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COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT: BRET HART'S CAC LOU THESZ AWARD ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

Last night, Nattie Neidhart presented Bret Hart with the Cauliflower Alley Club's 2026 Lou Thesz Award.  Here is the transcript:

Nattie: I know that everybody's been so patient waiting for me. I wish I had some of that tequila that Bret was talking about. And Jimmy Hart! Jimmy, wearing the Hart Foundation t-shirt, showing it off.  What a great honor it is for me to present this award. It's an award that I got last year, and it's an award that means a lot to anybody that loves professional wrestling.  When I wanted to start wrestling, my Uncle Bret at first tried to talk me out of it. He was worried, he said the Hart legacy is a hard one to follow.  Well, I’d just like to point out that I received this award last year, so who’s following who now?

(Laughter and applause)

On that note, I'm going to walk you through... keep my microphone.  I am just kidding, of course.  This is a fitting place to say that the only thing that will top being honored last year is being asked to induct Bret Hart this year.  He is my uncle, but he’s also my hero.  Right from the start and all the way to this very day, Bret has always been there, even when he was miles away.  When he and my dad won the World Tag Team titles when I was just a kid, I used to think that wrestling was about winning championships. But now that I’m a little older and wiser, I see that a career isn’t measured by the gold you win; it’s remembered by the principles that you never lose.

Bret is a very rare breed. And whether you loved him on both sides of the curtain, he was the one that the fans watched, but the wrestlers studied. He was the magician that made the other magicians believe. And he did it with pride and honor. He took his love for wrestling and storytelling, and he ushered in a new era at the time the business really needed it.  Just like the Lou Theszs, Bret believed that the champion should be able to wrestle anyone, anywhere, and anytime. From Diesel to Stone Cold, from 1 2 3 Kid to Owen Hart...

(Applause)

...from Ric Flair to "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Any style, any size, any time limit, Bret Hart was going to make art. Because he was a true artist.  He believed, because he believed. You know, you can’t pick your family, but in a world full of uncles, sorry Ross, or a locker room full of wrestlers, I would pick Bret Hart every single time.  Ladies and gentlemen, the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be, Bret "Hitman" Hart!

Bret Hart: Hi everybody.  I'm going to try to read this, and say this the best I can. I'm very honored to have been chosen to receive the prestigious Lou Thesz Award.  This will always mean so much to me. To me, this is one of the true highlights of my career. I've had many honors bestowed on me, how I was voted one time the 39th greatest Canadian of all time. I've had 80s... sexest man in Canada twice.

(Laughter)

All the title belts, the trophies, the plaques, even the medals. But in the heart of hearts, in my heart of hearts, this will stand as one of my highest and most meaningful awards of my career.  Maybe really because it's, it's been my life. My life... I'm sorry, I feel flustered again. I can't read it. Maybe it's because it's been my life, my entire life, and I feel more and more every day that I walk in my dad's shoes. To me, wrestling was everything. All day, everything.  I was fascinated by wrestling, probably from the time I was 5 years old. Killer Kowalski was the first heel that terrified me. But then I'd go downstairs into the Dungeon, where he and a bunch of wrestlers were drinking carrot juice and taking turns wrestling on the mat. He was nice.

Soon I was earning my first income ever by selling wrestling programs at the Calgary shows. I'd sell all my programs and race to the timekeeper's table where my, me and my brother Dean were safe and could watch up close. All my brothers were fans, and we'd all take it in. In comparison to most wrestlers, most weren't fans as kids so much. For me, I was a real fan.  You know, I remember as a kid, my dad would take all the, all the boys, and my mom would take care of the girls downstairs... I don't know, it was bath night on Sunday nights. And 12 kids is a lot of kids to wash off. But anyway, my dad, there was a curtain across one of the bathrooms in the basement, actually, it was the basement in the Dungeon. And he'd scrub us all in the shower, the shower for... for like two hours, one after another, until we were scrubbed clean for the next week.

(Laughter)

But the fun part for me was my dad would, we would lie in the middle of the mat in the Dungeon, in the actual Dungeon where we had the art house, and he had this big medicine ball. He'd be on his knees, and then all the boys would run around in a circle in the Dungeon, and he would take that rolling ball and just like dodgeball, wherever you got clipped by the ball or knocked under your feet... I remember for me it was so much fun just running around in a circle with all my brothers, and I won a lot of times! Just a good memory for me as a kid.  Every Friday night from the time I was 5, I'd ride to the Pavilion with my dad and most of my brothers. Little Owen wasn't even born yet. Stu would pull into a hotel and send three or four major wrestlers to the climate.

(Laughter)

Man, I thought, this is the best day of my life!

(Laughter)

Being encouraged by Lou Boudreau, I guess I pestered Irish Pat O'Connor a little too much, and I think I got carried away and put him in a headlock. He clamped down on my knee with his hand and squeezed as hard as he could until I let go. It kind of hurt, but I stopped bugging him after that.

(Laughter)

When I remember these days, what often strikes me the most were the champions, the world champions. I really did watch Buddy Rogers wrestle. I became so immersed in wrestling. I watched Gene Kiniski and Lou Thesz. It was everywhere. It was everything to me. I tell people today, try going back and watching those greats that came before me: Kiniski, Kowalski, Buddy Rogers, Lou Thesz, Bruno Sammartino.  A few years later, by the time I was 12 years old, Archie "The Stomper" Gouldie replaced Killer Kowalski as our top heel. One night at the show, The Stomper attacked my dad. I was watching from my seat behind the announcer's table as the referee proved he attacked my dad and stomped on his arm... It was hard for me to watch, as nobody ever smartened us up or anything.  As they stretched my dad out back to the dressing room... when I woke up the next day, my dad was casually cleaning all the dishes, but now he was wearing a cast on his arm. Within a few hours, it got so annoying, I saw him carefully saw it off.

(Laughter)

I thought, "Oh good, my dad's getting better!"

(Laughter)

Then there was a knock on the door, and my dad was frantically looking everywhere where he put his cast to try to slip it back on before opening the door. It was the milkman, who eagerly inquired how Stu was doing. As soon as he left, my dad would take that cast off, and it was then that I realized that I started to understand pro wrestling.

(Laughter)

I think the topper for me was when one afternoon I was home watching Stampede Wrestling on TV. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon. It was just me and my mom inside, nobody else was home. Stomper was on TV screaming and yelling on the TV screen. Black and white, talking about coming to the Hart house and tear the house down quick, brick by brick. Then he yelled, "I'm going to find and pile-drive Helen on the interstate!"

(Laughter)

I think all the Hart kids everywhere, all around the yard... I could feel goosebumps go up my back. I looked at my mom and asked her, "What's an interstate?"

(Laughter)

Then a few minutes later, my mom went back upstairs to her office. I calmly looked out the window and suddenly, The Stomper pulled up in a cool yellow Corvette. The door kicked open and lo and behold, he climbed out of the car with this stern look on his face. Uh-oh! He said he was going to pile-drive my mom. I frantically raced upstairs to warn her, but she grabbed an envelope off her desk and bravely skipped down to confront him.

But again, much to my surprise...

(Bret laughing)

...she put on her furry slippers, wearing only her nightie. She opened the door and stunned me by saying, "Hello Archie! Oh darling, here's your check."

(Laughter and applause)

He graciously took it and gave my mom a little hug before he left. This was the final straw for me!

(Laughter)

Maybe wrestling's not real. Boy, if you could see the little wheels turning around in my head at that moment!

I can talk all day about my childhood and my love for the wrestling business. As a true fan, the world champions made the deepest impression on me. Just a few days ago, we lost one of the all-time greats in Dory Funk Jr.

When I was 14, Dory Funk came down to the Calgary Stampede. He wrestled Billy Robinson, the best pro wrestler to come out of England at the time. Two masters who literally reinforced my love of great wrestling by blending American and British styles and putting on a one-hour classic unlike anything I've ever seen before or since.  When the Stampede ended that year, I had become so mesmerized by Dory Funk, and I was thrilled when he invited me and my brothers Bruce and Dean to come visit him in Amarillo, Texas. A few weeks later, we drove all the way down to Dory's house. We stayed with him and his family, and he was, he was... he impressed me so much. He acted like a champion with everything he did. I saw the door open and the curtain pull back even more. I'm proud to say that I loved Dory Funk, and I'll miss him greatly.

I'll say that in my opinion, he was indeed one of the greatest of all time, inside and outside the ring. I never met anyone who carried himself with more class and dignity. He acted like a champion, the way wrestlers greeted him, talked to him, talked about him. See how many wrestlers imitated him, his style. He was second to none. He was the world champion because he was the best, and everyone knew it. He made me believe it was real.  To be a world champion, to carry that belt, he could work with anybody in any style. I watched Dory Funk blow the roof off the building wrestling Abdullah the Butcher. I'd stare up at Dory Funk and tell myself, "I want to be him someday."  I was slowly being pulled into wrestling, realizing that Dory was a second-generation son of a wrestler. If he could be a great, maybe I could be the same thing for my dad someday.

Dory was a Texas state amateur wrestling champion, so when I came home and went back to school, I pushed myself to win the city wrestling championships because he did it. Then there was Jack Brisco and Harley Race. Harley is another wrestler that pulled that curtain back for me. Like Dory, he invited Bruce and Dean and I to come visit him in Kansas City. To be a teen riding in the car listening to Dory, Terry, or Harley speak of the business was such an education. I soaked it up.

I would someday have the honor of wrestling both Dory and Harley, and near the end of my career, it was me as world champion wrestling Terry Funk and honoring him. There was one Stampede week when Terry Funk went out clubbing with me and my brothers. I was about 20 years old. It was an all-nighter, and Terry ended up crashing out in my bed upstairs at the top of the Hart house. I got up early in the morning for the Stampede parade. I noticed my dad pacing around a little bit, starting to freak out. "Terry didn't check into his room last night! I don't know where he is, he's going to miss the parade!"

(Laughter)

I calmly looked at him and said, "Terry's upstairs in my bed."

(Laughter)

Even with a hangover, Terry sat through a three-hour parade in 90-degree heat, and went on to have an amazing match with The Stomper that night.

I guess my point is that I understand that it was, that it was a tough life being a wrestler, especially a world champion. As a young wrestler, I had the chance to wrestle greats like Big Boss Man, Antonio Inoki, Fujinami, all class champs. And I'd never get to be champion until I was as good as them.  I never expected to be a world champion seven times, but when I was, I never forgot my predecessors. I like to think that they passed me the torch. 

When the Montreal Screwjob happened, it was first Dory, then Harley, then Pedro Morales who all called me. They asked me what happened. They all told me I did the right thing, that the situation, under the circumstances, was the best thing I could do in that situation. Dory said he was proud of me.  That's what stands out the most to me now: the pride in the work, that toughness, the imagination, the trust, and respect. They paved the way for the rest of us today in pro wrestling. I stand here before you solely in honor of those great wrestlers that came before me and taught me everything.

I know what it's like to wear gold belt around my waist. I know what it's like to wrestle full blast for an hour. I know what it's like to lose by one point. I know what it's like to strap on a knee brace to strap on a world title belt. I've bled.  We carry the lives we imagined, and we carry the lives we have. And sometimes the reckoning comes from all the great champions we've lost.  I say to all of you tonight: see your dreams, and live them. To CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, Rey Mysterio, Nattie... the torch is in your hands. Carry it high and hold it up.  Thank you.

Thank you to Michael Peskin for his help.

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