Bret Hart isn’t a fan of taking chops.
Speaking in a new interview with HNLive, Hart explained why he finds chops to be “stupid,” saying that wrestling is supposed to be a show and there’s no need to get hurt while putting on a performance.
“When I see wrestlers today just slapping and the crowd going, ‘wooo’ and everyone keeps slapping, one after another and these guys have welts all over their chest and blisters and their chest hurt that night and they go, ‘Geez, I was an idiot tonight and let somebody slap me on the chest as hard as he could 500 times and my chest is killing me.’ That’s what they used to do to the jabronies back in the old days, they would chop them, beat them, and slap them. I would never let a guy slap me and chop me.”
“That’s Not What Wrestling Is” – Bret Hart On Chops
Continuing, Hart admitted that he did allow fellow two-time WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair to deliver chops to him in matches on a limited basis.
“Ric Flair is the only guy that ever chopped me. He usually got to me in the end where I would tell Ric, ‘you can give me one chop in the match to get it over with,’ but as far as the match goes, I’m not going to sit there and stick my chest out for some guy to slap me on the chest for an hour.
“That’s not what wrestling is. It’s not about hurting yourself. It’s not about coming back to the dressing room and feeling…everyone knows that it’s not real, right? They all know what’s going on. So why are you letting someone slap you and chop you and whip you across the chest and hurt you and you’re in pain all night and you wake up the next day with blisters all over your chest and then do it again the next night. It’s just stupid.”
Ric Flair himself spoke about Bret Hart hating chops during a 2020 appearance on the Broken Skull Sessions, also naming The Undertaker as someone who complained about the move.
Elsewhere in the interview, Hart explained why he was “embarrassed” to sit front row for WWE Clash at the Castle.
h/t Fightful