Bret Hart recently opened up about the vision behind Dungeon Wrestling and how closely it tries to capture the spirit of the legendary Stampede Wrestling.
The WWE Hall of Famer spoke about the promotion during a recent interview with Sports Illustrated’s The Takedown.
Dungeon Wrestling is operated by Bret’s son, Dallas Hart, and frequently runs shows at the Victoria Pavilion in Calgary, an arena that historically hosted events during the Stampede Wrestling era under Bret’s father, Stu Hart.
According to Bret, he has long encouraged his son to model the promotion after the classic Stampede live-event experience.
“I’ve always encouraged Dallas and Dungeon Wrestling to try to emulate the Stampede Wrestling live experience as much as possible,” Hart said. “It’s hard because you don’t have access to the talent you had back in those days. You get wrestlers coming in, and you don’t know how good they are until they get here. There are situations where the wrestlers don’t have the experience of working every day like those days.”
Hart even suggested that some of the shows produced by Dungeon Wrestling have compared favorably to major modern events.
“I’ve seen some outstanding shows that, to a certain degree, I would say they were better than some of the WWE pay-per-views in how a wrestling show is put together,” Bret continued.
That said, the former world champion acknowledged that recreating the old territorial system comes with challenges, particularly without some of the key figures and talent pipeline that once defined the Stampede era.
“It would be really nice to see a territorial-like wrestling company get back in business and have a TV show,” he said. “Those things might be in the future for Dungeon Wrestling, but at the same time, you don’t have Stu Hart, you don’t have Ed Whalen, you don’t have that selection of talent like you used to have where you could bring in the world champion, or a guy from Puerto Rico, or a guy from Japan.”
Dungeon Wrestling is scheduled to return to the Victoria Pavilion on Friday, April 3 for its next live event.
