Bret Hart
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the professional wrestler. For the American author, see
Bret Harte.
"Hitman Hart" redirects here. For the documentary film, see
Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows.
Bret Hart
Hart in 2010
Birth name Bret Sergeant Hart
[1] Born July 2, 1957 (age 60)
Calgary,
Alberta, Canada
[2] Alma mater
Mount Royal College Spouse(s) Julie Smadu
(m. 1982; div. 2002)
Cinzia Rota
(m. 2004; div. 2007)
Stephanie Washington
(m. 2010) Children 4 Family
Hart
Harry Smith, maternal grandfather
[3] Website
brethart.com Professional wrestling career Ring name(s) Bret Hart[2]
Buddy Hart
[2] Billed height 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
[4] Billed weight 235 lb (107 kg)
[4] Billed from Calgary, Alberta, Canada Trained by
Stu Hart[2]
Katsuji Adachi[2]
Kazuo Sakurada[5] Debut 1978
[6] Retired 2000
[7][a] Bret Sergeant Hart (born July 2, 1957), better known by the
ring name Bret "The Hitman" Hart, is a Canadian-American retired professional wrestler, retired amateur wrestler, writer and actor.
[8] A member of the
Hart wrestling family and a second-generation wrestler, he has an
amateur wrestling background, wrestling at
Ernest Manning High School and
Mount Royal College. A major international
draw within professional wrestling, he has been credited with changing the perception of mainstream North-American professional wrestling in the early 1990s by bringing technical in-ring performance to the fore. Hart is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time;
Sky Sports noted that
his legacy is that of "one of, if not the greatest, to have ever graced the squared circle".
Hart joined his father
Stu Hart's
promotion Stampede Wrestling in 1976, and made his in-ring debut in 1978. He gained championship success throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now
WWE), where he helmed
The Hart Foundation faction. He left for
World Championship Wrestling (WCW) following the controversial "
Montreal Screwjob" in November 1997, where he remained until October 2000. Having been inactive from in-ring competition since January 2000, owing to a December 1999
concussion, he officially retired in October 2000, shortly after his departure from the company. He returned to sporadic in-ring competition from 2010–2011 with WWE, where he won his final championship, headlined the
2010 SummerSlam event, and served as the
general manager of
Raw. Throughout his career, Hart headlined
WrestleManias IX,
X, and
XII, and participated in the main event of the
1997 and
1999 editions of WCW
Starrcade – as a
special enforcer in the former.
Hart has held championships in five decades from the 1970s to the 2010s, with a total of 32 held throughout his career, and 17 held between the WWF/WWE and WCW. He is a seven-time
world champion, having held the
WWF World Heavyweight Championship five times and the
WCW World Heavyweight Championship twice. He spent more
time as WWF World Heavyweight Champion than any other wrestler during the 1990s, with a total of 654 days as champion, and was the
first WCW World Heavyweight Champion born outside the United States. He is also a
five-time WCW/WWE United States Champion, a
two-time WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion, and a three time
world tag team champion (
two-time WWF Tag Team Champion and
one-time WCW World Tag Team Champion), thus making him the second
WWF Triple Crown Champion and fifth (with
Goldberg)
WCW Triple Crown Champion, and the first man to win both the WWF and WCW Triple Crown Championships. Hart is also the
1994 Royal Rumble match winner (with
Lex Luger), and the only two-time
King of the Ring, winning the
1991 tournament and the first
King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1993.
Stone Cold Steve Austin, with whom Hart headlined multiple
pay-per-view events as part of
an acclaimed rivalry from 1996 to 1997, inducted him into the
WWE Hall of Fame in 2006.
Outside of wrestling Hart has appeared in numerous films and television shows such as
The Simpsons as well as featuring in several documentaries, both about himself specifically and others about the wrestling industry in general. Hart also helped found and lend his name to the
major junior ice hockey team the
Calgary Hitmen and has written two biographies as well has having a weekly column for the
Calgary Sun for over a decade.
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