There are a few things that have come out of Canada that I as a proud American have grown to love living so close to the boarder. Pooteenes (french fries with gravy and cheese), all nude strip clubs, SCTV, B.C’s, The Tragically Hip, of course The Movie Blog and wrestler Bret Hart.
Growing up I must admit that I was a wrestling fan and I do continue to show a moderate amount of interest in what is going on in the world of professional wrestling. Recently the WWE has been releasing large scale box sets filled with documentaries, matches and features surrounding the top wrestling personalities of then and now. Just the other week the WWE released Bret “Hitman” Hart: The Best There Is, The Best There Was, The Best There Ever Will Be, a full featured retrospective of the Hitman’s career. So in celebration of Thanksgiving and a belated Remembrance Day for all the Canadians, here’s my review of the DVD covering one of the greatest -if not the greatest- Canadian wrestler; Bret “The Hitman” Hart.
As wrestling DVD’s go -and I can’t believe I’m reviewing wrestling DVD’s- this one will not disappoint. For all the Canadian Movie Blog readers who are into wrestling this story should strike your nerves even more than others. The multi disk box set contains a 3 hour documentary on the life and career of the excellence of execution hailing from Calgary, Bret Hart. Not being that learned on the average up bringing of a wrestler, it’s interesting to see how Bret grew up in a wrestling family, his trials in the independent circuits, as tag team champ with the Heart Foundation, the multiple world championship victories and finally his embarrassing termination in Montreal Canada during a Wrestlemania. The documentary is filled with interviews with colleagues, family and Vince McMahon discussing the screw job which ended Hart’s stay in the then WWF.
There are a number of touching moments in the documentary, during Bret’s career he has had to deal with the deaths of close friends and family. Good friend “Mr Perfect” Curt Henning died while working alongside Bret in the WCW and even more tragic, Bret’s brother Owen Hart died repelling from the roof top in a WWE show. The interviews during these times in his life are very touching and you’ll get chills watching the tribute matches that followed -hey their wrestlers what do you want-.
Following the documentary, the box set contains 3 or 4 additional DVD’s archiving each match fought by the Hitman in both the WWF and WCW -McMahan owns everything-. This is very special for wrestling fans. It was truly great to see some classic matches from my youth, characters that I grew up watching not only in the WWF but also as cartoons and movie stars –Roddy Piper was always my favorite, remember They Live?-.
All in all a must grab for any Canadian or wrestling fan. Just $25.99 USD or $150.00 CAD. Check it out and let me know what you think aye.
Extra: If you are a wrestling fan, who was (or is) your favorite wrestler of all time?
Bret Hitman hart is greatest wrestler of alltime.
Bret hart is the best there is the best there was and the best there ever will be. when you seem him perform in the ring you look so real. now wrestling is nothing but a mere soap. i mean its ridiculous and half these guys are not fit to be in the ring in the first place. when someone like bret performs you want to watch the entire match. he makes sure that the climax is the entire performance. look at matches like against diesel(kevin nash) in 96 or his match against the bulldog in 92. Even his match against benoit at wcw is awesome. and screw ric flair. grandpa should have hung up his boots more than 10years ago. and he in my opinion is not even fit to point a finger towards bret. if i saw flair against some a second ranked wrestler, i’d switch channels immediately. where as with hart you knew it will be good anyway. the others who i’d call are super wrestlers are the undertaker, sting, angle, benoit and unfortunately shawn michaels.
the greatest wrestler ever ….what a match it would have been to see bret in his peak take on angle.. a great human being and a great canadian !… long live bret hart
It’s hard to argue against the Nature Boy Ric Flair… Sting is a close second for me. I grew up in south Georgia, so wrasslin was a must see in my house.
PS – the price is actually 26 CAN as well if you get it at FutureSHop.
I’ve never really been a fan of Bret Hart. Don’t know why. As far as wrestling goes, I think Kurt Angle is pretty much the greatest wrestler ever.
If anybody who is into wrestling hasn’t seen the other documentary out there involving Bret Hart, called “Wrestling with Shadows”, you really should check it out….it’s wasn’t made with WWE/WWF dollars, so it is a pretty revealing look at some of the mechanations of the McMahon Empire. Good Stuff…….. Also, if you haven’t seen “Beyond the Mat” ….. it’s a pretty good wrestling documentary.
got it. :)
I can agree with at least one good thing about Canada:
The Tragically Hip
All nude strip clubs are good too, but we have them in the US too (at least in MN we do).
a few corrections.
– the documentary is just a little over 2 hours.
– its a 3 disc set, 2 DVDs of matches, one of documentary and some extras.
– the Montreal incident was at the Survivor Series in 1997, not Wrestlemania.
– Mr. Perfect did not die while working in WCW. he came back to work for the WWF/WWE after WCW went under, was fired from the company because of an incident on a plane, and died while working indie bookings.
“Bret’s brother Owen Hart died repelling from the roof top in a WWE show”
And what happened after that? In a contreversial choice by McMahan, the show went on, like Owen’s fatal stunt never happened- a gag which is also debated if it should have been done at all.