Bret Hart Recalls Hitting Vince McMahon “As Hard As I Could” During Their WrestleMania Match

During an interview while on tour in the UK for Inside the Ropes in October 2019, WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart went into detail on his match with Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 26 and how it was laid out on the weekend of the event.

The match was some 12-plus years in the making since the Montreal Screwjob at Survivor Series 1997, and due to limitations in Bret Hart’s physical ability, Vince McMahon put together how he wanted the match to come across.

Vince came up with the entire storyline including putting my whole family and siblings all around the ring. All my family came down (for WrestleMania), they thought they were just all coming for the Hall of Fame. And you have to understand half of my family was unhappy with Vince with what happened with Owen for starters, and what happened with me with the screwjob, and the fact that Vince never paid one penny to my dad for stealing his territory from him.

Bret’s father Stu Hart was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame the night before WrestleMania 26 which is the main reason the whole family were in Phoenix, Arizona for the weekend, and while there Vince had a meeting with the entire Hart Family to lay out his plans for the match with Bret the following day.

So when we had the meeting in the dressing room with Vince telling everyone they were gonna be lumberjacks all around the ring, and I remember my sister Allison, who’s a librarian, getting kinda freaked out about it and her jaw dropped. And my brother Bruce, some people think my brother Bruce was kinda stiff as a wrestler and kinda reckless with his punches. And the first thing Vince McMahon said was ‘Your brother Bruce – I don’t want him laying one finger on me. Your brother Bruce has to be the referee so then he won’t be able to touch me.’

At the start of the match, it was revealed that Vince McMahon had ‘paid off’ the Hart Family to be the lumberjacks, but it was a ruse on Vince and the family had taken his money and were still on Bret’s side. Before the match, Vince had also told Bret to really give a beating to him during the match using weapons as he would be wearing some hidden padding.

Just before we walked out to go to the ring, Vince tells me I want you to hit me absolutely as hard as you can with those chairs. And then he pulls up his coat and he’s got this big rubber stuntman pad that’s about 6 inches thick that’s curved to make him look like he’s got a big muscular back. I kept smashing Vince over the back as hard as I could, sometimes it hurt my hands bashing him so hard. And my brother Bruce was freaking out, kept backing me up saying ‘take it easy on him’. Bruce is looking at me like ‘you’re gonna kill him!’ I never told Bruce the story that he had the pad on his back.

While not remembered fondly like some of Bret Hart’s other classic WrestleMania matches against the likes of Roddy Piper, his brother Owen Hart, Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin, Bret was still happy with how the match with Vince turned out and became emotional when giving his final thoughts about it.

I know it wasn’t my greatest match but I love the match for what it meant to me.

Which Event Did Bret Hart Hail As One Of His Greatest Nights?

WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart revealed that winning the 1993 King of the Ring tournament was one of his greatest nights, and how he prided himself on making sure each of his three matches were different on that event.

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