Bret Hart

0:01He's, he's, he's, he's, he, he's, he! Brett Hart, thank you, appreciate it. It's a pleasure to meet you. Nice to be here. So why now? I guess that's the big question for everybody, why now? Well, you know, I said the same thing once and then I kept saying, why not? Like, you know, basically I'm more than the single biggest reason that I found myself doing this, that I was bored. Mm-hm. And I watched the wrestling and I, you know, sometimes I'm sitting around and I have a pretty good life. My book has done well and I'm happy with things right now. I have a house in Hawaii. I'm just sitting there and I'm watching wrestling all the time. I'm going, I should do something while I still can. The storyline that fits with man would probably fit in pretty good right now. It would work. It would probably give me something to do. Instead of thinking

0:49about doing it, once you start reasoning all the reasons why in the past history and the bad blood and everything and that weighs a lot, trust me, it weighs a lot. I said I'd never go back. Then you see some of the positive things that can come out of it and it starts to even out and in the end I certainly don't want to go down in history as being the spitter sort of champion wrestler that walked away and never came back. It was bad blood that Tillie Day, he died kind of thing. I think I've learned through after all that I went through that that it's better to make things take a negative and make it into a positive. More often than not, when you put logic to it, it's easier to forgive and move on rather than. In the end, Vince McMahon, you can say whatever you want to bottom but I'm probably

1:42wouldn't be talking to you right now if it wasn't for him. You look at all the good that did come out of being Bret the Hitman Hart and working for Vince McMahon and him taking the chance on me and saying a long time ago and saying I'm going to make you my champion. Those were the happiest days of my life and it's like going back and doing what I'm doing right now was just over kind of a, to me it's I know it's just really a stretch but I sometimes get mad that the Beatles never went back together. That they just never did for charity or for sick kids or something. That they didn't go back and do one album or one tour or one at one concert either. That they fought and bitched so much that they couldn't, they got so big that they couldn't do something good for the world. Not that I'm in that category but

2:29you start to think and you go why couldn't Bret Hart come back and do something. You get to that point and you start thinking all the different things you could do. Bret Hart washing up on the shores of TNA would be, you'd be the miserable person for that mistake. You never do that again. I worked with Hogan and Bischoff and WCW and went nowhere. You look at that later. Aside from that in the end the only guy I really could do any kind of wrestling storyline with would be Vince McMahon and it could be huge and it could be really big and could be a lot of fun or you can just sit and think about it forever and feel bad that you didn't do it. I guess the other big question then would be how long

3:14is WrestleMania the end or do you want to stick around? What do you want to do? Well, I have a girlfriend that's up here going to university and she's going to be in school for two years so I'm not going to be able to leave band in her here and go back to Hawaii where I have a second life there. I'm kind of stuck here for a couple years since she gets out of school and gets her university done. This whole thing came into a plan and came into effect with me and I'll be home in Calgary in winter, two years, hard time. Calgary winter is no fun especially for me. I just thought this is my free pass to get out of town every week and go somewhere and do something fun. The more I added it up I said it was more positive and I was like why not? I did it more because of the boredom of sitting around

4:06Calgary. In my head I don't see this as a long career that's for sure. I wouldn't rule anything out. My attitude is as long as it's fun I'll keep going with it. You're just basically contractually off the WrestleMania kind of thing. Yeah, it's in April 1st I don't have any kind of arrangement but they're working on some kind of plan they're going to show me that would make it work my while they keep going. I don't know that I'm sure they can come up with something. There's got to be some kind of fun. Nanny and Harry and my niece and nephew and all that. It would be nice to, I don't know if that'll happen anytime soon but somewhere down the road to reach down and kind of pull them up get them involved in something. Well I heard that was one of the reasons why you came back

4:52too. If I can somehow and to keep, you know there's some people that don't recognize how hard those two kids are the three of them with TJ, how hard they've worked to get where they are. And you talk about chasing a dream. That dream was all but extinguished to my family when Owen died and the things that I went through. And for these younger the next generation to want it so bad to carry the torch to the next, like for my father and me to them. You know to have gone and done it all on their own against all the sort of criticism and negative people in the family even that say I don't waste your time to that. You know they're doing it, they're traveling around the world. The more I've watched them

5:37over the years the more proud I have of just the fact that they hung in there and they've got there on their own. They didn't give you the bread heart didn't open any doors for them and it's too hard never opened any doors. They chipped away on their own. What about your kids? They were there at that age where they could go? My youngest one is a possibility but I don't know. I kind of let them figure it up the house. He's got the muscle milkshakes and stuff and he's working out every day and I think there's a reason for it. Speaking of working out every day I guess you got to be back in the gym every day preparing for this match. Pretty much. I was best I can anyway but the truth is I've always trained all the time. You know I sometimes take a few months off or a few weeks off but I always get back and I find that you know I think it's just a good way to take care of yourself. I still stay

6:24in pretty good shape. I ride my bike a lot and the sunners up here and in Hawaii I ride the bike most of the winter. I try to train. I try to take good care of myself and I eat pretty good. Cool. How are you doing physically like with concussion and recovery from the stroke? All in all I'm probably as good as I'm going to get. I'm pretty good. My stroke probably ended up being I lost probably somewhere maybe 10% mostly a weakness on my left side just like if you threw a baseball at me I might not react this fast. Sometimes you can sense it in my speech and I can trip over my words and you catch yourself and every once while it happens where you say something totally backwards and it comes out. You can stop and

7:12try to fix it or you just move on. I think people figure it out. I think I've been WWE a few weeks ago I said something about something with the fans are welcoming me back and I end up saying something else. I left it and I was like the more I thought about it they got it they know what I was trying to say. I just kept moving on. My son sometimes I'll stop and try to re-explain it and he's used to that. It's like just keep going and he gets it and he told me the next day he goes I'm so glad he didn't go back and try to fix that. He just kept going and it's true. Just stuff little things like that. What do you think the match is going to be like with Vince? Do you have it like? I have no idea. I don't want to break anyone's heart but I mean the truth is the sad truth

7:59is that the bread heart that used to wrestle the best there is, the best there was. That guy with the pig tights and all that. You got to wear the pig tights again. No I'll never wear those again. That's where I draw the line with the character and that guy was right till the day he took him off was still the best. He was a mess. He didn't get no argument for me. What was your best match on the topic of that? What was your favorite? Oh one bulldog. Roddy. It's hard to say but I think my favorite would have been Wembley with the bulldog. Not just because of the match itself but just the time period and how wrestling fans were in those days. You watched Wembley Stadium and you just watched the crowd you only watched

8:44at wrestling. You get an understanding for how passionate they were about wrestling. The wrestling was totally real for them. At least when they were inside the buildings and stuff. There's a pureness of that wrestling fan and the good guy struggle that I had with Davey in front of that kind of crowd and doing all those moves and having everybody think from the first two or three minutes that this was the end of the match. To do that for another 45 minutes where they're jumping up and jumping down. It was just so intense. The fans were so serious and it was the perfect night, the perfect crowd and the perfect match. What changed it for the fan? Was it advanced with the whole attitude era? Even before that I

9:30think it was the internet. The internet changed wrestling because the wrestlers basically went from town to town and did it a great one. Once the wrestlers sort of work out their basic storyline or their match. A lot of times the others take it from one shoulder to the next. Once you tweak your match to it, it's as good as it's going to get and it's perfect. Like when matches I used to have the whole one. Or Kurt Henning. You get where you have this perfect match and you just go back the next day and you do it again. It's like a cookie cutter. You just stay on that. You just leave it the way it is and you just keep doing it and doing it. But in the end the internet would wrestling fans would type what happened to the match to the next town. Even then you couldn't really, it looked like it was the same match when you read it. But at the same time the internet started wanting more and

10:21more information about basically the spoilers of what they could do to take away all the suspense. I don't know, it just became a time where wrestling fans were getting smarter than the wrestlers. And it was always an ongoing tug of war for that. I was a big, I didn't say anything to anybody about what I was doing. For that reason I didn't like to ruin it for anybody ever. I was one of the two, there is a Santa Claus and just enjoy the show. I never liked it when someone told you everything was going to happen. I can remember getting to a building and some kids came up to me and they told me you're going to be a bad

11:07guy next week. You're turning bad and all that. I remember thinking, I'm not. I got a call a few days later, Vince McMahon told me I'm going to turn it to a bad guy. What bothers me is that the kid knew before I did. And then you learn that's just got bigger and bigger and bigger and overtook the business. There's probably just as many fans that enjoy ruining it for everybody by telling everybody what's going to happen. That's part of the, as it is, of feeding frenzy of wrestling fans that feed off all that stuff. Well, if things are getting busy here, we're in BJ's gym. Why, why is it, why are we here? You chose this location. Because it was central located in my own houses with Messi. I mean, as posters of you here, do you train here? Do you work out?

11:53Yeah, I do train here. And this is a great hardcore gym. A lot of the wrestlers trained here, you see a lot of the posters in the wall. You got a bulldog and, yeah, it's a bit of a shrine still for a lot of guys that train here. This is where all the heart generation were trained. The natty and TJ and Harry and Teddy Hart, the infamous Teddy Hart. I don't know if it's so bad he can't get hired. He makes Dennis the Menacell. You know, he's, she'd be in the Hall of Fame for World's Worst with Dad, baddest kids. Right next to a big statue, my brother Smith. I'm sure he'd love to hear that. Maybe both be proud. All right. On the topic of wrestling changing with the internet. What do you think MMA has done to it? Do you think that's kind of taking things away a little bit? Oh, I'm sure it has. I mean, it's hard not to get pulled

12:42into the MMA and how, you know, a lot of it, they're basically what real wrestling, you know, basically what they're doing is a lot, a lot different than what the old shooters in pro wrestling were doing back in the 20s. You know, it's just the same type of people that moved gut into wrestling the way it is now and it flourished because they, and you know, the way wrestling worked in the 20s or something like that, I think it was Jack Dempsey was knocking everybody out in one round and Babe Ruth broke the home red record, I think it was 26 or something like that or whatever. But it was just so, things are small. The thing was faster and faster. And the wrestling matches back then were about an hour and a half long, they were wrestling for four hours or something, they had lock on and whoever, no one went to submit. They

13:30got too boring and they needed to kind of spice it up and they just started changing it up and that eventually evolved into where pro wrestling is today. But MMA, I think, do you like it? Are you fair? Yeah, I'm a fan. Yeah, for sure. I have a lot of respect for it. I mean, I'm so glad that I went into pro wrestling. When I watched that and I go, I'm so glad that I only pretended to hurt somebody. Well, you never heard anything. I've got a conch clean to things. I wouldn't. I could never beat a friend of mine. I don't fight with my friends. And I'm watching UFC and all of these guys are friends and they fight each other and they hurt each other. And I couldn't be paid enough money to do that. But Ken ever, what was it like to work with Ken? Did you ever fight, Chairman? Yeah, I thought Ken was, he was a solid guy. He was, he was a tank. He was one of the most solid,

14:17well put together guys I ever wrestled with. He was transition. He was good. He was the kind of guy that, he didn't look like, he looked like an impressive guy. He looked like a lot of other wrestlers. But I swear, when you picked up Ken Shammel for a body slam, he weighed 5,000 pounds. He was very, he was like cement. I mean, he was just really well put together. But when you're saying about UFC or MMA, when I think of my match with Steve Austin, WrestleMania 13, and I think it is that, it shows you the best of what pro wrestling offered for that kind of fix, that violent fix that UFC needs. Like when they watch these guys punch each other in the blood, you know, you used to get that from wrestling. And they used to get it in matches like the one I had with Steve Austin, WrestleMania 13 where

15:04it just became so real in the blood. And you know, it was a very physical, kind of violent match. And people love that. And that's what, that's kind of wrestling is gone now and UFC's moved into that market. And they've got that all to their self. So wrestling, I see today is more of a family programming, I think it's a step down for grandpa can now watch wrestling with his kids as it is right now. And that's good. And that leaves the UFC to a whole different market of serious fighting enthusiasts that wrestling would pretend it to a piece a long time ago. What do you think of the state of the WWE right now? I mean, well, I guess WWF for you always, right? Well, I can do both. I've been reprogrammed, you know, like everyone else. But I mean, you have guys like taker Sean triple these are

15:50all the stars when you left, and they're still running the show now. Well, the funny thing about all that, and I'm curious to talk to some of the Bob bought it is that they're right where I was when they screwed me. So I'm looking at undertaker Sean Michaels. And well, how would you feel right now if somebody screwed you at this point in time in your career? Yeah. Because the guy younger and you didn't have enough, you know, had enough respect for you. And you start to see that and you go, I'm sure that they'd all go, she's, and now I know what everything that you were trying to do and what you stood up for, and what you're, I think that's more clear all the time. And I don't know how long undertakers got left and I don't know how long Sean Michaels has got left. And there's a few guys in there, that company that are pretty beat up physically. So I mean, I don't know how long they got left is always a role

16:37like the one I'm I've got for you know, you could, you know, you can somehow hang in there doing that. But I see Sean Michaels and undertaker looking to take some kind of a long break in the not too distant future. I deserve it one, you know, they've both worked pretty hard for a long time. I think of Steve Austin and some of these guys that have already rode off into the sunset, it's easy to do that sometimes. And I credit them for hanging in there and still, they're basically still the leaders of the company. Yeah. You know, so. What do you feel about the wrestler when you saw the movie? It was kind of a dissertation. And it's own way it's a fair representation. But I thought like before the movie came out, I thought finally we're gonna get our fair shake. We've been slammed and put down and knocked and given no credit for years for being

17:27athletes or actors or anything. It's like we're circus. We're out in some category all to ourselves that don't care about like when there's media or news or there's gonna be a newspaper story. I never want to talk about wrestlers. You know, they listen bad. We're the, you know, we've always had negative, usually negative press or roll your eyes kind of mentality to pro wrestling. And I will finally, there'll be a movie that will sort of say something good about us. Maybe when I walk out of the theater, I'll be able to puff up my chest. Oh yeah, it was a wrestler. You know, some kid says he wants to grow up and be a wrestler. You don't go, are you an idiot? You know, what are you stupid? You know, it's like, it's like, I thought maybe something good to make is proud of wrestling. And I know I've had lots of great moments where I'm really even proud of everything I did.

18:15And I think that comes across in my book about how proud I was of the career I had. And when I watched that movie, I thought, ah, that's about bums and losers. You know, wrestlers aren't all losers and they're not all bums. And that's movie seemed to paint. There wasn't one guy in that movie that had any, had any, how to hope or a good life or, you know, a nice family. They're all, they're all washed up losers. And Matt, that bothered me a little bit that there was some, they're always sort of, they don't get me wrong. There's lots of washed up losers in wrestling, but, you know, they're all sort of pegged into one category all the time. You know, we're never athletes. You know, a lot of us are athletes. You know, I just found out last week, it's almost telling me that someone was trying to get me into the sports hall of fame,

19:01you know, which is, was his own doing it. Just annoyed me to have him to come back and say, no, I was not an athlete. I kind of know where wrestling is not a sport. And they know fair enough, but, you know, I, I accomplish a lot and where do I get my credit? I'm not going to get, I'm not going to get an acting award or actor is not going to pull me up and say, for, for all his years of wrestling, here's your, you know, the sports world isn't going to turn their back on you too and say, you are nothing to us. You know, I think that's kind of, that's why wrestlers for years have always been very defensive of what, but what they do because we don't ever get that kind of respect. WWE Hall of Fame isn't the same kind of? Well, you know, it's, it's nice, but you get, that's nice. Yeah, I would never put that down. It's, it's, it's deserved like my father going on this year. It's, it's, it's important that I

19:53think a hundred years from now, if you're going to look back on what the pioneers of pro wrestling who took it to where, where it ends up years from now, you're going to have to tip your hat to my father and him not being in there and someone like people, my family who are not the case, but I mean, if they were opposed to it, all you do is like even me going back to WWE, me not going back, I just fade off into obscurity. And that's the end of it. That's all you ever hear about that. That he was this bitter, you know, like I said before, but I think you have a right to be remembered, and especially if you contributed. And I know my dad did, I know I did, I don't know what brother Owen did, and I'm sure that's something that should happen some, some days, somewhere down the road. What would you have to say about your return? Ah, I think he'd be kind of happy about it. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think my dad and my mom

20:45would have been, and they know that I'm sort of in my own way trying to maybe help bring the family together and do something for my niece and nephew. And doing like that, that is sort of an objective of mine. Doing that and just getting back with wrestling and being on good terms with it is a good feeling for me. Also, I have a list of a couple of names here. Do you just give me some thoughts, that kind of thing on everyone? We'll start with Owen. Well, I think about him every day. Owen, mostly find that you know me, you're laugh, because whenever anything goes wrong, like the lights won't work or, you know, something happens when I lock my keys in the car or whatever, or I can't find something. Any kind of problem

21:34I get where it seems like someone's doing this on purpose. It's like I'm always looking out at the I know this is Owen. And then he's always constantly pulling jokes on me. Either that or it's my imagination, but then either way I think about them all the time. It's pretty regular. My kid's all not thinking it's Owen. Don't even worry about it's Owen. The remote suddenly doesn't work. I know it's Owen. That's good though, you have that memory. It's nice that it comes out every once in a while. I think of Owen and I think it's the same for just what everybody you think of him and you smile. It makes you think of some kind of joke or something that he did or something funny. It's usually a happy thought. That storyline with you and him fighting, that must have been one of the better times in your life. It was a great time for me.

22:24What I loved about it was how much it meant to Owen. And it really did mean the world to him. He had a very special relationship after that. We always had a special relationship before that. But the fact that I worked with him and we did it the way we did it and had the matches that we had, I think he was really proud of himself and really proud of me. And I think if I ever filled into, stepped into those shoes of being his big brother, it was one we did all that kind of stuff. I think he really loved those times. And when I look back on it, it's all good memories for me. I do kind of get a little noise and a lot of people think that we hate each other. That was all part of a storyline. It's not even a word. It worked. But I mean, I

23:12threw out that whole period. It was never anything about it. It was the love between two brothers and the women. Next one, Eric Bischoff. Eric Bischoff. How come they didn't know how to use you properly? Eric Bischoff playing simply was a guy that never understood wrestling. Never knew a good idea from a bad idea and was the worst possible guy to put in a position of power. He was a nice enough guy with me. He was always nice enough. But nice isn't about us. That's not the question. He's a nice guy. Sure, he's a nice guy. But as far as brilliant or a good wrestling mind, forget it. I could find some guys out on the street here that know what will rest them. Eric Bischoff. Lauren Calgary. It's a wrestling thing. Yeah, but he was bad. Steve Austin. Steve Austin was

24:03one of my most favorite guys to work with. We had great chemistry. No matter what day we wrestled or how tired we were or wherever we always had a great match. He was really passionate. That's one thing I always remember about Steve. He was very, he always wanted to have a phenomenal match every night. He took that attitude into the ring every night. He always worked hard. He was just a perfect guy to work with. Great guy to work with. Great verbally and had so many other skills like his look and his talk and all that. But I kind of caught him just at the right time. I think of the hitman and Steve Austin. Those matches in that time were probably the best matches maybe in the history of the wrestling. It's a shame that we didn't get the wrestling

24:51even more because we were just right at the top of it. We got lots of room left for a rivalry that would have lasted for years. Maybe on the opposite of that spectrum, Sean Michael. Sean, I thought that when I went back and even sort of swallowing my pride and going back that I would be sorry that I did it. I see him sort of walking past me with his nose up kind of the dresser. It would have bothered me that he didn't acknowledge the big step I took and sort of coming back and doing all of that. I thought I would come forward and take the step forward but that he wouldn't necessarily take the step forward either. That was just going to be sort of a percantuse or whatever.

25:39But that's not how it was. I took that step and I noticed after that it was really a huge relief for him. It was like a forgiveness I guess that he really needed to let him set him free. I think he was troubled by it for years. I realized after we sort of had our little in-ring moment there that it was all quite real. I never saw Sean until I got to the ring. I saw him one time in the cafeteria and we had a little talk for about 20 seconds and I told my go-looking flammator. I never did see him. I did our little interview and the ring was pretty real. It wasn't really scripted. It wasn't really scripted. There was a sort of outline of what we could say to each other. We followed all that but the sincerity I think on his part I thought was pretty genuine

26:29and I thought that he appreciated it. It was like someone's taken a weight off his back and set them free. I've noticed ever since I've been around him that he's waggy. He's in a good mood and he's seems to me that it's quite real that he's quite appreciative of that step. That tells me that it was a good thing. I don't have to feel bad like I went back and swallowed my pride and he's still a jerk-off. But he's not really so bad. That's the most you could wish for. The truth is I think that we both were responsible for a lot of that. We were like two guys pulling each other's tails plus Vince I think kind of stirring up the Sean at one time was a very close friend of mine. I'm not opposed to being his friend.

27:16If he wants to be friends with me, I miss a lot of the guys like Steve Austin and Undertaker and different wrestlers who are close friends at one time. Someday when they get through their careers in the wrestling maybe you can pick up your friendships. If that happened with Sean that would be alright. Was he good to work with? Sean? Yeah. He was always good to work with. He was always a professional except for that last night. Hulk Hogan. Hulk? I used to be a big fan of Hulk's. Not the biggest fan anymore. He just kind of, I know he said this about me one time which I found really offensive. But in fact it's true for him. He said he forgot being one of the boys. He used to

28:02be just one of the wrestlers. And he was our hero in the dresser too. He sold out and kind of got wrestling off the ground in such a way that we're all really mesmerized by him as the fans were. We thought he was the greatest thing that ever, you know, he fed our families. He got wrestling into this bigger, whole bigger realm now. But in the end he turned out to be, when I pick a Hulk Hogan and I look back now, he was the guy that was spoiled rotten and deservedly so in those days. But in me, you know he talks about his life on the road, wrestling, and his book and stuff. Hulk Hogan had the easiest schedule in the world. He flew in on a Leark yet. He went, he showed up anytime he wanted. All the things that they criticized me for. He did rent every night. He worked about

28:48three times a week, twice a week. And that was only when he wanted to. And he made a ton of money and the rest of us, you know, got the drippings. And that's kind of, now once he got out of the business, he never did anything for any other wrestler. You know, he always, there's all about what he could do for himself. And you can look at what he did with me in WCW. And I think that was just the case of him saying, don't do anything with him. And I sat on the sidelines and just when that company needed some revenue, an influx of big revenue, fish off, they needed to put the two biggest names that they had in the company that were paying the most money to. Why not put them against each other? It never ever happened because

29:35Hulk was too narrow minded and too selfish to want to work with somebody else. Like he was always all about him. And he didn't care about the business. If he cared about the business, he would have done that for the company when they were starting to slide. But they were so full of themselves. It was like Rome was burning and they were all too worried about the stupid things. So, you know, it was really, Hulk was always, I don't, it came going to TNA. Why don't know what he's going to do in TNA for guys like just watching TNA and seeing what they've done with AJ Styles and that old bag of bones, Rick Flair, it's like, you know, you realize that, you know, these guys are not going to make that company better. They're going to make it worse and

30:20they're going to ruin. What was maybe a good company struggling to kind of get its head above, they're looking for more exposure. And I think they've sold themselves on Hulk Hogan's worldwide popularity. But I don't know if they've taken their account that ever since all these family troubles with him and his ex-wife and his son and little jail calls and all that. I think his worldwide popularity is plummeted to, you know, I don't put Hulk Hogan in a much different, more category than Jimmy Swagger and some of his other guys. Well, actually, no, it's still Kurt Henning. I'm sure you worked some good in that. I love, if you ask me if I could pick one guy at a wrestle, like I had to go in right now and wrestle him. He Kurt Henning. Every night, every time. He was, he was, I said it in my book. I said it was

31:10spiver, spy, this one. Mad magazine, two spies. We were just like that. We were always such great chemistry. And a lot of humor. We always had a lot of, a few laughs every night in the ring, where people were never aware of. He was always a lot of fun. I can remember a lot of time doing all kinds of things. Like, drop kicks and clothes lines and I'd be laughing my head off. I'd try not to show that I was ready to fall over laughing. He was always a funny guy. Vince. Vince. Well, I still think I'm not sure. I've worked, I think, four Mondays at this point. So I think at this point, I think Vince is a changed guy. I can only assume that a

32:01couple of billion dollars might do that for somebody making that more happier person. I'd know that when I, the stuff that I've done with Vince seems to have really lit him up a little bit. And he seems like he is really loving the role that he's playing and he's excited about what he's going to do next week. And he's really into it. And you've got to probably, anyone that doesn't think Vince advanced got the greatest behind in wrestling. He's always really in mind for wrestling, whether take it. And the vision that he sees is a pretty deep long vision. So I think when I see Vince, I, you know, going back, I kind of knew that he would be able to make this worthwhile worth doing. If you're interested, I mean, that was my attitude with him.

32:48I'm interested if you're interested. If you're not interested, let's just, you know, move on. You know, at the same time he's been interested and they've got on board and they've treated me really well with this whole thing that's happened so far. I expect it should work out pretty well. And my, my feeling about Vince is that he probably feels pretty bad about what happened with Owen and things that happened in my family and even what happened with me. And, you know, he owns some of that. And a lot of it was, of course, it was Owen. But I also know that Owen, what happened with Owen was an accident and nothing to do with anybody but the guy that failed to understand how to do the rigging. And so it was a mistake, a human error. It was a tragic

33:33thing that had nothing to do with the company or where, you know. So I think that's had, and what happened with me if you can sort of, you know, I said I, I forgave it a long time ago when I had my stroke and called me in the hospital. And I think I really did have that moment of just glad that it was off my back and being, being in good terms with Vince. It was a lot like a father to me at once upon a time. And then he, you know, did that to me in Montreal. And it hurt for a long time. But I mean, I think it, I think everyone kind of wished it had gone down a different way or that I think they wished it had a smarter sense of what maybe a better way of doing it. But that's what prevailed at a time and they have to live with that. And I can.

34:23Well, it kind of worked out pretty good though for both of you at the same time. You have this great story to tell. He became this big bad guy in his own world. The book kind of made it well. Well, in a way, you're right. Because I know that for me, what's to find me in this country and maybe to find me all around the world is the one guy that stood up for himself. You know, the only guy that ever did anything real in wrestling was me that they much really all kind of like, you know, there's been lots of real situations sometimes too, too real. You know, you think of things that happened in the last 30 years. But it definitely defined me. And I think it, the more, you know, they try to, you know, whitewash it all the time and tell you different something else about it or it was always about me being, for a long time, it was about me being

35:14petulant or, you know, not a company guy or hard guy to deal with. And anyway, everything I ever said in the beginning and everything they said in the beginning and it's like all these years later, everything I said turned out to be true and everything they said turned out to be a bunch of baloney. And I think that defined me. And people, you know, I always say when people see Shawn Michaels and that wrestling with shadows plays all the time, at least twice a year in Canada on different 80 and different Canadian shows. And I think when you watch Shawn Michaels hump in the flag, we put it down in the ring and actually says, you know, I think that gets your blood going in this country so much. And then you realize, you know, that he punched this guy out and got took wrestling so seriously that he overreacted, and I wouldn't say overreacted, but

36:01reacted so strongly about it. Then I think you have to be proud of that moment. And I think that's probably, I know that's the reason I got voted in this country for being number 39 greatest Canadian. Speaking of which, the last thing, one of my last two breath hearts. And what about, well, how do you want to be remembered? I think I want to be remembered as someone that that followed his heart. Somebody that never aged really, I still feel that I still have a lot of my friends from elementary school, believe it or not. When I'm with him, I'm not breathy and that heart.

36:52Even though I was always kind of breathy and my heart then, even as a kid, I mean, I was always wrestling and everything. But I just sort of feel that I never really sold myself out. You know, that I've always followed my heart and I've stayed pretty true to myself and I'm somebody that wakes up in the morning and I look in the mirror, I'm happy, happy I'm alive, be happy with who I am. And I think that's, if you be able to say that every day, look in the mirror and see yourself and go, you know, I'm not a bad person. And I've always, I've always been pretty good to people and I've always followed my heart and I'm going to have to trample on a lot of people to get what I want. You know, it really feels good knowing that I

37:38didn't have to stab a lot of people on the back to get where I got where I got. You know, I can speak, you know, my book is my grounding achievement in a lot of ways, but it's like, here I am. You can take whatever shots you want at me, but you know, good luck because I've already taken most of the shots myself. You know. Awesome. Well, thank you. I appreciate it.