During the series premiere of the new WWE Network original program, Bring It To The Table, which featured WWE’s JBL and Paul Heyman with HOT 97 DJ Peter Rosenberg in a roundtable discussion, the former WWE Champion spoke at length about Bret Hart’s apparent bitterness regarding a current WWE Superstar and a recent WWE Hall Of Fame inductee.
Regarding the WWE Hall Of Fame induction of former Fabolous Freebirds leader and longtime WWE executive Michael “P.S.” Hayes, which was nearly unanimously considered long overdue and then some, “The Hitman’s” take on the subject didn’t seem to sit well with another Texas veteran.
“I’d like to tell Bret Hart, please don’t get hot. What are you mad at, Bret? Bret, you’re one of the greatest superstars of all time. You’re a multimillionaire. You’re a legend in Canada. You’re a legend around the world. I personally like you very much. You’ve been very great, great, to me your entire career, but what are you mad at? You come out and you talk about Michael Hayes, The Freebirds, and you bash Michael Hayes, [saying] he shouldn’t be in the [WWE] Hall Of Fame. But you don’t say anything about Sting, who didn’t make his name in the WWE. What in the world is Bret Hart mad at?”
In addition to the Hart-Hayes discussion, JBL also dusted off the always hot-button issue, Hart’s intense criticism of the in-ring style of current WWE Superstar Seth Rollins. According to Hart, “The Architect,” whom many of today’s WWE Superstars consider among the most-talented in-ring performers in the business right now, has an “unsafe style of working.” Hart has pointed to matches involving Rollins that have resulted in wrestlers such as Sting and John Cena getting injured as evidence to support his claim. JBL, however, took the opposing view.
“What about Seth Rollins? He claims that Seth Rollins hurts people. I mean, people get hurt in this business. Look, Bret was one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. People get hurt all the time. I think Bret should understand that. I’m not sure what has made Bret, appearingly, so bitter.”
In wrapping up the discussion about Hart, JBL spoke about the fashion in which Hart’s career ended (suffering a concussion from a stiff kick during a match in WCW with Bill Goldberg) and shared his belief that “The Hitman” should choose to focus on the many positive aspects of his career as opposed to taking the “glass is half-empty” viewpoint.
“My career ended because I got my back [broken] in a match in Earl’s Court, it was just a mistake, over in London [England]. It ended shortly thereafter. I wasn’t able to do anything after that. I’m not mad about that. Do you know what I’m happy about? I’m happy about the fact that I got to do what I wanted to do since I was a kid. The fact that I got to live the dream that I wanted to live. And I think Bret has to understand he’s an incredible superstar. Could he have had a few more years? Absolutely. But you can’t get hot about the fact that something bad happened and it was a mistake. It wasn’t like Goldberg did that on purpose.”
Episode one of the new WWE original series, “Bring It To The Table,” featuring JBL, Paul Heyman and Peter Rosenberg is available now via On Demand viewing on the WWE Network.
H/T to WrestlingINC.com for transcribing the above JBL quotes from WWE’s “Bring It To The Table.”