Bret Hart Thinks British Wrestling Is “Lousy” Compared To American

Bret Hart has been critical of British wrestling before the turn of the century, and knew that once American wrestling took hold it would spell the end for what was happening on shows at the time.

When asking fans about the World Of Sport era in British wrestling, you know that often the names of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks and Mick McManus will roll off the tongue of even the most casual of fans. For decades fans were glued to their screens on a Saturday afternoon.

By the mid 80’s the popularity was dissipating and eventually in 1988 World Of Sport was taken off the air. The void was quickly filled with the likes of the WWF and WCW, with the larger-than-life stars very different to what they had experienced until that point.

In a discussion with Kenny McIntosh of Inside The Ropes at Starrcast’s 30 Years Later event, Bret Hart acknowledged that he knew the American wrestling scene would take over what was happening in Britain as soon as the audience was exposed to it.

I knew right away. I knew before anyone, once American wrestling hit Britain, then British wrestling would be out of business because British wrestling is just lousy compared to American.

I mean there is a lot of great wrestling in countries like Japan, England or the United States. There’s great wrestlers, and there is a lot of sh*t wrestlers. Unfortunately in England, a lot of them were tiny, skinny guys that were not very big. And then there were guys like Big Daddy, who was the opposite of Hulk Hogan on steroids, like Hulk Hogan on pure fat.

In a far cry from knocking the past, Bret Hart went on to talk about how the country is now producing some of the best wrestling talent in the world.

But anyway, you get great wrestlers in different styles and stuff. But I knew from the get-go when the WWF went there, that’s the kind of wrestling that would totally grip English wrestling fans and completely push that British wrestling off to the side.

Which was kind of a shame, because British wrestling had an art to itself and had a lot of great, great wrestlers, and they still do. It is fair to say now that they are turning out some of the best wrestlers in the world.

Bret Hart also spoke about how his match at SummerSlam 1992 against Davey Boy Smith almost didn’t happen.