"Dark Side Of The Ring" Producers Reportedly Tried To Film Bret Hart For The Owen Hart Episode
WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart reportedly no-sold an offer from "Dark Side of the Ring" producers to appear on the season two finale about the tragic passing of his brother Owen Hart.
Last Tuesday's episode on Owen featured new interviews with Owen's immediate family, including Martha Hart and their two kids, but there were no new comments from members of the legendary Hart Family of pro wrestling. Dave Meltzer noted on the Sunday Night's Main Event podcast that "Dark Side of the Ring" producers wanted Bret on the episode, and they asked him to appear, but he never got back to them.
As we've noted, Martha did several media interviews leading up to the episode on Owen, where she discussed how the Hart Family didn't support her lawsuit against WWE. Martha spoke with The Wrap and said she currently has no relationship with Bret.
"Unfortunately, I have no relationship with Bret," Martha said. "Bret was supportive throughout the lawsuit, but there were a few things that were a problem with Bret. First of all, when we were going through the lawsuit, he really was hoping that I would be able to help him get his wrestling footage. Because at the time, he had no relationship with WWE and he was hoping somehow ? if we ever had a settlement ? that we could work it in."
Martha said Bret was upset that she was unable to get him the rights to his WWE footage, and that led to Bret befriending WWE Chairman Vince McMahon once again. She added that was the first fracture in their relationship.
"When that didn't happen, he was very upset that he didn't get his footage. It prompted him to befriend Vince again so he could have access to his footage. That was the first fracture in our relationship," she said.
Martha alleged that Bret became "really nasty" after she wouldn't allow Owen to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. She said that's when Bret "seemed to turn."
Bret only issued one statement in response to Martha's interviews, and has not commented on if he watched the actual episode or not. He issued the following statement to The Wrap in response to the aforementioned comments by Martha:
"While I am not interested in engaging in any more media mudslinging between Martha and myself especially in light of a global pandemic, I will say that our fallout is multifaceted. To say that it only involved being able to access and use my WWE footage and photos for future projects would merely be an oversimplification and inaccurate. I will not comment any further on the matter."
As seen below, Bret did make a Happy Birthday post to Owen on Instagram, one week before the Vice episode aired, and this past weekend he made another post with a photo of The Hart Foundation. Bret is the only living member of the group as Owen, Davey Boy Smith, Jim Neidhart and Brian Pillman have all passed.
Bret captioned the photo of The Hart Foundation with a quote from Lilo & Stitch: "Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."
View this post on Instagram"Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."
A post shared by Bret (@brethitmanhart) on