Hart Legacy Wrestling Founder & President Stacy Angel recently spoke with PWmania to discuss the promotion, her relationship with WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart, and more. Below are highlights from the interview:
Starting up Hart Legacy Wrestling:
“I was with Smith Hart at the time, and his son Matthew was put into foster care after his mom died. One night, Smith and I went out and saw Matt doing karaoke and I hung out with him for a bit. He asked for my number because he said he was in a bad situation and wanted to get out of it. So, I gave him my number and told him if he wanted to come to my place, I’d take him under my wing and he ended up moving in with me. While he lived with me, he said he wanted to get into professional wrestling. He originally wanted to get into culinary arts, but decided he wanted to get back with his family. So, I talked to Smith and my stepdad and he bought me some wrestling rings and we put on some events. We didn’t market them, so we didn’t have many fans attend.”
“We decided to book the Stampede Pavilion and we called our company Original Stampede Wrestling and then later called it Stampede Extreme Sports, but then we were told that we couldn’t call it that because we didn’t have the rights to the name Stampede. We then decided to call it Hart Legacy Wrestling and we sold out the Stampede Pavilion.”
Struggles of running a wrestling promotion and people giving her a bad reputation:
“I was the only female promoter in Canada, too, which has been a struggle for me even today. I’ll run events in Alberta and then all of a sudden, there will be other people trying to run 2-3 events the same night as me, trying to shut me down. I’ve had wrestlers who I’ve never met that don’t like me. They say I don’t pay my talent and all kinds of stuff.”
Her relationship with Bret Hart and planning to change the promotion’s name:
“No. Bret and I don’t get along. We don’t slander each other, but we keep our distance. Speaking of the Harts, I am going to be changing the name of the company.”
“I haven’t gone public with the new name yet. I’ve been working with the Harts a long time and I was with Smith for 9 years. Julie is still like a sister to me. Teddy and I had a great relationship until we started butting heads. But I never felt like I was a part of the family, even though the fans think I am. Don’t get me wrong, I still love them all and they’re welcome to come to my shows. But it’s time for me to move on. And I’m confident that the fans will love what I have to offer. I hope to have commercials running by November or December. I’m pretty excited about the future. We already have a dozen events booked for next year for both Canada and the U.S.”
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