silkin, appeared on the program, and said that he would love to have the opportunity & chance to sit down with Bret to see if a possible longer-term deal could happen for him to stay around as more of a permanent fixture than just the few appearances he is in the midst of right now. Hart was asked for his response & Cary’s Mayhem comments, and if any type of negotiations have started. "We’ve kinda talked about it a little bit, but we really never had that ‘heart-to-heart’ the way he talked about. I’m not sure what I could do for them. I sometimes feel I’m somewhat limited in what I can do and the different roles I could play in wrestling is quite limited. At the same time, I do have a lot of high regard for Ring Of Honor, and in a way they remind of my dad’s old Stampede Wrestling company. I’m confident that with or without me, or whatever role I could play with them, that they’re a company that’s gonna keep getting bigger & bigger, and that’s a credit to there fan base & the wrestlers that work for them every night."
"The Chairman Of The Board" asked Bret what about Ring Of Honor made him want to work with them & what standout wrestlers has he seen so far in ROH. "I think what I liked about it was that they had AJ Styles for example, someone I have a lot of respect for. One of the first times I saw him was in Ring Of Honor. There’s a lot of guys like that. Teddy Hart, CM Punk…There’s a lot of guys that really stepped up a notch in the business & taken the business in a good direction right now with hard work. And that’s what I like about them the most." And ROH guys that have caught his eye: "I’ll be honest with you, I’m not so familiar with many of the names. I know them all by face in the back. And I’ve talked to them like regular guys, but I’m not sure what their gimmick names are. I may not be much help to you on that."
In addition to Bret Hart, Ring Of Honor has also recently used Ric Flair to help promote, and the history between "The Best There Is, The Best There Was, And The Best There Ever Will Be" & "The Nature Boy" is well known & well-documented. & Hart is well known. Both do not get along, and it pretty much started in a few books written by the two over the past several years. A clip was played from "Rowdy" Roddy Piper’s
appearance on The Mayhem this past August (as part of "The Summer Of Mayhem 2009") about the two (saying the both should try to make peace with one another as much as possible, let it go, & move on), and Bret was asked to comment on the what Piper said & his feud with Flair. "Well I relate to what Roddy is saying. It’s not his place to get involved between the little ‘war of words’ between me & Ric Flair. But the truth is the ‘war of words’ between me & Ric Flair, I said my peace in my book. I was honest about my working relationship with Ric Flair, and it’s funny for guys like Hulk Hogan & Ric Flair to write stuff in their books and say what they want, and I don’t even know if I agree with their honesty in their books. But my book was very honest, and I just told the truth." He continued, "To be honest, I don’t have a big issue with Ric Flair. I hope Ric Flair is well, and I have a lot of respect for Ric Flair at different levels. He was a great wrestler, one of the best-conditioned wrestlers, and these are things I said in my book. I just didn’t tear him down with no credit at all. I think he is a great wrestler, and he contributed a lot to the business over the years. Other than, there are no war of words. I respect what he has done, but I don’t know if I could agree with him. He’s the one who tries to belittle what I have accomplished in wrestling saying I never drew money & stuff like that. I stand for everything I’ve done in the business. I wrestled in front of audiences every night all around the United States, while in WCW Ric Flair wrestled in front of chairs every night…All in all I can say a lot of things about Ric Flair as a wrestler. It’s just unfortunate that he’s got a drinking problem, and it tends to shoot his mouth off sometimes, and that’s just more of a sad, pathetic state of affairs than anything else."
At the latest WWE Pay-Per-View, Breaking Point, "The Montreal Screwjob" was redone once again (in the World Heavyweight Championship submission Match between CM Punk & The Undertaker), and many fans are getting more irritated at the fact that the WWE simply cannot let this go. Bret was asked for his candid thoughts about the events of last Sunday night & the chants of "You Screwed Bret" that not only echoed the confines of The Bell Centre, but The Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario the next night on RAW. "I have al ot of fans across Canada, so you’re get the same reaction in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, or anywhere else. But Montreal is especially sensitive to it. People second-guess me today & say ‘You should just done what you were told that day,’ and ‘he thought he was bigger than the business.’ I think people don’t understand sometimes what it was like for me & how much was at stake. I was on the verge of being a national hero up here at that time. Just winning the World Title made me a huge hero up here. To every Canadian, that was a huge thing, a big accomplishment, and when they tried to turn me into a heel and & say all those negative things about America, it did something for the Canadian fans, and gave them a platform & a voice." Bret profoundly remembers telling Vince McMahon right before the ’97 Survivor Series that he could not walk in that building in Montreal & lose. "The whole intention of everything they did that day was to tear me down as much as possible so I would mean nothing going into WCW."
The History Of WWE.com’s Graham Cawthon asked Bret for his comments about the success of The Hart Dynasty (David Hart Smith, Tyson Kidd, & Natalya Neidhart) on SmackDown, as well as if he feels that the three are progressing in the right fashion. "I think they are all doing a great job. They’re getting better & better and more confident. Technically, they are as good as they’re gonna get, and they’re as good as anybody in the company when it comes to actually working. Their work stands on its own. I’m proud of all three of them."
The big question that has been on the hearts & minds of wrestling fans across the globe is "Will Bret return to WWE TV?" "The Hitman" has done it all in the wrestling business, and with the recent news of his eldest daughter (Jade) expecting her first child (making Bret a grandfather for the first time), what else is left for him to do & accomplish? With the recent speculation that has made the rounds on the internet of Bret’s "imminent" WWE return [Note from Mike Johnson: I am told This is a reference to a report published in the Wrestling Observer that Hart is open to a WWE return – wanted to give full credit for the source of the story.], Mosh asked the man himself what’s next for him in the next phase of his career. "I’m just going to keep pulling one of my guiding rules in life, doing what makes me happy & taking good care of myself. I’ve done my hard work, and now, I’m just looking to fulfill whatever dreams I have left. I’ll like to write two or three more books about various topics, maybe even write some fictional books about wrestling." Will Bret stay true to his Stampede Wrestling roots & potentially take the "Ambassador" role of "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair in Ring Of Honor, or will he "head on home" to World Wrestling Entertainment & return as a regular character/personality on World Wrestling Entertainment television? All we can say is…Stay tuned…
More is contained in this exclusive Mayhem interview with the one & only "Excellence Of Execution," including his uncensored thoughts/comments on if he has been approached by Hulk Hogan and/or Eric Bischoff to be a part of the forthcoming "Hulkamania" tour in Australia this November, the advice he has for both "The American Dragon Bryan Danielson & Nigel McGuinness as they get ready to depart Ring Of Honor for the WWE (and if he believes they have a good chance of success in World Wrestling Entertainment), the evolution of the Ladder Match over the years (and what he is looking forward to seeing most in this weekend’s ROH World Tag Team Title "Ladder War" between The American Wolves & Kevin Steen/El Generico), & so much more. Get ready for "the best there is, the best there was, & the best there ever will be," as Bret "Hitman" Hart takes center stage for the MNM "Fall Tour ’09!"