Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling
Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling (Hardcover)
by Bret Hart
This book is an autobiography on the life of pro-wrestler Bret "The Hitman" Hart. For those that don't know him, he's a 2nd generation wrestler that would win the WWE (then WWF) World Heavyweight Championship 5 times. Prior to that he was their 2 time Intercontinental Champ and Tag Team Champion as part of the Hart Foundation. After he left WWE he had some success in WCW as both World and US Champion before getting laid off due to health issues.
Among knowledgeable wrestling fans Bret is known for telling it straight and fairly consistent when he talks about the behind the scenes stuff in wrestling. There are a lot of wrestlers that aren't so honest or accurate. These people bullshit for a living and it caries over into real life for some of them. Also unlike many wrestlers, Bret is publishing this through Random House, not WWE so he's able to tell his story without any company censoring or tweaking of the events to put the company in the best light. Bret is out of the business now and can't go back for health reasons, so he doesn't have to worry about his words coming back to haunt him financially.
Bret's book is a great, great read. It goes through all the details from his growing up at the Hart Family, Stampede Wrestling Days, Japan, WWF, WCW, his stroke and a bit more. He doesn't pull any punches and the entire book is a shoot. The book praises people who he thought were good workers or good people and tells the truth about people that weren't and why. This especially includes his own brothers and sisters. Some of which I'm sure will never speak to him again, but I get the impression Bret would rather not have anything to do with them any way. It's actually quite sad that the Hart Family clan has been broken up by certain hateful, sleazy members that can't make an honest living for themselves.
He also talks about a lot of funny/interesting stories about the various characters he knew. Especially with Dynamite Kid and an 70 year old ex-female wrestler who strongly hit on all the guys. Plenty of stuff about other people too, you'll learn surprising backstage stuff about a variety of wrestlers in here and bits of past wrestling history as well. Some of which concurs in part with other wrestlers telling of the same stories.
Regarding himself, Bret is honest about his own flaws involving Sex, Drugs, Steroids and Pain Killers. I'm a pretty knowledgeable Bret fan and there was lots of stuff in here that I didn't know. There was some tiny bits of information he wrote about in various columns and revealed in shoot interviews he left out, but none of it is really that important. Still, the book is 600 pages long and takes a while to get through.
Probably the biggest flaw is he doesn't say if he was sleeping with then WWF Manager Sunny as he was accused of doing by real life rival Shawn Michaels. Based on his admitted history with women on the road, I'd be surprised if he wasn't. He publicly said he wasn't during the Wrestling with Shadows documentary and he was still married with kids at the time. My guess is he probably doesn't want to be called a liar for that and have everything else he wrote called into credibility. There is a possibility some powerful people in wrestling (Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels, Triple H, plus some of his family members) would like to cast doubt on his unflattering portrayals of them. But anyway, any intelligent person can read about his admitted long history of infidelity and connect the dots from there. Which I'm sure is how he intended it.
In all I give this 5 out of 5 stars.