Eric Bischoff Wonders If Bret Hart Is Suffering From Brain Damage

Bret Hart is widely regarded as one of the best technical wrestlers in the world. He was one of WWE’s top guys in the ’90s and had some incredible feuds and matches. Despite enjoying a successful run in the company, Hart left the company to go and join WCW.

Unlike his WWE run, Hart’s WCW was forgettable at best. He wasn’t involved in many meaningful storylines, and he was just a shadow of his former self despite winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. His WCW run is what resulted in Bret calling time on his career so early.

Bret Hart was set to defend his WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Goldberg at Starrcade. During the match, Goldberg hit Hart with a thrust kick, which resulted in a severe concussion. During the match, Hart placed Goldberg on the post in a figure four leg lock which ended with Hart hitting his head on the concrete floor when Goldberg failed to receive the move properly.

Hart later claimed that he suffered three additional concussions that day and in the days immediately following Starrcade. The sum of those concussions left Hart with post-concussion syndrome, which ultimately forced him to retire from professional wrestling.

Since then, Hart has been vocal about the incident and has even blamed Goldberg for ending his career. Hart has even mentioned that he isn’t happy that Goldberg has been making millions of dollars by wrestling in Saudi Arabia while he is unable to do the same.

Eric Bischoff, on the other hand, is wondering if Bret Hart is suffering from brain damage. On a recent episode of his 83 weeks podcast, Bischoff said that Hart had a better chance of getting concussed from hitting his head on the floor than from a kick to the head.

“Someday I’d like to review that. Someday I would really like with somebody that’s smart, you know what I mean. You know, I’d like to uh, oh gosh, I’m sorry his name is escaping me right now, but the individual who used to work for WWE who’s now very involved in CTE and [Conrad reminds him it’s Chris Nowinski] yeah I’d like to sit down and watch videotape with Chris of that match because there’s also a really what if I remember and I could be wrong and I’m sure somebody listening is going to make sure I know about it.”

Conrad Thomson then said that they both watched the match where he hit his head on the ground. To this, Eric had quite a reply.

“I’m thinking because I’ve watched the kick. I’ve watched that in slow motion and I guess it…I’m no expert. I am not an expert and but I’m looking at that and I’m thinking, “ah, maybe” but I’m looking at Bret bouncing his head off the concrete or ring post or whatever it was and if I had to put my money, I would put it on that concussion occurring on that bump is much or more so than the kick to the head.

I’m not saying that to be controversial. I’m not saying that to out of disrespect to Bret. I’m just pointing out what I think is something that is at least worthy of discussion if we’re going to keep blaming Bill Goldberg for that concussion because I’m not sure if this was played in front of a jury, you could convince a jury that that was true.”

One can only imagine what would’ve happened if Bret had decided to stay in WWE instead of going to WCW. Maybe he could’ve enjoyed a longer career. Only time will tell if Hart will finally be able to move on from this incident. Stay tuned to Ringside News as we bring you similar stories.

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