Nikunj Walia on December 8, 2022
Road Dogg was a highly popular superstar during the Attitude Era in WWE during the 1990s. He rose to prominence as a member of the tag team ‘New Age Outlaws’ along with his partner Billy Gunn. The former WWE Tag Team champion once claimed that he was better than Bret Hart, and he had a strange reason for doing so.
Bret Hart was a mega star for WWE during the mid 1990s. He became a major draw for the company and achieved major success in the business. Even after retirement, Hart continues to make sporadic appearances to stay relevant among fans.
Road Dogg, although was successful as a tag team star, he did not achieve any major success as a singles star. Despite that, he went on to claim once that he was a better sports entertainer than Bret Hart was a wrestler, receiving major backlash for his statement. He spoke about this on the latest edition of his Oh You Didn’t Know podcast.
“There’s a lot of people upset about my comments about Bret Hart. And look, I — I actually did a an interview with a gentleman you know, Bill Apter, who called me last week. I was actually in the office in Stanford, and he called me. And so we spoke a little bit and he said, ‘You know, I just want to do a piece about what you said, and do you think you misspoke. And I said, ‘Yeah look, maybe in retrospect I could have changed some of the language. But the message would still stay the same, you know what I mean?
Road Dogg further spoke about him being a better sports entertainer than the Hitman and why he decided to go ahead with the statement.
That’s what I was talking about when I removed the word ‘sports’ [from being ‘a better sports entertainer’]. This is how I framed the argument. If me and Bret had to go out tomorrow night in whatever building we were in, and we had 10 minutes to do something to entertain them. Bret would have to wrestle for those, you know what I mean? [laughs] If I had it, I could do a couple more things, is all I’m saying.
Look, I’m still taking the piss a little bit, and just having fun with this. And can I be honest with you about something?… I leaned into the Bret thing, you know what I mean? I leaned into it a little more than normal to get a bite, to get a nibble. Holy crap, I got my boat so full of fish, I had to go to shore. So I was just looking for, you know what I mean, some steam. Just looking for a little gravel, something to sink my teeth into. And man, did that happen.
Road Dogg also revealed that he made that claim only to gain ratings for his podcast. In the end, it’s all about the numbers, something Road Dogg certainly knows how to generate.
“But then I got to a point where I felt really bad inside my my own head and heart. And I had to do this conversation in my head, like, ‘Okay you did that, but you did it for ratings. And is it really how you feel, how far did you go? Where was your real line at.’ You know what I mean? And I kind of still feel the same way. But I leaned into it stronger than I should have by design. And it made me uncomfortable, to be quite honest with you. It made me uncomfortable for two or three weeks.”
Road Dogg and Billy Gunn, collectively known as the New Age Outlaws, were a popular tag team during the Attitude Era. After their success as a team, they went on to join Triple H as a part of D-Generation X. Road Dogg is currently serving as Senior Vice President of WWE Live Events. Bret Hart doesn’t have an active role in WWE right now, but you can never say never in pro wrestling.
Do you think Road Dogg was a better sports entertainer than Bret Hart? Sound off in the comments!
December 8, 2022 10:33 am
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