Customer Reviews

Bret 'Hitman' Hart: The Best There Is, the Best There Was, the Best There Ever Will Be

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I guess the most disappointing part is that the book isn't even written by Bret! I expected this book to be awesome because it was about the best wrestler of all-time, but found that it was basically a picture book about Bret's career. When I purchased the book I assumed that most if not all of the book would be written by Bret but found out that he only wrote about the last five pages which is an excerpt from the Calgary Sun Newspaper after Owen died. If you are expecting a book the calibur of 'Have a Nice Day' you are out of luck because this book isn't up to the calibur of 'GooseBumps.'

This is a very handsome package, with many pictures and an attractive un-wonky book design (so distracting and unnecessary in the Mankind and Rock books). But after the content expectations and standards set by the WWF autobiographies, this book disappoints.

1. The author credit is Bret Hart's, but it's written in third person--except for the reprint of Bret's Calgary Sun eulogy for his brother Owen. Roddy Piper's intro is nearly the same length as the eulogy--he should have gotten cover credit too! This book is clearly not written by Bret Hart; that he is credited is very misleading.

2. Roddy Piper writes as if wrestling is not "a work." Given the context of the Foley and Johnson books which take pains up front to explain the realities of the business, Piper's point of view is somewhat embarrassing. The body text takes a "work" tone as well, focusing more on the drama inside the ring than the enigma of the man.

3. Most jarringly, the text obviously spends a lot of time talking about Hart's classic WWF matches...but as beautifully reproduced as the photos in this book are, there are very few pictures of the WWF days...no pictures of Davey Boy Smith, his brother-in-law and the man with whom Bret had his finest match, only one picture of tag team partner Jim "the Anvil" Neidhart. It's a really HUGE gap. No pictures with his major belts. All recent photos are from WCW. It makes the book a somewhat disconcerting read, as biographies go. Clearly this is based on Bret's and Vince McMahon's emnity and that rights could not be obtained for WWF-era photos. I am sorry for that.

4. Finally, while the book is a treasure trove of Hart-family-growing-up photos, there are only two small photos of Bret's wife Julie, and none of his four children. The book's text doesn't even go near what I would think are two important life dramas--the end of his marriage, and the filming and release of Wrestling with Shadows.

All in all, a must for Hitman completists, of which I am one, if only for the rare Hart family photos. It's more an expanded article from Pro Wrestling Weekly than it is a true biography. Bret Hart's life is one of the more interesting and heart-wrenching human dramas in this whacked-out industry, full of beauty, idealism, tragedy, and irony. It's a story that's very far from over. I can't wait to hear him tell us about it someday.

Folks save your money. This is not the long awaited autobiography that all Bret Hart fans have been waiting so long for. This is at best a coffee table book with some nice pictures. The book is really by Perry Lefko and Bret has contributed to it but it is NOT the book we have all been waiting for. He is in fact in the midst of writing it now during his layoff from a severe concussion.

I am shocked that Bret Hart, who participated in a cutting edge, expose' such as "wrestling with shadows" would write a book that has such little substance. The book can be read in less than an hour. It has some nice pictures but Bret has virtually no behind the scenes information and pretty much glosses over his split with the WWF and his brother Owen's death. Bret is even in character at times which makes this book unfortunetly more like the kayfabe Arn Anderson book and less like Mick Foley's masterpiece. This book is definitely not the best there is, was, or ever will be.

I waited for months for this book to be released and now that I've got it, I have mixed feelings about it. The book itself is a large glossy thing much like an elaborate magazine. There are lots of photos throughout the book, particularly from his WCW days...in fact there are surprisingly few pictures from his 14 years with the WWF. Some of the photos appear more than once and the reader feels a little cheated. Many of the photos I had seen before at various times. There were only a handful of them (like Bret during his Stampede days) that I hadn't seen. The preface, written by Rowdy Roddy Piper (a close friend of Bret's for over 15 years) was interesting reading and revealed a couple of things I was unaware of. The remainder of the book, though, skims over an illustrious career that has spanned over 2 decades. Bret finishes the book with a section called 'Reflections Of A Big Brother' - remembering his brother, Owen. This section is taken from Bret's Calgary Sun column written on 31 May 1999 when he wrote about Owen's death. Having been a fan of Bret Hart's for 14 years, I expected more from this book. I wanted a more 'in depth' look into his life. After viewing his 1998 documentary 'Wrestling With Shadows' and hearing Bret talk about how as a child he feared his father, Stu, and thinking that every breath may have been his last while training in 'the dungeon', I was hoping for more of this sort of stuff in this book. This may sound selfish but I wanted to read about how Bret felt about living in the infamous Hart House; about when he met and married his wife, Julie; the joy his children bring him and how difficult it is to be away from them for weeks at a time; how his brother Dean's death affected him. Those people who have only become Bret Hart fans in the last couple of years will probably find this book an interesting read and will think 'I didn't know that...'. But for the millions of us who have been loyal Hitman supporters for 10+ years will find this book a disappointment. Most of you will know a majority of the information written here and will close the book thinking 'Is that it?' Bret has always had the reputation of being honest and forthright, and that's what I'm being here. Like it or not...it's your choice.

If you could put the life story of each wrestler of the modern era into a book, I guarantee that Bret Hart's would be the best. This man has, by far, the most fascinating life & career in all of pro wrestling; he has done everything, and he has had everything done to him. What's that you say? "What about Mick Foley, he wrote a great book?" He did, but he has not had half the career that Hart has; he didn't grow up in the Dungeon, he hasn't had nearly as many classic matches, he didn't get screwed out of the world title in his last WWF match, and he didn't punch Vince McMahon in the face. Every wrestling fan knows at least the bare bones of Bret Hart's story even if they don't like him, simply because his story is so interesting & so essential to the story of pro wrestling itself. Hopefully, someday he will write his REAL autobiography and we'll be able to read all about his childhood, all his fond memories of Owen, his backstage feud with Shawn Michaels, & what he thought about so many classic matches (I personally would love to hear in detail about the iron man match & the submission match with Steve Austin). He is a good writer (he's been writing a column for the Calgary Sun for over 4 years), and he is not afraid to shoot his mouth off. Until then, we have to settle for this: a kiddie picture book, full of fluff, with no insight whatsoever. Any respectable wrestler would be embarrassed to have his name attached to this, and I can't imagine someone of Bret Hart's stature not dying of shame. A twelve-year-old could have written this. The way this book insults one's intelligence is bad enough, but the potential a Bret Hart autobiography had makes it unbearable. If Hart puts forth some effort, he could easily outdo Foley and write the Bible of wrestling autobiographies. Maybe he will, now that he's retired and would be able to focus on it.

Looking over Bret Hart's "biography", it is nothing more than just a lot of photos and not much print. It's a shame that Bret couldn't take the time to write a true autobiography like what the Rock and MIck Foley did. As for the photos, the majority of them are action from Bret's matches in WCW. As for his WWF days (which he spent most of his career with), there's only a few photos with him holding the WWF championship belt, and a face-to-face confrontation with Stone Cold Steve Austin. It is very obvious that Bret has a personal vendetta with the WWF because of what Vince McMahon did to him in the 1997 Survivor Series. (If you're not familiar with this story, then check out the video "Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows"). Overall, this book is a big disappointment.

I was surprised to find that full pages of pictures outnumber full pages with writing on them. Some had both but still I bought what I thought to be a biography on Bret Hart but got a picture book instead with a summary of the important parts of his life. The book does not go into great detail but rather hits some key points and then goes on to the next chapter. Do not buy this book as a biography but as an overview of Bret's life with a lot of good pictures.

Although I thought this book would be a comprehensive guide to Bret's life and career, I had hoped for more insight into his actual self. It doesn't really feel like Bret really had anything to do with this book. I love Bret, but not his book

I read this book in about 70 minutes during a queue at a autograph session of its author earlier today. I rank it somewhere between Dwayne Johnson's lame effort, for which I appear to be in the minority in expressing disapproval, and the very ambitious but somewhat incohesive work of Mick Foley. This book has the best presentation of the three and is the least expensive, which is only fair given its brevity. All three works feature tributes to Owen and this one is not surprisingly the best of them. I really like what I saw, but I wish I had seen a great deal more. For committed Bret Hart fans this book will be indispensable, but for the average wrestling fan, the documentary video Wrestling with Shadows will be more interesting for about the same price. Recommended with some reservations.