Hitman My Real Life in the Cartoon World by Bret Hart Read Free Book Online Page A

leaving him out cold with blood pouring everywhere. Ed Whalen actually received a letter from Idi Amin inviting him, Abdullah and the entire cast and crew to perform in Uganda. It wasn’t hard for me to envision Idi Amin getting off on Abdullah The Butcher biting the bloody forehead of Dave Ruhl!
    In March 1971, Stu persuaded The Stomper to come back to the territory to battle Abdullah in what was billed as the fight of the century. It was a feud that gave Stu the biggest gate so far in the history of the company but, unfortunately, Archie and Abdullah had a titanic clash of egos and only fought once.
    That year, I was in Grade 8, and Georgia was being teased by bullies from the Grade 9 in-crowd about how she dressed and about how fake her dad and wrestling were. They goaded her relentlessly, often to the point of tears. One day during lunch hour one of my dad’s Cadillacs pulled up to the front of Vincent Massey Junior High and out jumped Bruce and Dean.
    Dean was a tough little scrapper, the first Hart to win the city high-school amateur wrestling championship. The big bully of the in-crowd tried to flee the scene, but Georgia pointed him out.
    Dean grabbed him, took him down and taught him a lesson.
    Out of the mob that pressed in for a closer look came Brett MacFarlane, the same bully I had released from a headlock back in Grade 3. He tried to start up with me, but Bruce gave him a shove.
    Then, like a bunch of victorious gangsters, we climbed into the Cadillac and sped home for lunch.
    My best friend from school was Dean Wilkinson, a skinny blond kid with glasses nick-named Wilk, who often came home for lunch with me. That day when we got back after lunch, Brett MacFarlane, backed up by four or five of his Grade 9 buddies, challenged me to a fight out in the alley after school. I accepted. All afternoon, while my classmates looked at me with sympathetic eyes, I thought about how I could beat this kid. The words of my friend Mike Bracko echoed in my head: “Yer gonna get killed!” If there had been tickets, they would have sold out: Everyone wanted to cheer for the underdog.
    When the bell sounded at three-thirty, I walked out of the school visualizing what was going to happen, just like I would do later before my pro wrestling matches. A few girls pleaded with me not to fight. My science teacher, Mr. Daniels, wished me luck. I peeled off my green tank top to “ooh”s from the crowd gathered in the teachers’ parking lot. We went to an alley just off the school grounds, and the fight was on.
    I knew I couldn’t box, but I could wrestle. I began throwing high, wild punches, and MacFarlane put his fists up, just as I expected. At the right moment I dove for his legs and took him to the ground, getting behind him and clamping on a sleeper hold as hard as I could. I would have choked him out right there, but a kid from senior high made me break it. When we got to our feet again, I stuck with my plan, throwing high punches and then wrestling him to the ground, pinning him with my knees on his shoulders. I remembered the way he’d made fun of how poor I was, and I rained fists into his face, not stopping until he gave up not once, but twice.
    All the kids who, just minutes before, were so sure I was going to lose hoisted me on their shoulders.
    I’ll never forget watching Brett MacFarlane run down the street crying with his head down.
    About that time I had my first girlfriend, Marla, a cute blonde I met at the matches. We’d sit in the stands together, but her catcalls were so dirty and vulgar that fans down front would look up at us in disgust. I had no choice but to stop seeing her.
    At fourteen, I could better appreciate Clearwater Beach because of the pretty girls from all over the city who came out there to strut their stuff in their bikinis. I was tanned and muscular in cut-offs, with long brown hair. I was scared to get in the water—when I was younger, so-called swimming lessons from Smith and Wayne, during