Bret Hart has revealed one of Vince McMahon’s false promises.
Over three decades ago, Bret Hart was one of the most popular wrestlers in WWE. In 1992, fans witnessed Hart win the World title and enjoy the title run from October 1992 to April 1993. At WrestleMania IX, Hart lost the title to Yokozuna, who later lost it to Hulk Hogan on the same night.
While this was The Hitman’s second-longest WWE Championship run, he recently revealed that McMahon had once promised him a long six-year championship reign, which never happened. During an appearance on The Ringer’s Masked Man Show, Hart said,
“It changed a lot of things. At that time period, the world champion is the highest paid guy. Here I am, the highest paid guy in the company. Business has gone down a little bit, but I’m the star of the show now. My memory of it, things were like an elevator phone, business was plummeting every week because [Hulk] Hogan had the steroid scandal and the ring boy scandal had come out at the same time, and Vince was being investigated.
It was a lot of dark, gloomy things. The steroid testing and all that. It was almost like, ‘Who can we put the belt on that’s not going to screw everything up? Put it on Bret Hart.’ The match I had with [British] Bulldog at Wembley kind of elevated me up.
“I remember when I won the title, Vince [McMahon] told me that I would be champion for, they were looking long-term, kind of like Bruno [Sammartino] and he brought up Bruno and [Bob] Backlund, and he said, ‘You’re going to be champion for six years. You’re going to be champion for a long time. Don’t worry about your position. You don’t have to worry about anything.’ When Hogan came in, ‘Don’t worry about Hogan, he’s got nothing to do with you.
He’s here to promote a movie. He’s short-term.’ It was always Vince telling me things. I was very confident. The reason I became the champion that I did is because I believed I was going to be the champion for a long time, and I’m going to be like Bruno. It’s a tougher time, almost like a depression feeling, and I’m going to be the guy. I think I’m the best guy to carry it going forward.”
H/t Fightful
Unfortunately, Bret Hart never had a singles WWE Championship run that even lasted one year, although he later went on to become a five-time champion.
Vince McMahon Once Made A Promise To Goldberg That Never Came To Fruition
Similar to Bret Hart, Vince McMahon had once made a promise to the Hall of Famer Goldberg, which unfortunately never came to fruition. Recently speaking to Ariel Helwani The Ariel Helwani Show, Goldberg claimed,
“Vince had promised me another match because not too many people know this, but I took the Roman match with like a month prior notice, and I had Covid. That’s not the way to go out. I always, in the bottom of my heart, wanted to go out and present myself in a little bit more positively than I was able to. I mean, Paul and I spoke and we came to an agreement that in 2025 I’d have my retirement match.”
In other news: A recent WWE SmackDown also experienced another shoot segment.