In a recent interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, Bret Hart revealed that he once pitched the idea of being accompanied to the ring by a cat.
As unlikely as the idea sounds, Bret suggests it could have happened. Growing increasingly frustrated with his lack of direction in WCW, ‘The Hitman’ cut a promo talking about his cat Smokey and to his astonishment it actually impressed company hierarchy.
Talking to Fightful Bret said:
“I had nothing to talk about. I’m going out and I’m ranting about WCW fans, they have no respect,” I’m sitting there going, ‘What else do I got to say? I don’t have anything to say. I don’t know who I’m fighting or where I’m going, what I’m doing.’ I remember I got really frustrated, I went out and talked about my cat. I talked about my cat was my only fan, Smokey the cat. My cat was named Smokey. But, I remember it was the stupidest interview ‘cause I had nothing to talk about. It was almost sarcastic to make it clear to Bischoff in the back, ‘I don’t have anything to talk about.’ The best I can come up with is my cat. I just remember when I came back to the dressing room, Eric Bischoff goes, ‘I loved the part about the cat.’ He goes, ‘I loved it.’ I remember scratching my head and thinking, ‘For the money these guys are paying me, they’ve sure got some stupid people here.”
However the promo would just be the start. Intrigued to see how far WCW officials would take the cat idea, Bret came up with a whole angle and storyline that he pitched to Eric Bischoff.
“I actually remember giving him an idea about the cat, putting the cat carrier and having the cat in my corner all the time. He said he loved it. It never went anywhere, like everything in WCW. Yeah. I actually had an idea where the cat, I’d have a real cat all the time in my corner, and then for one of the matches I would put a stuffed toy cat in my cat carrier and I would have a zipper on it. I would stick the insides of the cat with a brick and then when I was in peril in the match I would reach in, say, a Boston crab or something like that, or some kind of a hold where I’m in jeopardy. I would open my cage door, reach through, grab the cat by the tail, swing it and hit the wrestler over the head with the brick and win the match with a stuffed cat with a brick. But, I remember it was almost like a rib to see if they would just do it. Actually, to be honest, it would have been better than anything they did have me do at that time. Anyway, that never came to fruition. Sometimes you gotta just make up stuff on the go all the time.”
Unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately – the idea never came to fruition as neither Smokey nor any other cat accompanied ‘The Hitman’ to the ring. Nevertheless, Bret eventually went on to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Mayhem in 1999, before his enforced retirement just months later.