WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart revealed on the latest episode of his Confessions of the Hitman podcast that Vince McMahon never paid his father, Stu Hart, the $750,000 owed for the purchased of Stampede Wrestling. Highlights can be found below.
Says Vince McMahon never paid Stu Hart the $750,000 for Stampede Wrestling:
They worked out a deal. Vince McMahon bought my dad’s wrestling company for, I believe it was 1984, bought it for $750,000. He never paid it. My dad gave up his show. Vince McMahon took over his time slot and took over, basically all the contacts for all the buildings and venues my dad was partnered with, and kind of took over. And he forgot to pay my dad. He forgot. It’s one of those things that Vince McMahon tended to do, but he never paid my father.
Says he didn’t find out until shortly after Owen Hart’s death:
I didn’t know. I never knew that that was the case. I always assumed my dad got paid and I didn’t find out till Owen’s death that that was not true. [Vince] never paid us a nickel.
How his father never pressed Vince about it because his career was taking off:
I guess what it was is that my mom and dad never got paid, but my [WWE] career started to take off and they didn’t push it with Vince. It was either that or sue them and I think they would have won, but I would’ve been fired in the process. So I think my dad bit his tongue, and never said anything, and it was just this oversight that he never got paid. And why he never got paid is a mystery to me. My dad did basically everything he was supposed to do as far as their agreement.
How Stu Hart once confronted Vince about it at Madison Square Garden:
I remember my dad flew to New York to talk to Vince about having not been paid, and I brought my dad to New York. I remember I brought him to New York because I thought it was going to be the only chance for him to ever watch me in Madison Square Garden. ‘I might not be here six months from now.’ I was on pretty thin ice then,” Bret said. “I was still with Jim ‘The Anvil’ [Neidhart] and we were doing pretty well, but I was the type of guy whose name could get crossed out at any time and nobody would notice, like, ‘Oh, whatever happened to Bret Hart?’ But it would have been a life altering thing for me because I didn’t have much to fall back on other than wrestling.” Bret added, “I think it was like, he was going to confront Vince McMahon, and I believe he did, about not being paid, and I’m not sure what happened. But I just know that I think they were like, we can’t interfere now and if we do anything, it’s going to cut my career short right when I really started to show everybody how good I was.
Full episodes to the show can be found here with a subscription. (H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.
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