Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart has detailed a roadside brawl he partook in during the 1980s, where he, Davey Boy Smith and several others were heavily outnumbered.
On one hot summers night in the nineteen eighties, a rookie Bret Hart took on Nick Bockwinkel in a show produced by his father’s famous Stampede Wrestling. The match also featured the legendary Lou Thesz as the special guest referee and Davey Boy Smith on the undercard.
As was the norm, Hart, Smith and Thesz shared a car back to Calgary where they encountered six very drunk men who chose to pick a fight with the wrong men.
During the latest episode of Confessions Of The Hitman, Bret Hart told the story that begins on a drive back from the show and ends in an impressive feat of strength from the man who would find fame as Th British Bulldog:
“I remember I just put a new stereo in my car, a brand new sound system, and I was wanting to check it out on the way back [to Calgary, Alberta, Canada]. And I remember Lou Thesz came up to me. He goes, ‘hey guys, I can’t ride in the van. It’s not my thing. It’s too many guys, too many stops, too many beers.’ He was not a party guy. So anyways, I said to Lou, ‘I’m going to have the music cranked up pretty loud and you’re not going to want to ride back with me.’
He goes, ‘no, trust me, the music won’t bother me. Just let me sit [in the back of your car].’ Finally, I was like, ‘okay, Lou, you can ride with me.’ He’s the six-time world champion! And so, me, Lou Thesz, and Davey ‘Boy’ were driving back. And Davey was still just a kid in those days. We were driving back and I was so tired.”
As Bret Hart would tell, their car was t-boned by a similar vehicle containing six very inebriated gentlemen who didn’t take kindly with another car being on the road after they’d had their fun:
“We were driving but before we got to Memorial Drive, at the light before that, six guys in a car, they just about hit us broadside and they swerved. They ran through a red light and came right at us, and we screeched on the brakes. And it was summertime, about 100º in Calgary, or 89 or 90º – it was a really hot night. And we pull up to the traffic light right on Memorial Drive and Edmonton Trail, and I remember I was just so tired and I had my arm out the window on my side. Davey had his arm out his window on the other side. Lou’s in the backseat, six-time world champion and one of the toughest guys there ever was in [pro] wrestling. He was about 80-something years old then.
And we pull up to the light and the guy over in the car driving looks over at Davey, and he says, ‘where did you learn to f**king drive?’ And then the guy who was on the passenger side in that guy’s car jumped out of the car and ran around, and Davey opened up his car door and he jumped out of the car. And now Davey’s going toe to toe with the guy who had run around from the other side, so I slid over on my side of the car. And the doors were kind of–the way the doors opened, I was sort of boxed in. And there are five other guys in the car. They were so drunk they didn’t even know we stopped. They didn’t even know what happened. And so, at this traffic light in about 20 or 30 seconds, we knocked out all six of these guys.”
Davey Boy Smith’s legendary toughness outside the ring is worth of a story on its own. He was the main saviour of Shawn Michaels during the famous Syracuse brawl in 1995 and as Bret Hart tells, the Brit was the powerhouse of the battle:
“I just remember when I went to go help Davey, he had one guy on his back. He had the other guy in a bodyslam position. And I’m thinking, ‘that’s pretty impressive to me, to bodyslam somebody right on the pavement on Edmonton Trail.’ I pulled the guy off Davey. I pulled him off by the hair, and Davey, I remember watching it out of the corner of my eye, Davey bodyslammed this guy right on the pavement for real. Just splatted him on the pavement. And then, I remember I had the guy I peeled off Davey, and I remember I didn’t know what to do with him so I had his head, I took it… banged his head on the trunk of the car. But I remember, he never did [put his hands up to block].
He kept his hands by his side, and I banged his head on the trunk of the car and I knocked him out cold. And it was all in about 30 or 40 seconds. We jumped back in the car, and I remember, when we drove off, I accidentally drove over somebody’s leg. I could see it in the rearview mirror. I didn’t know he was lying there out cold with his leg underneath the tire, but I could feel the bump as I went passed. I remember looking in the mirror and I go, ‘oh, God.'”
With two of the greatest wrestlers their respective countries had ever produced in a 6-on-2 battle, Lou Thesz didn’t feel the need to get involved whatsoever and watched his two younger friends from the comfort of the car:
“And I remember Lou Thesz. He was watching the whole thing from the window with his glasses on. He was so [apologetic]. He kept apologizing to me for not getting out and helping us. I was like, ‘Lou, you’re 80 years old. No one expected you to get out. I didn’t even know we were going to get into a rumble.’ And it was just a funny memory, especially when I think back at how Davey was so tough in those days for his age. He bodyslammed that kid right on the pavement. I think it was a bad night for those guys.”
Bret Hart’s tales are legendary and far reaching. In the past couple of months, he’s told how Bill Goldberg ended his career, gives his thoughts and stories on Jake Roberts and detailed his role in the Simpsons which garnered its own WWF Magazine cover.
His latest tale was about his 1993 King of the Ring victory, where he defeated three of the very best wrestlers in the company’s history in one night and in a trifector of very different matches.
Credit for the interview: Confessions Of The Hitman
h/t for the transcription: Wrestling Inc.