When professional wrestling was at its peak in pop culture in the late 1990s, it created for some rather interesting scenarios. One of those scenarios involves then-WWF Heavyweight Champion Bret Hart appearing in an anti-bullying campaign on MADtv in 1997. Lasso “spun him around,” making it a point of contention when Bret Hart appeared on the program as Jesse Ventura’s running-mate during a 1999 skit, when Hart was WCW United States Champion.
Ventura was portrayed by Will Sasso, who took a chair shot from Bret. Bret cut a promo, making it seem as though it was a shoot on set, and then locked Sasso in the sharpshooter. It culminated in a match on Monday Nitro at the Fairgrounds in Tampa, Florida.
Sasso recently appeared on Casual Conversations with The Wrestling Classic, where he discussed Bret in detail.
“After he attacked me on MADtv during the sketch, we had a couple of interviews lined up that publicity did through the show with like Access Hollywood and, I can’t remember if it was CNN or MSNBC, this little clip and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna sue him.’ They’re like, ‘….really?…’Here’s the thing, only a handful of people knew that was going to happen, when he attacked me. It was mostly the actors in the sketch and a couple of stunt performers who were dressed as set PAs with headsets. It was not a good idea in some ways because people were like, ‘what the fuck.’ We had like a stunt pad on my knee, so he could wail off on my knee and put me in the sharpshooter. The first thing he was going to do was hit me in the back. In the sketch, I’m playing the Governor Jesse Venture and it’s, ‘Here’s my new Minister of Defense, Bret Hart.’ Bret comes out, he’s cutting a promo on the press, he gets a little rowdy with some of the cast, and he hits me in the back with a chair, in the sketch. Before we go out there he goes, ‘You want me to pull back on the chair shot?’ I’m delighted to say that Bret Hart and I are pals at this point. I go, ‘Nah, go for it. It’s just a chair, you can’t hurt me.’ You want it to look good. I’m telling you, there were raised welts on my back for like a week. He hit me so fucking hard. It wasn’t even a metal chair, it was a metal-framed plastic chair. He hit me so fucking hard, but right in the meaty area, Bret has never hurt anybody. I did ask for it. Then we went on with the storyline.We did it in Tampa, it was a Nitro, and he goes, ‘Let’s go to the ring and feel it out.’ The first thing he does is a Russian leg sweep. ‘Oh, that’s fucking fun, cool.’ The ring has a little bit of give. He goes, ‘You horse around, do physical comedy, and played football. You get it. You watch this.’ ‘No, I don’t, Bret. I don’t get it.’ The reason he’s saying that is he’s the Excellence of Execution, he can have a match with a sack of potatoes. That’s what he did that night. For me, it was no offense. The whole point was Bret Hart is looking at this like, ‘What the fuck is this?’ Brian Hartt and I, we hate it when you see Jay Leno put Hulk Hogan in a headlock. Fuck that. if you respect this art form, this should be a joke. Bret was happy to hear that. He gets in there, looking at the crowd, looking at the ref. ‘What am I supposed to do with this? What the fuck?’ He slaps me around, beats the shit out of me, and goes off. We go for a test of strength, he kicks me in the nuts, does a clothesline, and that should be it. He goes, ‘Don’t move, I will move you whenever I want to do something.’ I can’t wait to sell the shit out of it because I love physical comedy. ‘Please throw me around.’ At the end of it, just throws me in the sharpshooter. At the end of it, I’m fine. He’s stomping me in the corner and his boot is moving so fast, then it just stops. It was like being in a dream and I got to experience just what makes him, in my opinion, the best.”
You can see the second MADtv skit here:
H/T to Jeremy Lambert and Fightful for the transcriptions.
If you enjoy Bodyslam’s content, you can help donate to the site here. You can also visit our PWTees store and buy Bodyslam official merchandise here.
You can listen to all of Bodyslam’s podcasts by following us on Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube Channel.
Follow us on Twitter: @BodyslamNet.
Follow me on Twitter: @TheJameus.
