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COMPLETE 2019 WWE HALL OF FAME CEREMONY LIVE COVERAGE

By Stuart Carapola on 2019-04-06 22:30:00

Miz and Shane make faces at each other, then Corey and Renee take us to this year's Legacy inductees: Bruiser Brody, Jim Barnett, Hisashi Shinma, Luna Vachon, "Playboy" Buddy Rose, Primo Carnera, Professor Toru Tanaka, SD Jones, Wahoo McDaniel, and Joe Cohen.

Corey and Renee introduce Joe Cohen to the audience, then we hit the video for our next inductees, the Hart Foundation.  Nobody inducting them, but accepting the award is Bret Jart and Jim Neidhart's daughter, Natalya.  Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch are wearing Bret Hart sunglasses as they make their way to the podium, and all Nattie can say is wow, because she had to put herself in her dad's shoes to think about what he might say.  She thanks her mother for having Jim's back every step of the way, and she wants to thank Bret for helping Jim discover the potential he had, and also the WWE Universe for showing the Hart Foundation love since 1985.  All of them made this happen, and her father's favorite team to wrestle was the British Bulldogs, and she knows the Bulldogs, Owen, Stu, and her dad are all watching this together.  New York was his favorite place to wrestle, hands down, and the Hart Foundation inspired teams to follow them for decades to come, and rattles off about a dozen teams from the last decade.  Her father was approached about doing a book, and she thought it would be a great thing for him to tell about all the cool stuff he did even outside of WWE, and in what was the last text she got from him, he said the greatest thing he ever did besides be a father to three girls was become a WWE superstar.  He was a wrestler, and that's what he loved most.

She turns it over to Bret, who says it's an honor to be here because many are called and few are chosen.  It still hurts having just lost Jim last summer.  He loved him, and he was the best friend and most hilarious cellmate anyone can hope for.  Wrestling is tough, and Jim made him laugh his ass off every day, and every day was an adventure.  He mentions how Dr. D just slapped John Stossel. Wrestlemania was coming up, and he found out WWE was finally going to do something with him: he'd be Cowboy Bret Hart, and would have an action figure with a horse and everything.  He said sure, but when he told Anvil and Adrian Adonis about it, they laughed at him the entire way, and by the timE he got back to the hotel that night, he had totally changed his mind about Cowboy Bret Hart.  He knocked on George Scott's door at 1 am and said he didn't want to be a cowboy, because where he comes from, he better be a real cowboy if he wanted to call himself that.  Scott said they'd come up with something else, and in that moment, he suggested teaming him with Anvil, giving them Jimmy as a manager, and calling them the Hart Foundation.  Scott said he could never be a heel, and said to hang in there, but after another few weeks of no TV tapings, he decided to quit, but that's when Scott said they'd go with the Hart Foundation idea. 

He realized at that moment that he never asked Jim about any of this, and...a guy jumps into the ring and attacks Bret.  Security swarms in as we keep the cameras on the crowd.  We come back to the ring as we see a bunch of wrestlers and agents hit the ring to help Bret and Nattie, and the assholes get dragged out of the building as the fans chant that they're a-holes, which I can't disagree with. 

Drake Maverick says to pay no attention to that man, and to keep this going.  Nattie says it's time to get back to the speech, and the fans pop HUGE for Bret as he continues saying he never asked Jim about any of this and hoped he liked the idea, and luckily, he did.  He hopes he can describe what it was like being a heel team in WWF 1985, and it's a bit like what happened just now.  He thinks they were the most wild and fun nights in his life, and he wants to tip his hat to the teams back then who, like he and Jim, were often top workers from the territories who were just thrown together.  He runs down practically every team from the 80s boom period, and the memory of those golden days never left him, and she remembers having some brilliant matches with the Bulldogs, and Vince was never there to see them work.  One night, his parents flew in from Canada to watch them work the Killer Bees, and Stu didn't like the idea of him working heel, but it was her mother's first time in a wrestling arena since the 40s, and they went 20 minutes, and were dirty cheating heels, and on the way out, he pointed at his mother and went "Sit down and shut up, you old bag!" and then told his father to "sit down and shut your mouth!" before coming to the back to standing ovations.  Vince held out his hand and told him it was a great match, and it was the first time Vince ever noticed anything they did.  One time he was riding with King Kong Bundy, and the Foundation was on early while Bundy was working the main event, and when they went back to their car after the show, Bundy and Anvil saw an angry mob waiting for them, and Bundy said they needed security.  Bret was new to being a heel, so the three of them pushed by the fans and walked right to their cars, and he got kissed by pretty girls while they got spat on and punched.  They asked if he was trying to get them killed, and he thought about it, apoligized, and said he was new to being a heel in America.  He was also driving in New York for the first time, and they pulled out of the parking lot right into the same angry mob, and he just honked and the fans saw Bundy and wanted to get him, and they surrounded the car until a cop got them out of there.  They jumped a curb, and he wasn't sure where they were going, but the Anvil (holding a map upside down) led him in a complete circle, and brought them back on the same street again.  He honked at them again, and the cop and mob couldn't believe it, and Bundy called him a stupid dumbass.  He also wants to thank Jimmy Hart because he belongs up there with them, then he even name drops Danny Davis (making Mike Johnson's day) and appreciates him getting them the tag title.  He thinks back on being so young and full of life, being a heel was the biggest joy he could have, and he thanks the Brain Busters, Powers of Pain, the Rockers, Legion of Doom (who they only faced one time), the Nasty Boys, and he and Anvil had a story with each team and never used stories on more than one team.  They stood side-by-side facing the world, and said Jim was a one of a kind character, and the greatest thing to ever happen to him wasn't the call to go to Calgary and train with Stu, it was the love between he and Bret's ssiter Ellie, who is a bottomless pit of patience.  He knows Nattie couldn't have made Jim more proud, and Jim Neidhart was always a true friend and always there to make him smile even in his darkest times.  The Hart Foundation lived life to the fullest, broke lots of rules, and made new ones.  Bret has lost too many friends these last few years, and one thing he's learned is his friends won't all grow old with him.  He never had a disagreement with Anvil, which is especially remarkable because they were always together, and they're proud of their accomplishments, but even more proud of their friendship.  One day, he hopes to have a meeting with his lost friends, and when that day comes, he wants a path straight to the Anvil.  They lived by a few rules, and he reads off a few deep thoughts of the Anvil, especially how 99% of people don't get to live out their dreams, and he wants to thank WWE for helping him follow all the dreams they had.  Now that they're officially in the Hall of Fame, he can say with pride that they are the best there is, was, or ever will be.  A clip of Anvil on screen saying "That's right, Hitman baby!  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" comes up on screen as we wrap the segment.

Our next inductee is up on Page 4!


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