--- SMACKDOWN RESULTS: Swagger-Rey (CLICK HERE) --- NEWS & NOTES (CLICK HERE) --- SPOILERS: Aug. 6 episode (CLICK HERE)
--- AUG. 12 IMPACT: Spike TV announces full "fight card" line-up for TNA's post-Hardcore Justice PPV special (CLICK HERE)
--- IMPACT RESULTS: Dreamer-Abyss, new title in TNA, Best of Five continues, Hardcore Justice & "Impact special" build-up (CLICK HERE)
--- TNA SPOILERS: Summary of next four big shows (CLICK HERE) --- 8/2 RAW SPOILERS: Detailed report on next week's Raw (CLICK HERE)
--- SUMMERSLAM: Updated PPV card (CLICK HERE) --- RAW HOUSE SHOW: PWTorch staff on-site for WWE house show (CLICK HERE)
--- Vince McMahon interview on his WWE future (CLICK HERE) --- [Refresh to Update News or CLICK TO GO TO MAIN LISTING] ...
WWE News: Bret Hart talks in-depth on Vince McMahon, WWE return, Owen Hart during TV interview
Mar 11, 2010 - 8:47:26 AM
By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor
WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart appeared on CTV's "Canada AM" show this morning promoting WrestleMania 26 and covering key subjects related to his return to WWE in a five-minute segment.
Hart was in-studio and shown not wearing a leg brace or using crutches to sell the storyline "car crash" leading to his WrestleMania match against Vince McMahon.
The over-riding story from what Hart said in the interview is that he came back to WWE because he did not want to be known as a bitter man holding grudges against the wrestling business or Vince McMahon forever. He also publicly absolved McMahon of any blame for his brother Owen Hart's death over ten years ago.
"I've clearly carried around a lot of bad feelings for Vince McMahon and the company for a long time. I think this whole - me coming back and playing this part and doing this thing with Vince McMahon at WrestleMania - is a way of clearing the table for everyone," Hart said.
"There's been so many bad things that happened; clearly my brother Owen's death was just a bad accident that you can't hold Vince McMahon directly accountable for that. It was someone else underneath that didn't know what he was doing. I guess my coming back was a way to forgive and forget in a good way and move on. I didn't know I would always be tagged as a guy who was always bitter or negative guy toward the wrestling business that kind of made me in a lot of ways. It's closure, maybe."
Hart added that he wanted to give back to the wrestling business and "make it okay" for wrestling fans in Canada to support the WWE product again. He said he felt it was time to put the past in the past and allow himself, Shawn Michaels, and Vince McMahon to have their burdens lifted from what happened at Survivor Series 1997.
"Now all these years later, it's like 'are you going to cry about it forever and just keep making a big deal about something that happened a long time ago in a wrestling match?' I know it's all very serious to me and it still is. But, at the same time, I felt that after 12 years, for one, I was getting a little bored back in Calgary just sitting around doing nothing all the time. I thought maybe it's a good time now after all these years to take something negative and turn it into a positive to do something good for wrestling fans to make them more at ease with what happened with me and my brother Owen," Hart said.
"I think a lot of people still feel a deep pain and deep hurt for what happened with my brother Owen. There's some of the younger generation Harts coming up in WWE, so I think it's a good way to show there's not the bad blood there used to be as far as making the wrestling as good as it used to be."
With people still concerned about his health after suffering a stroke in 2002, Hart closed by saying he doesn't expect to do anything physically he's not capable of working with McMahon at WrestleMania.
"Everyone watching shouldn't be too afraid of anything that's going to happen to me," he said. "I'm very careful of what I'm going to do and I'm going to take care of myself at WrestleMania."
