re: A&E Biography is back: Bret Hart premiere

So, basically, they're justifying Helwig being a total f-ing a-hole because his father left when he was 10.


Go watch Booker T's story, a guy who was literally orphaned at 13 and never had a father to begin with, and, by all accounts, he is a nice guy. Let's face it, everybody hated Warrior, so they had to get a bunch of family members and writers/fans to come on this doc and say nice things about him.

I’ve heard and read some terribly negative stuff about Warrior over the years, but I prefer to judge people based on personal interactions rather than hearsay. On that note, I’ll relay a story.

In June 1990, when I was 15, Warrior was a hero of mine. He was WWF World champion at the time, and wrestled a title defense against Rick Rude at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. A buddy of mine found out what hotel the wrestlers were staying at, so after the show was over, we high-tailed it to the hotel to wait for him. We waited for over an hour, and eventually gave up and decided to leave. Just as we were walking out of the lobby, a limo pulled up, and out stepped Warrior & Jimmy Snuka. They grabbed their bags and quickly walked into the hotel and bee-lined it straight for the elevator. I caught up to them just as the elevator door opened. I said, “Excuse me, Warrior, Mr. Snuka, can I get an autograph?” Snuka totally ignored me and stepped into the elevator and looked at Warrior. Warrior looked at him at said, “I’ll meet you up there.” He then signed autographs and took pics with us. He easily could’ve done like Snuka and totally ignored us and gotten into the elevator, but he didn’t. He gave a few minutes of time to these kids who admired him, and for that, he’ll always be one of my favorites.

I attended his HoF ceremony, WMXXX, and had ringside seats for the RAW the next night. I’m so glad that I got to see him again right before he passed. Actually, if you look at the biography footage that just aired, you can see me in the crowd holding up a sign that says “NEVER FORGET 02.05.88”

Probably so but I couldn't imagine the loss of privacy

Warrior was terrible in the ring, but he had one extremely underrated quality that all of today’s guys lack: intensity. Goldberg was similar in that regard. Intensity like that is contagious, and when the crowd feels that energy, you’ve got ‘em.

I’ve got news for ya: the majority of pro wrestlers are total pricks irl. If you’re an outsider, unless you’re paying them for something, they want nothing to do with you. Do not attempt to approach them, especially at a bar or restaurant. They have huge egos, cheat on their spouses, and treat women like trash. Very, very few of them are what I’d call “stand-up” guys.

Highlights of the DSOTR collision in korea episode

Muhammad Ali doing magic tricks

Chris Benoit preventing a murder

Scott Steiner being calm and not the one almost causing international incidents.

Bischoff going for a casual jog in North Korea

This is wild

Apparently Mick Foley is next week (never was a huge Foley fan, but it will probably enjoyable) and then, I assume Bret Hart will.be the finale in 2 weeks.

Cant wait, Bret should get an entire series. The screwjob and HBk stuff (which, yes, I know has been covered to death) is a whole 2 hour episode itself and then you could do an hour just on lead up and execution of WM 13 with Austin (probably the best match in WWF history), and how Bret and the Hart Foundation helped Austin rise in his early Stone Cold days.

There also needs to be an hour dedicated to his WCW run and how Bischoff and Co. ruined his character, then how Goldberg ended his career.

You could also do 2 hours on his stampede days, the Hart family, and his early WWF days. And that's all just his career and not his personal life, which has seen a lot of deaths to loved ones.

Bret is endlessly fascinating to me and probably my favorite pro wrestler of all time.

We encountered Eddie Guerrero, William Regal, Chris Benoit, Dave Taylor, and Dean Malenko at Hooters on College Dr. after a WCW show. None of them were very friendly. One of my buddies (who was overweight) had been heckling Regal during his match, and Regal had said something under his breath. So as we were leaving Hooters, he went straight up to Regal and said, “Mr. Steven Regal, during your match you said something to me under your breath and I didn’t catch it. Do you mind repeating it for me?” And Regal replied, “I told you to eat some celery you fat bastard”

Seeing some of these docs it’s clear why wrestling will likely never see anything in popularity like it once did. You’ll never hook in the kids like you once did, we did believe it was real and would debate who would win between Warrior or Hogan. There’s just too much information out there now to let you know it all is fake. The internet killed it, too much access and peaks behind the curtain.

It hooked you as a kid then and you grew with it, even as you realized it was in fact not real.

Now it just seeks out a certain demographic that accepts and enjoys it for the sports soap opera it is. It’ll never be as mainstream as it once was IMO