REPORT ON BRET’s OPIE & ANTONY APPEARANCE 10/10
- 10/11/2008 (1:35:39 pm)
- Jeff Sheridan
….
Well I caught yesterday's XM replay, so here
we go:
Opie says Bret entered the studio who wrote a great book, tells Bret that he didn't
read it yet but has thumb thru it & likes what he sees. He says the title's "Hitman"
[NOTE FROM JEFF:The whole title's called
"Hitman:My Real Life In The Cartoon World
Of Wrestling": http://tinyurl.com/46gpyh ],
welcomes him to the show & Bret says it's
nice to be there. Opie asked Bret as to what's happened to him because all of a
sudden, he was out of wrestling & didn't
know if others knew what happened. Bret
says that after his brother Owen's accident
[being killed at the "Over The Edge '99" PPV: http://tinyurl.com/5xl5dp ], he got kicked in the head by Bill Goldberg.
Bret says he's had a concussion problem for
a couple of years, says it put the cherry on
the cake & says 2 years later he had a stroke in 2002. Opie feels that not too many
people know that, Anthony asks if that was
due to the kick to the head & Bret feels that
they're connected. Opie asks as to how did he get the stroke & if he was at home when
it happened, Bret says he was riding his
bicycle & hit a little hole in the grass. He then says it was a big hole, fell off the bike
sideways & landed on his head. He says for a guy making a living by landing on his head, says it was like a tiny little baby doing
a head stand on the grass & it was nothing & says he didn't hurt himself when he got the stroke.
Opie asks if he was laying there knowing that he was in deep trouble, Bret says he
thought he pinched a nerve & lost everything on the left side of himself
instantly. He says after that he was in a
wheelchair for 3 months, Jim Norton asks as
to what was it like getting the stroke & if it
felt like the 1/2 of his body couldn't move &
if something horrible was happening. Bret
says nothing hurt, says 1/2 of his body was
dead & it was like that until the next day. He says it took a couple of years to get thru
it & says he was real lucky that he got 80 or
90% [of the feeling] back. Anthony asks
where did Goldberg kick him & Bret says it was the back of the head.
Bret says he'd compare it to someone taking a hockey stick & cracking you across the back of the neck as hard as they can. Opie asked if he broke anything or crack
anything there, Bret says he had a hole in the back of the neck about the size of a
quarter & says it'll never heal. Anthony says
that's amazing, asked as to what move
Goldberg did & how did it screw up because
both of them were flinging each other like
crazy. Bret says Goldberg did a mule kick,
Opie asks if it cracked his skull & Bret says
no it just bruised his brain big time. Norton
says wrestler's got "real men injuries", says
when HHH was there & talked about his calf
muscle.
Anthony says HHH's calf muscle snapped
what connects the calf muscle to the ankle & it rolled up in the back of his leg or shin.
Opie asks that after the kick if it was it for
Bret & never wrestled again, Bret says he
wrestled for 2 weeks till he went home &
Opie says Bret realized there's no way he
can do this. Bret says he was talking mush &
says that his doctor told him that he's done
& after that, he stopped [wrestling]. Opie
asks if he blamed the stroke on wrestling or
too many hits or some on steroids. Bret says he don't think it's steroids, asks if Opie's referring to the stroke & Opie says
yes. Bret says he'll never know what was the
real cause of it.
Bret says there was no explanation or a history for it, says in regards to the fall that
he had on the grass & says if you've been
sitting on a park bench & watched it, you'd
probably burst out laughing & says it was
nothing. Norton says he don't follow
wrestling but knows who Bret is & asks if he
has a bad relationship with Vince & WWE.
Bret says no, says when going thru what he
went thru like Owen did & all the things
that happened & the stroke, you kinda learn to move on past those kind of things.
He says you can't carry around lots of hard feelings, says the only thing that he can say
about the stroke is that the 1 big factor's
stress.
Bret says it's a big factor that most people
don't think about sometimes, says there's no explanation on him having the stroke &
says he does know that he was under lots of
stress. Opie says due to Owen's death & others that Bret was close to in wrestling
die. Bret says his brother-in-law The British
Bulldog [Davey Boy Smith] died maybe 10
days before his stroke & when Opie asked on how Davey died, Bret says it was an
overdose: http://tinyurl.com/4t2jql . Opie
says Bret was friends with Chris Benoit who
trained with him back in the day, Bret says
he knew Chris when he was 10 & Anthony
says all of them are like they're in a war or
something by watching his buddies die & says that's awful.
Opie says it's why Bret's book will be a great read because he ain't holding back,
says lots of guys hold back when writing
about their lives & their buddy Sam says
the book's amazing & don't hold back at all.
He says Bret talked about the guys [wrestlers] would line up to get possibly
steroids behind the scenes from a doctor
[George Zahorian] who was shooting
everyone up. Bret says he don't remember
the doctor shooting anyone up but recalls
the doctor distributing the steroids like
candy as well as downers & anything else he
had. He says the doctor was not much different then a drug addict or a dealer selling at a school.
Norton says Bret's book is 550 pages, says
it's not a "I need to make money" book
where it's double space & says most guys
will have their books like 120 pages & double space it. Opie says it's like Norton's
book ["Happy Endings:The Tales Of A Meaty-Breasted Zilch":
http://tinyurl.com/44thhu ], Norton says his
book's all substance & asks as to how many
prostitute stories can you tell. He says Sam
read Bret's book, says that Sam knows lots
on wrestling & asks as to what was the most amazing thing that he learned from it
because Sam loved the book. Opie says Sam
reads all of the wrestling books, Sam says 1
of the key things to the book's that it's not
commissioned by WWE.
Sam says it's Bret's story & not like a
ghostwriter who's with WWE where they'll
say "well you can't say that but you can say
this". He says Bret's honest recollection &
opinion on everything that's happened, says for those that're Sam's age that grew
up watching wrestling, you get an inside
story before there was an internet. He says
now people kinda know what's going on
behind the scenes or they think they do due
to what's reported on the internet. He says in the 80's & early 90's, no one knew anything except what was on TV & says
Bret's book is the 1st that he's read that can honestly goes back & says on everything that went on.
Sam says on what details that Bret goes into on what happened 10 to 15 years ago
& says it's incredible. Opie says Bret admitted on cheating on his wife [Julie] on the road & Bret says he put it into
prospective on what brings those kind of
things. Opie asked on how that came about,
Norton says opportunity & Bret says he was
20 when getting into wrestling & was 43 when he got out. He says he had 23 years of
possibly having 300 days yearly & it didn't
include the travel days to home. He says he
had the farthest trip back then most of the
wrestlers & says getting home was usually a
1/2 day. Norton asks Bret as to where he's
from & Bret says Calgary.
Bret says he lived a life in a suitcase, says
most of the affairs that he had on the road
he says he don't look at those as bad things but as survival. He feels that lots of
people that he was with he saw them as
good friends that helped him thru some
tough times. He says you can't hang out with wrestlers for 23 years, Anthony says
that's a good way to put it & says "good
friends, a good egg". Opie asks as to how
can you be faithful on the road if you're out
there 300 days yearly & how can you have a
real relationship with someone back home.
Norton says he can't be faithful when going
for a weekend, Bret says he got his break in
wrestling because he wasn't 1 of the steroid
freak kind of guys.
Bret says they needed someone that can
carry the banner for the company, not fail
a drug test or get busted at the border. He
says this was in the early 90's when they
started doing real drug testing & feels that's how he kinda got his spot as the champ. He says prior to steroids in '84 & '85
when he was taking them or did take them
like everyone else. He says you don't have
much choice, says when people tell him that
he's in a room with all these guys that's
juiced up to the gills. He says you wanna be
competitive feed your family & either be a
winner or 1 of the bottom guys on the card
& it's a decision that you have to make right
away.
Bret says he didn't take steroids till he got to that point in his life & says no one made
him take them. Anthony asked if he was
happy after taking them & noticed a difference. Bret says he took them because
he blew his knee out at the time when he
started out. He says he was scared that he'll
miss his opportunity because he couldn't do
anything. He says he took them a few months before he got there [WWF], says he
had a Japan tour at the time & says he took
them 2 weeks before going to Japan for the
1st time ever. He says he'd never make it to
Japan & wouldn't have survived the tour. He says he remembers on the tour he did
everything.
Bret says it was like 3 weeks when the muscle returned, he was doing dropkicks &
other stuff that he didn't do for 9 months.
He says when blewing his knee out in
February of that year he wrestled till July
with a bad knee because there was no other way around it. Anthony says these guys have to work injured or someone else
will step into their spot, Bret says there's no
one to pay the bills & says as soon as you're
hurt in wrestling, you're a liability. He says
they'll pat you on the back & tell you that they'll call you in about 4 months. Anthony
says there's no pension plan & it's pretty
much, you're gone & make a life for yourself other then wrestling.
Opie asked Bret when he took steroids if he
felt roid rage, Bret says no & wasn't too heavy into them. Opie says in Benoit's case
lots of people said he had roid rage, Bret
felt that Benoit had some roid rage & don't
doubt that steroids contributed to it, but didn't believe for a second that it was the
deciding factor. Opie says he & Anthony
talked to other wrestlers since the Benoit
incident occured & says all of them are
shocked that Benoit would do anything like
that. Bret says Chris was 1 of the nicest guys
you'd ever meet, says that in the whole time
he knew him, Chris would walk an old lady
across the street. He says Chris was a nice
guy that you'd need to look more into judging him by that kind of way of his
character.
Opie asked Bret on what he thought happened because they're rumors that Chris may've had a seizure going in his head that was undetected. Bret says if you
look close it was possibly related to the head injuries Chris had. He says Chris' brain
was like mush & had the brain of a 90 year
old Alzheimer kind of guy & was fuzzy in the
head. He says from his own circumstance of
concussions, you can have a concussion as
bad as he had himself & it was bad & says he still has lingering affects from it. He says
when having it, he remembers Vince telling
him on how he can catch airplanes, rent his
car & drive to the building & it's like "how
messed up is this guy".
Bret says he himself was like a robot for 2
years, says he can do everything & says he can have a conversation with O&A now. He
says he was doing a book tour then & doing
lots media, but don't remember any of it. He says it's just a blur, says people don't know & feel that he's fine because fans just
talked to him. He says he can talk but just
can't remember anything you said & says he
wouldn't remember on what he spoke about. Norton says it's like a blackout, Bret
says probably & feels that he don't know
what the circumstances on Benoit was, but
feels that Chris was in a situation where he
was pressured by his wife [Nancy] to stay
home more.
Bret says at the same time Chris was getting pressured from WWE that told him
if he wants to be 1 of the top guys, they need him on the road more. He says Chris
was in a tug of war with with his wife & the
business & felt that in the end, it may've
drove Chris off the deep end. He thinks that
Chris came home, had a fight [with Nancy]
& Opie felt that Chris may've snapped.
Anthony says there's so much tragedy in
wrestling, says it's odd because it's an
entertaining fun thing to watch. Bret says it's a cartoon world, Anthony says that's on
the outside & says when tearing away a
little bit of that curtain, it's full of tragedy &
it's unbelievable
Anthony says the death of Bret's brother was horrific in front of a crowd & is sure that it affected Bret. He asks as to what was
it like going thru that, Bret says it was 1 of
those things that he'll never understand on
what Owen was thinking. He says Owen was
the most careful, cautious guy in the world.
He says Owen didn't take any chances on
anything like that, says that Owen may've
felt that they [WWE] knew what they were
doing. He says in the end sadly the guy who
put that [planned Blue Blazer ring entrance from the ceiling] stunt together didn't know what he was doing & it was a horrible
tragedy. Norton says he remembers when it
happened & asked if the cable snapped & didn't safety test it.
Opie says the harness wasn't connected,
Bret says it had an 8 lb pressure & remembers the Kansas City cops tell him that if you pulled a trigger on a gun, that's
all it took to release. He feels that when
Owen got to the top, says it's pretty high &
says he remembers looking at it. He says
Owen was hanging there, says Owen ran up
was wearing overalls & had to take it off &
pull it off over his boots. He says he has his
[Blue Blazer] mask on with the cape, then
they got him to climb over off next to a
"core cloth" & just hang there. He says it takes an 8 lb pressure to release the safety
clip, says Owen's breathing & says he remembers he himself walking up there &
saw all those steps to the top & says Owen
ran.
Bret says as soon as Owen did that interview [the last one ever before he died]
at the bottom of the building, he raced up
lots of flights of stairs on a ladder, all the
way down the cat walk & all the way to the
"cloth". He says he knows the pressure when breathing hard after running up there & you're nervous because the match's
about to start & you're hanging there. He
says the whole thing's gotta be scary looking, says Owen's taking deep breaths &
when they released them, the guy that was
supposed to be watching him was looking 1
way & looked over & said Owen was 1/2 way down the ring by then. Norton asked as to how high did Owen fall & Bret says he
don't know.
Bret heard that it was 75 to 80 feet, Opie
says he heard that it caused a riff in his
family & asked on how that happened. Bret
says when coming from a big family you'll
get situations where people get envious &
says in his case everyone thought that Vince
made Bret as a millionaire & a star. He says
in lots of ways they thought that Vince could give them the same things to their
husbands. He says some people started to
look out for themselves & thought they'd
give their husband a job & work for Vince.
He says there's desparate people that do
desparate things at times & says he'll never
understand where some of the come from & says it screwed up the whole family.
Anthony asks Bret if he got any flack from
anyone that he wrote in his book, Bret says
no & says most of the wrestlers that he hoped would respond to him, did not & feels a certain majority of them can't read.
Anthony asks Bret as to who would he like
to respond to him, Bret says he don't care &
says he wrote his book without any restrains. He hopes that guys like Undertaker & Steve Austin will call him &
say they liked the book. Anthony asked Bret
if he fell out of it when he got injured or
something happens that's career ending in
wrestling & if it's almost like he's an outcast
because all of sudden, the phone calls stop & don't see anyone.
Bret says no, says it's like you have 1 life as a wrestler on the road with the wrestlers &
the 2nd you get hurt, you return to this
other world that you had & never hear from anyone. He says most poor wrestlers
are on the road & still doing the grind type
of thing. He says you can't call wrestlers &
bother them, says he still has friends that
still wrestle & says the ones that're on the
road you can't bother them. He says you can't bother them when they return home
for 48 hours & says "I'll call you someday
when you're really done". He says it don't
happen & says you don't talk to anyone
again. Opie asks on where Bret's at with
Vince.
Opie asks about the punch that he gave to Vince behind closed doors & asked if it was a documentary. Bret says it's "Wrestling With Shadows": http://tinyurl.com/3jqjx2 ,
Opie says Bret had cameras follow him
around & Vince goes into a room & Bret
pretty much knocked him out. He says Vince
walks out with a black eye, Anthony said
Vince was staggering & Opie feels that
Vince f'd Bret over. He says Vince was
supposed to make Bret champ in his hometown, Bret says in wrestling you're
supposed to be an independent contractor
& you're in business with yourself. He says
he had protections in his contract & says
WWE decided that they weren't gonna pay
him anymore.
Bret says he was pushed out of WWE, says
what was expected for him to go to WCW &
see what kind of offer they'd give him & says WCW gave him a low blow offer. He says WCW gave him a huge offer the year
before [he left], says he feels that they were
banking on him that he'd never get the same offer but did get the same offer. He
says once he was leaving & after he got
pushed & asked out, Vince was actually
helping him negociate & says Vince was like
his friend by telling him that he's the 1st guy. He says that Vince told him that the
company was going down the toilet & wanted to see that Bret was the 1st out &
can get his contract set before all would
happen.
Bret says it was all baloney, says he believed
Vince & took the WCW deal & in the week of that process when the whole thing came
down, they decided that since he was leaving they wanted to tear Bret down as
much as possible. He says they wanted to
make sure that Bret had little value when
going to WCW as if WWE could beat him &
lower everything for him. He says WCW
wanted to at the time use him to open the
door to Canada & make it 1 of their big
markets. He says there was lots of potential
in him going there, says they talked it out &
was in a situation with Pat Robertson's
friend, Shawn Michaels. He says HBK had
lots of problems with him for years.
Bret says HBK told him a few weeks earlier
that he'd never lose to Bret in a match &
after he walked to HBK, he had no problem
if they'd do it at Survivor Series ['97]:
http://tinyurl.com/4q4abe if he'd get the belt, it wouldn't be a big deal to him. He says they had a little fisty cuff about it 6 months before it, says he had no problems
doing anything with HBK but once he
disrespected him in the dressing room, he
said the hell with HBK & he can play the
same way. He says he'll never let HBK beat
him, says that Vince told him that he can
leave anyway that he wanted & stood by it
by saying that he'll do anything that Vince
wanted, but won't lose to HBK.
Opie says it was agreed that Bret would've
won against HBK, Bret says they agreed to
an ending to the match that would've made
everyone happy. Opie says Bret would've
went out as champ, Bret says he was in a
funny situation in Canada on where the whole thing was built up. He says he was a
big Canadian hero at the time, says it was a
case on where he didn't think that it was the right thing to do & it was lowering his
stock. He says he saw it as a business
decision by sticking up for himself as a
business man & had every right to do it. He
says WWE lied & cheated him in the match
[aka the "Montreal Screwjob":
http://tinyurlcom/2erhdw ] & Opie said WWE made sure that HBK won.
Opie says it was done in front of a Canadian
crowd, asked if it was in Calgary & Bret said
Montreal. Opie says Bret was like "what the
F" because this wasn't agreed upon ahead
of time & says Bret spat at Vince's face. He says behind closed doors Bret gave Vince a
good 1, Bret says the truth about it was that Vince confronted him in the dressing room & asked him to leave. He told Vince
that if he didn't leave he'll get hurt, says
Vince stood in the dressing room with 3 or
4 hencemen [Gerald Brisco, Sgt. Slaughter & Shane McMahon] with him. He says he had [Jim] Neidhart, Davey [Boy Smith], Owen, Rick Rude & Undertaker.
Bret says HBK was sitting in the corner & if
you'll read in [Bret's] book that he was
balling his eyes out the whole time & didn't
stop blubbering when it all happened.
Norton asked on why HBK blubbered, Bret
says HBK was scared to death & called him a
coward. He says as he came out of the shower & was naked, says that Davey Boy
would always steal his towels so he'd come
out naked with dripping water. He says he
saw Vince & thought if he had to do a movie on this, he wouldn't have an actor do
that scene naked. So he got a towel, sat &
had a conversation with Vince & told him as
soon as he's dressed, if he's still there he'll
knock him out.
Bret says he remembers putting his clothes
on, tying his last shoe lace & thought that as soon as he's finished, it's showtime. He
says Vince ain't going no where & he's man
enough to give Vince what he deserved. He
says it [punching out Vince] was the most beautiful thing that he did in his life, Norton asked on how it felt & Bret says his
hand was broke because he hit Vince with an upper cut, which was the 1 that gave
[James] "Buster" Douglas did to Mike Tyson.
He says it was a beautiful punch in the world, says it was perfect & got a nice twist
into it as if it was a Popeye cartoon. He says
he's surprised that Vince's head didn't hit the ceiling.
Bret says Vince came down & rolled on his
ankle & almost breaking it. He says he hit
Vince in the jaw & it's how he got the black
eye & says he didn't hit him right in the face. Anthony said Vince staggered out of
there, Bret says Vince was out cold for about 2 minutes & was on the ground like a
star. Norton says Vince's a big bastard & not small, Bret says Vince went down hard
& says it's all in his book. He says he still
feels that it was the smartest thing he ever
did & the right thing to do. Opie asked if
Vince's boys jumped on him after that, Bret
says he expected a pull apart & it's why he
did the upper cut. He says if he would've done the overhanded right, they would've
hooked his arm.
Bret says it would've been like in wrestling where everyone jumps on you, Norton said
he wanted to land the punch & Bret said he
wanted to kill him. Norton asked on why he
didn't leave because as soon as the 2nd shoe was being applyed he could've told Vince that he'd talk to him later & leave. Opie says it's not like Vince was built like
Sam, says these guys won't back down to
often & Anthony says they're going wild with the "break" sign. Norton says they have to break & Bret's got other press to do, Opie says Bret's book was in Canada a
few years ago & Bret says 1. Opie says it's in this country, says he's read lots of wrestling books & he'll read his soon.
Opie says Sam told him that it's the best 1
that's come out, Bret says it took 7 years to
write it by himself & wrote it thru his stroke, the concussion & thru lots of
tragedy. He says he wrote it from the heart
& hopes everyone likes it Opie says Bret
didn't hold back & they've only touched the
surface on the stories that's in it. He says it's a pleasure having him in the studio & then they went for their break. After the
break & after Bret left Norton gave some
plugs for Bret's book signings, which was
Friday at 1PM at Borders Books in Manhattan, Saturday 11AM at Bookends in
Ridgewood, NJ & 4PM at Borders in Bridgewater Township, NJ.
Norton says Bret's a wrestler & will do a lot
more people then he did [with his own book signings]. Opie says Bret's seen a lot,
says there was no 1 bigger for a long time
then him & has stories to tell. He says Bret's
telling it with his book, says they take pride
for the fact that they screwed [WPIX] ch.11
because Bret was supposed to do an interview there 30 minutes ago. Opie says
they're giving them lots of signs & told them that they'd hang out with Bret & when they're ready to end they will. He says
they won't cut off the story about Bret
punching out Vince & it's unbelievable.
Norton says he can sense it by Bret looking
at him that he was gonna do as they've
instructed.
Norton says Bret's a freightning guy, Opie
agrees & Norton says Bret's quiet & ain't
trying to be intiminating. He says that is
what's scary about Bret by being a quite,
nice dude & don't want Bret's fist in his face. Opie says everyone told them that Bret could snap like that & was telling
Anthony to do his "angry Vince" impression.
Anthony says that he didn't feel that the comedy portion of it was gonna shine thru & that ended the segment there.
we go:
Opie says Bret entered the studio who wrote a great book, tells Bret that he didn't
read it yet but has thumb thru it & likes what he sees. He says the title's "Hitman"
[NOTE FROM JEFF:The whole title's called
"Hitman:My Real Life In The Cartoon World
Of Wrestling": http://tinyurl.com/46gpyh ],
welcomes him to the show & Bret says it's
nice to be there. Opie asked Bret as to what's happened to him because all of a
sudden, he was out of wrestling & didn't
know if others knew what happened. Bret
says that after his brother Owen's accident
[being killed at the "Over The Edge '99" PPV: http://tinyurl.com/5xl5dp ], he got kicked in the head by Bill Goldberg.
Bret says he's had a concussion problem for
a couple of years, says it put the cherry on
the cake & says 2 years later he had a stroke in 2002. Opie feels that not too many
people know that, Anthony asks if that was
due to the kick to the head & Bret feels that
they're connected. Opie asks as to how did he get the stroke & if he was at home when
it happened, Bret says he was riding his
bicycle & hit a little hole in the grass. He then says it was a big hole, fell off the bike
sideways & landed on his head. He says for a guy making a living by landing on his head, says it was like a tiny little baby doing
a head stand on the grass & it was nothing & says he didn't hurt himself when he got the stroke.
Opie asks if he was laying there knowing that he was in deep trouble, Bret says he
thought he pinched a nerve & lost everything on the left side of himself
instantly. He says after that he was in a
wheelchair for 3 months, Jim Norton asks as
to what was it like getting the stroke & if it
felt like the 1/2 of his body couldn't move &
if something horrible was happening. Bret
says nothing hurt, says 1/2 of his body was
dead & it was like that until the next day. He says it took a couple of years to get thru
it & says he was real lucky that he got 80 or
90% [of the feeling] back. Anthony asks
where did Goldberg kick him & Bret says it was the back of the head.
Bret says he'd compare it to someone taking a hockey stick & cracking you across the back of the neck as hard as they can. Opie asked if he broke anything or crack
anything there, Bret says he had a hole in the back of the neck about the size of a
quarter & says it'll never heal. Anthony says
that's amazing, asked as to what move
Goldberg did & how did it screw up because
both of them were flinging each other like
crazy. Bret says Goldberg did a mule kick,
Opie asks if it cracked his skull & Bret says
no it just bruised his brain big time. Norton
says wrestler's got "real men injuries", says
when HHH was there & talked about his calf
muscle.
Anthony says HHH's calf muscle snapped
what connects the calf muscle to the ankle & it rolled up in the back of his leg or shin.
Opie asks that after the kick if it was it for
Bret & never wrestled again, Bret says he
wrestled for 2 weeks till he went home &
Opie says Bret realized there's no way he
can do this. Bret says he was talking mush &
says that his doctor told him that he's done
& after that, he stopped [wrestling]. Opie
asks if he blamed the stroke on wrestling or
too many hits or some on steroids. Bret says he don't think it's steroids, asks if Opie's referring to the stroke & Opie says
yes. Bret says he'll never know what was the
real cause of it.
Bret says there was no explanation or a history for it, says in regards to the fall that
he had on the grass & says if you've been
sitting on a park bench & watched it, you'd
probably burst out laughing & says it was
nothing. Norton says he don't follow
wrestling but knows who Bret is & asks if he
has a bad relationship with Vince & WWE.
Bret says no, says when going thru what he
went thru like Owen did & all the things
that happened & the stroke, you kinda learn to move on past those kind of things.
He says you can't carry around lots of hard feelings, says the only thing that he can say
about the stroke is that the 1 big factor's
stress.
Bret says it's a big factor that most people
don't think about sometimes, says there's no explanation on him having the stroke &
says he does know that he was under lots of
stress. Opie says due to Owen's death & others that Bret was close to in wrestling
die. Bret says his brother-in-law The British
Bulldog [Davey Boy Smith] died maybe 10
days before his stroke & when Opie asked on how Davey died, Bret says it was an
overdose: http://tinyurl.com/4t2jql . Opie
says Bret was friends with Chris Benoit who
trained with him back in the day, Bret says
he knew Chris when he was 10 & Anthony
says all of them are like they're in a war or
something by watching his buddies die & says that's awful.
Opie says it's why Bret's book will be a great read because he ain't holding back,
says lots of guys hold back when writing
about their lives & their buddy Sam says
the book's amazing & don't hold back at all.
He says Bret talked about the guys [wrestlers] would line up to get possibly
steroids behind the scenes from a doctor
[George Zahorian] who was shooting
everyone up. Bret says he don't remember
the doctor shooting anyone up but recalls
the doctor distributing the steroids like
candy as well as downers & anything else he
had. He says the doctor was not much different then a drug addict or a dealer selling at a school.
Norton says Bret's book is 550 pages, says
it's not a "I need to make money" book
where it's double space & says most guys
will have their books like 120 pages & double space it. Opie says it's like Norton's
book ["Happy Endings:The Tales Of A Meaty-Breasted Zilch":
http://tinyurl.com/44thhu ], Norton says his
book's all substance & asks as to how many
prostitute stories can you tell. He says Sam
read Bret's book, says that Sam knows lots
on wrestling & asks as to what was the most amazing thing that he learned from it
because Sam loved the book. Opie says Sam
reads all of the wrestling books, Sam says 1
of the key things to the book's that it's not
commissioned by WWE.
Sam says it's Bret's story & not like a
ghostwriter who's with WWE where they'll
say "well you can't say that but you can say
this". He says Bret's honest recollection &
opinion on everything that's happened, says for those that're Sam's age that grew
up watching wrestling, you get an inside
story before there was an internet. He says
now people kinda know what's going on
behind the scenes or they think they do due
to what's reported on the internet. He says in the 80's & early 90's, no one knew anything except what was on TV & says
Bret's book is the 1st that he's read that can honestly goes back & says on everything that went on.
Sam says on what details that Bret goes into on what happened 10 to 15 years ago
& says it's incredible. Opie says Bret admitted on cheating on his wife [Julie] on the road & Bret says he put it into
prospective on what brings those kind of
things. Opie asked on how that came about,
Norton says opportunity & Bret says he was
20 when getting into wrestling & was 43 when he got out. He says he had 23 years of
possibly having 300 days yearly & it didn't
include the travel days to home. He says he
had the farthest trip back then most of the
wrestlers & says getting home was usually a
1/2 day. Norton asks Bret as to where he's
from & Bret says Calgary.
Bret says he lived a life in a suitcase, says
most of the affairs that he had on the road
he says he don't look at those as bad things but as survival. He feels that lots of
people that he was with he saw them as
good friends that helped him thru some
tough times. He says you can't hang out with wrestlers for 23 years, Anthony says
that's a good way to put it & says "good
friends, a good egg". Opie asks as to how
can you be faithful on the road if you're out
there 300 days yearly & how can you have a
real relationship with someone back home.
Norton says he can't be faithful when going
for a weekend, Bret says he got his break in
wrestling because he wasn't 1 of the steroid
freak kind of guys.
Bret says they needed someone that can
carry the banner for the company, not fail
a drug test or get busted at the border. He
says this was in the early 90's when they
started doing real drug testing & feels that's how he kinda got his spot as the champ. He says prior to steroids in '84 & '85
when he was taking them or did take them
like everyone else. He says you don't have
much choice, says when people tell him that
he's in a room with all these guys that's
juiced up to the gills. He says you wanna be
competitive feed your family & either be a
winner or 1 of the bottom guys on the card
& it's a decision that you have to make right
away.
Bret says he didn't take steroids till he got to that point in his life & says no one made
him take them. Anthony asked if he was
happy after taking them & noticed a difference. Bret says he took them because
he blew his knee out at the time when he
started out. He says he was scared that he'll
miss his opportunity because he couldn't do
anything. He says he took them a few months before he got there [WWF], says he
had a Japan tour at the time & says he took
them 2 weeks before going to Japan for the
1st time ever. He says he'd never make it to
Japan & wouldn't have survived the tour. He says he remembers on the tour he did
everything.
Bret says it was like 3 weeks when the muscle returned, he was doing dropkicks &
other stuff that he didn't do for 9 months.
He says when blewing his knee out in
February of that year he wrestled till July
with a bad knee because there was no other way around it. Anthony says these guys have to work injured or someone else
will step into their spot, Bret says there's no
one to pay the bills & says as soon as you're
hurt in wrestling, you're a liability. He says
they'll pat you on the back & tell you that they'll call you in about 4 months. Anthony
says there's no pension plan & it's pretty
much, you're gone & make a life for yourself other then wrestling.
Opie asked Bret when he took steroids if he
felt roid rage, Bret says no & wasn't too heavy into them. Opie says in Benoit's case
lots of people said he had roid rage, Bret
felt that Benoit had some roid rage & don't
doubt that steroids contributed to it, but didn't believe for a second that it was the
deciding factor. Opie says he & Anthony
talked to other wrestlers since the Benoit
incident occured & says all of them are
shocked that Benoit would do anything like
that. Bret says Chris was 1 of the nicest guys
you'd ever meet, says that in the whole time
he knew him, Chris would walk an old lady
across the street. He says Chris was a nice
guy that you'd need to look more into judging him by that kind of way of his
character.
Opie asked Bret on what he thought happened because they're rumors that Chris may've had a seizure going in his head that was undetected. Bret says if you
look close it was possibly related to the head injuries Chris had. He says Chris' brain
was like mush & had the brain of a 90 year
old Alzheimer kind of guy & was fuzzy in the
head. He says from his own circumstance of
concussions, you can have a concussion as
bad as he had himself & it was bad & says he still has lingering affects from it. He says
when having it, he remembers Vince telling
him on how he can catch airplanes, rent his
car & drive to the building & it's like "how
messed up is this guy".
Bret says he himself was like a robot for 2
years, says he can do everything & says he can have a conversation with O&A now. He
says he was doing a book tour then & doing
lots media, but don't remember any of it. He says it's just a blur, says people don't know & feel that he's fine because fans just
talked to him. He says he can talk but just
can't remember anything you said & says he
wouldn't remember on what he spoke about. Norton says it's like a blackout, Bret
says probably & feels that he don't know
what the circumstances on Benoit was, but
feels that Chris was in a situation where he
was pressured by his wife [Nancy] to stay
home more.
Bret says at the same time Chris was getting pressured from WWE that told him
if he wants to be 1 of the top guys, they need him on the road more. He says Chris
was in a tug of war with with his wife & the
business & felt that in the end, it may've
drove Chris off the deep end. He thinks that
Chris came home, had a fight [with Nancy]
& Opie felt that Chris may've snapped.
Anthony says there's so much tragedy in
wrestling, says it's odd because it's an
entertaining fun thing to watch. Bret says it's a cartoon world, Anthony says that's on
the outside & says when tearing away a
little bit of that curtain, it's full of tragedy &
it's unbelievable
Anthony says the death of Bret's brother was horrific in front of a crowd & is sure that it affected Bret. He asks as to what was
it like going thru that, Bret says it was 1 of
those things that he'll never understand on
what Owen was thinking. He says Owen was
the most careful, cautious guy in the world.
He says Owen didn't take any chances on
anything like that, says that Owen may've
felt that they [WWE] knew what they were
doing. He says in the end sadly the guy who
put that [planned Blue Blazer ring entrance from the ceiling] stunt together didn't know what he was doing & it was a horrible
tragedy. Norton says he remembers when it
happened & asked if the cable snapped & didn't safety test it.
Opie says the harness wasn't connected,
Bret says it had an 8 lb pressure & remembers the Kansas City cops tell him that if you pulled a trigger on a gun, that's
all it took to release. He feels that when
Owen got to the top, says it's pretty high &
says he remembers looking at it. He says
Owen was hanging there, says Owen ran up
was wearing overalls & had to take it off &
pull it off over his boots. He says he has his
[Blue Blazer] mask on with the cape, then
they got him to climb over off next to a
"core cloth" & just hang there. He says it takes an 8 lb pressure to release the safety
clip, says Owen's breathing & says he remembers he himself walking up there &
saw all those steps to the top & says Owen
ran.
Bret says as soon as Owen did that interview [the last one ever before he died]
at the bottom of the building, he raced up
lots of flights of stairs on a ladder, all the
way down the cat walk & all the way to the
"cloth". He says he knows the pressure when breathing hard after running up there & you're nervous because the match's
about to start & you're hanging there. He
says the whole thing's gotta be scary looking, says Owen's taking deep breaths &
when they released them, the guy that was
supposed to be watching him was looking 1
way & looked over & said Owen was 1/2 way down the ring by then. Norton asked as to how high did Owen fall & Bret says he
don't know.
Bret heard that it was 75 to 80 feet, Opie
says he heard that it caused a riff in his
family & asked on how that happened. Bret
says when coming from a big family you'll
get situations where people get envious &
says in his case everyone thought that Vince
made Bret as a millionaire & a star. He says
in lots of ways they thought that Vince could give them the same things to their
husbands. He says some people started to
look out for themselves & thought they'd
give their husband a job & work for Vince.
He says there's desparate people that do
desparate things at times & says he'll never
understand where some of the come from & says it screwed up the whole family.
Anthony asks Bret if he got any flack from
anyone that he wrote in his book, Bret says
no & says most of the wrestlers that he hoped would respond to him, did not & feels a certain majority of them can't read.
Anthony asks Bret as to who would he like
to respond to him, Bret says he don't care &
says he wrote his book without any restrains. He hopes that guys like Undertaker & Steve Austin will call him &
say they liked the book. Anthony asked Bret
if he fell out of it when he got injured or
something happens that's career ending in
wrestling & if it's almost like he's an outcast
because all of sudden, the phone calls stop & don't see anyone.
Bret says no, says it's like you have 1 life as a wrestler on the road with the wrestlers &
the 2nd you get hurt, you return to this
other world that you had & never hear from anyone. He says most poor wrestlers
are on the road & still doing the grind type
of thing. He says you can't call wrestlers &
bother them, says he still has friends that
still wrestle & says the ones that're on the
road you can't bother them. He says you can't bother them when they return home
for 48 hours & says "I'll call you someday
when you're really done". He says it don't
happen & says you don't talk to anyone
again. Opie asks on where Bret's at with
Vince.
Opie asks about the punch that he gave to Vince behind closed doors & asked if it was a documentary. Bret says it's "Wrestling With Shadows": http://tinyurl.com/3jqjx2 ,
Opie says Bret had cameras follow him
around & Vince goes into a room & Bret
pretty much knocked him out. He says Vince
walks out with a black eye, Anthony said
Vince was staggering & Opie feels that
Vince f'd Bret over. He says Vince was
supposed to make Bret champ in his hometown, Bret says in wrestling you're
supposed to be an independent contractor
& you're in business with yourself. He says
he had protections in his contract & says
WWE decided that they weren't gonna pay
him anymore.
Bret says he was pushed out of WWE, says
what was expected for him to go to WCW &
see what kind of offer they'd give him & says WCW gave him a low blow offer. He says WCW gave him a huge offer the year
before [he left], says he feels that they were
banking on him that he'd never get the same offer but did get the same offer. He
says once he was leaving & after he got
pushed & asked out, Vince was actually
helping him negociate & says Vince was like
his friend by telling him that he's the 1st guy. He says that Vince told him that the
company was going down the toilet & wanted to see that Bret was the 1st out &
can get his contract set before all would
happen.
Bret says it was all baloney, says he believed
Vince & took the WCW deal & in the week of that process when the whole thing came
down, they decided that since he was leaving they wanted to tear Bret down as
much as possible. He says they wanted to
make sure that Bret had little value when
going to WCW as if WWE could beat him &
lower everything for him. He says WCW
wanted to at the time use him to open the
door to Canada & make it 1 of their big
markets. He says there was lots of potential
in him going there, says they talked it out &
was in a situation with Pat Robertson's
friend, Shawn Michaels. He says HBK had
lots of problems with him for years.
Bret says HBK told him a few weeks earlier
that he'd never lose to Bret in a match &
after he walked to HBK, he had no problem
if they'd do it at Survivor Series ['97]:
http://tinyurl.com/4q4abe if he'd get the belt, it wouldn't be a big deal to him. He says they had a little fisty cuff about it 6 months before it, says he had no problems
doing anything with HBK but once he
disrespected him in the dressing room, he
said the hell with HBK & he can play the
same way. He says he'll never let HBK beat
him, says that Vince told him that he can
leave anyway that he wanted & stood by it
by saying that he'll do anything that Vince
wanted, but won't lose to HBK.
Opie says it was agreed that Bret would've
won against HBK, Bret says they agreed to
an ending to the match that would've made
everyone happy. Opie says Bret would've
went out as champ, Bret says he was in a
funny situation in Canada on where the whole thing was built up. He says he was a
big Canadian hero at the time, says it was a
case on where he didn't think that it was the right thing to do & it was lowering his
stock. He says he saw it as a business
decision by sticking up for himself as a
business man & had every right to do it. He
says WWE lied & cheated him in the match
[aka the "Montreal Screwjob":
http://tinyurlcom/2erhdw ] & Opie said WWE made sure that HBK won.
Opie says it was done in front of a Canadian
crowd, asked if it was in Calgary & Bret said
Montreal. Opie says Bret was like "what the
F" because this wasn't agreed upon ahead
of time & says Bret spat at Vince's face. He says behind closed doors Bret gave Vince a
good 1, Bret says the truth about it was that Vince confronted him in the dressing room & asked him to leave. He told Vince
that if he didn't leave he'll get hurt, says
Vince stood in the dressing room with 3 or
4 hencemen [Gerald Brisco, Sgt. Slaughter & Shane McMahon] with him. He says he had [Jim] Neidhart, Davey [Boy Smith], Owen, Rick Rude & Undertaker.
Bret says HBK was sitting in the corner & if
you'll read in [Bret's] book that he was
balling his eyes out the whole time & didn't
stop blubbering when it all happened.
Norton asked on why HBK blubbered, Bret
says HBK was scared to death & called him a
coward. He says as he came out of the shower & was naked, says that Davey Boy
would always steal his towels so he'd come
out naked with dripping water. He says he
saw Vince & thought if he had to do a movie on this, he wouldn't have an actor do
that scene naked. So he got a towel, sat &
had a conversation with Vince & told him as
soon as he's dressed, if he's still there he'll
knock him out.
Bret says he remembers putting his clothes
on, tying his last shoe lace & thought that as soon as he's finished, it's showtime. He
says Vince ain't going no where & he's man
enough to give Vince what he deserved. He
says it [punching out Vince] was the most beautiful thing that he did in his life, Norton asked on how it felt & Bret says his
hand was broke because he hit Vince with an upper cut, which was the 1 that gave
[James] "Buster" Douglas did to Mike Tyson.
He says it was a beautiful punch in the world, says it was perfect & got a nice twist
into it as if it was a Popeye cartoon. He says
he's surprised that Vince's head didn't hit the ceiling.
Bret says Vince came down & rolled on his
ankle & almost breaking it. He says he hit
Vince in the jaw & it's how he got the black
eye & says he didn't hit him right in the face. Anthony said Vince staggered out of
there, Bret says Vince was out cold for about 2 minutes & was on the ground like a
star. Norton says Vince's a big bastard & not small, Bret says Vince went down hard
& says it's all in his book. He says he still
feels that it was the smartest thing he ever
did & the right thing to do. Opie asked if
Vince's boys jumped on him after that, Bret
says he expected a pull apart & it's why he
did the upper cut. He says if he would've done the overhanded right, they would've
hooked his arm.
Bret says it would've been like in wrestling where everyone jumps on you, Norton said
he wanted to land the punch & Bret said he
wanted to kill him. Norton asked on why he
didn't leave because as soon as the 2nd shoe was being applyed he could've told Vince that he'd talk to him later & leave. Opie says it's not like Vince was built like
Sam, says these guys won't back down to
often & Anthony says they're going wild with the "break" sign. Norton says they have to break & Bret's got other press to do, Opie says Bret's book was in Canada a
few years ago & Bret says 1. Opie says it's in this country, says he's read lots of wrestling books & he'll read his soon.
Opie says Sam told him that it's the best 1
that's come out, Bret says it took 7 years to
write it by himself & wrote it thru his stroke, the concussion & thru lots of
tragedy. He says he wrote it from the heart
& hopes everyone likes it Opie says Bret
didn't hold back & they've only touched the
surface on the stories that's in it. He says it's a pleasure having him in the studio & then they went for their break. After the
break & after Bret left Norton gave some
plugs for Bret's book signings, which was
Friday at 1PM at Borders Books in Manhattan, Saturday 11AM at Bookends in
Ridgewood, NJ & 4PM at Borders in Bridgewater Township, NJ.
Norton says Bret's a wrestler & will do a lot
more people then he did [with his own book signings]. Opie says Bret's seen a lot,
says there was no 1 bigger for a long time
then him & has stories to tell. He says Bret's
telling it with his book, says they take pride
for the fact that they screwed [WPIX] ch.11
because Bret was supposed to do an interview there 30 minutes ago. Opie says
they're giving them lots of signs & told them that they'd hang out with Bret & when they're ready to end they will. He says
they won't cut off the story about Bret
punching out Vince & it's unbelievable.
Norton says he can sense it by Bret looking
at him that he was gonna do as they've
instructed.
Norton says Bret's a freightning guy, Opie
agrees & Norton says Bret's quiet & ain't
trying to be intiminating. He says that is
what's scary about Bret by being a quite,
nice dude & don't want Bret's fist in his face. Opie says everyone told them that Bret could snap like that & was telling
Anthony to do his "angry Vince" impression.
Anthony says that he didn't feel that the comedy portion of it was gonna shine thru & that ended the segment there.
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