Bret Hart admits he struggles to watch professional wrestling today because it’s ‘too fake’ for the three-time WWE Hall of Famer.
Then seven-time world champion told the Jonny I Show that as much as he loves the profession, he can’t watch much of it these days.
“I’ll be honest, I have a hard time watching today’s wrestling. I just can’t really watch it. It’s too fake for me.
“But I love watching the old 90s wrestling. I really do. Like when I watch my matches back, just in almost any match, even obscure Stampede Wrestling matches—there’s something about the realism, the punches and the kicks, and even the just the way the presentation is.
“It just seems to me to be more onus put on the workmanship of learning the craft of being wrestlers.
“I think that today’s wrestlers are actors—most of them are actors pretending to be wrestlers—and you know, they don’t actually know how to wrestle and they don’t even know what a headlock is.
“Like, everything is a high spot. Everything is high spots, like, ‘I want to get my move in.’ It’s like, I don’t know, I always thought wrestling needed to actually pretend to be wrestling.
“I miss the wrestling aspect and the psychology of the 60s and 70s wrestling, like the presentation of trying to, you know, pretending that it’s a real sport.”
Of course, Hart, 68, has some points but also, the business has changed dramatically over the past few decades.
Once upon a time, the audience wasn’t totally sure whether it was real or not and thus, storylines and the action in the ring reflected that.
Now, everyone knows it’s not real or to be more precise, it’s pre-determined. So Triple H and co. running WWE are more worried about putting on an entertaining show or event – and that changes what fans expect from the action.
It’s all subjective, but you can understand why someone who operated in Hart’s era of the business and how it exploded internationally would view what the sport has become today.
