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Hi there. For the people that may not have been around when I actually wrote more often, hi, I'm Mr/Rob T, cool Webmastering type person (in fact, I webmaster the Oracles site) and allegedly good columnist. Rumors of my [slash] departure due to a)death, b)too much enjoyment of homosexual pornographic activities, c)an encounter in a dark alley with Colonic Crud or d)being from Texas are all either untrue or greatly exaggerated. :-)

"And I said to the guy, I said, "dammit! I listened to Vince and jobbed to an washed-up wrestler-turned-announcer after headlining ECW, being the Human Crime Spree and all that and now they won't even let MIDEON sell for me? My mood is changing - f-Vince and his "monster" pushes!"

Shooters News Update in Quotes: "Bret Hart has officially retired from professional wrestling. In an announcement on his Website yesterday, Hart cited the dangerousness of returning to the ring with his history of concussions as the reason for hanging up the boots. It's really a shame that in wrestling there's no such thing as a glorious retirement." -Luke Johnston, The Shooters

There were a lot of varied reactions to Bret Hart's firing and subsequent retirement. Disgust, respect, outright "hit the road, Jack, and don't let the door hit ya", etc. etc. etc. It's a damn shame that Bret Hart, whether or not you respect the man as a person, was forced out the door in the way he was, but what's even worse than that?

His retirement more than likely marks his "shoot interview" as the last appearance of any Hart Foundation member on American (wrestling) TV. If there were a "tragedy" written in Shakespearean style about professional wrestling, the Hart Foundation* would probably appear in it. Six talented guys (for the technical smart marks, Dynamite Kid was probably never a "member" of the Hart Foundation - he appears here by way of his longtime tag team with Davey Boy Smith.), all of whom trained and most of whom learned the sport in the legendary Hart Dungeon. Arguably the most talented stable of wrestlers, workrate wise, that ever appeared on American TV. Countless WWF Tag Title honors, 10 (maybe more) IC titles, 5 World Titles (counting the WCW title Bret Hart "held") and 2 WCW US titles between them.

*For clarification purposes, there were two Hart Foundations: the tag team with Bret Hart in the early '90s and the stable in 1998 with the Canada/USA angle. Since the members of the tag team also ended up being members of the '98 stable, it's not relevant to the point, but just thought I'd help you out by supplying more Useless Facts(tm The Animaniacs). There was ALSO a "New Hart Foundation", but since we ALL know that it is an ironclad law of wrestling that all ripoffs of a past good tag team with new member(s) (see: The Blackjacks, The New Rockers, Harlem Heat (Big T), LOD (Droz), etc.) must suck worse than Trish or the Hardys on the mic and die mercifully in a month or so (if that long) , we'll ignore that part.

Where are they now?

-Owen Hart: dead, the innocent victim of a stunt gone wrong on WWF PPV.

-"The Loose Cannon" Brian Pillman: dead (heart attack?) the day of a WWF PPV.

-Bret Hart: Retired, and he ended up losing his brother, his wife, getting "let go" and royally screwed by BOTH of the big 2, and becoming one of the most bitter and whiny men in the business.

-Dynamite Kid: wheelchair bound for life in his England home. (again, not officially a HF member to my knowledge.)

-Davey "The British Bulldog" Smith - after a failed WCW run, and an attempted return to the WWF aborted by his painkiller addiction, he sits in jail now, charged with threatening to kill his wife and sister-in-law. (That was also in that news update I quoted earlier - thanks, Lukester!)

-Jim Neidhart: sad as it is, Jim Neidhart is the only active wrestling member of the Hart Foundation left. The curse hasn't done him in yet: he's still wrestling on the indies (and in Stampede? Is that still going?). It is so ironic, in my opinion, that "The Anvil", considered to be the least prolific (and possibly the dark sheep in terms of workrate) outlasted the rest of them in the sport.

There's the legacy, folks: crippled, dead, or in retirement, battling demons, both wrestling-related and personal. They gave 10, 13, 15, even 20 years to the sport that they loved, and they have it to thank for being dead, crippled, or being permanently emotionally "messed-up" (scarred, damaged, whatever works for you.)

Thinking about it that way, I can no longer blame Bret Hart for hating Vince McMahon. Call it a heel turn, call it whatever: The man has risen to multi-billionaire status on the bodies of his friends and family. 500,000+ were watching @ 29.95 when Owen Hart plunged to his death, and whether or not you agree, in Bret's eyes that 29.95 was more important to Vince than Owen when Vince refused to stop the show. Bret (and maybe DBS) brought some of their problems upon themselves, yes, but it's just a damn shame that a WCW FedEx letter is the closure to the horrific destruction of six (okay, five) of arguably one of the most talented set of performers ever to appear on American wrestling TV.

We may yet see DBS recover, or Neidhart make it back to the big two, or Bret wrestle "his last match" on his own terms, some of you reading might say. Good: to rip off one of our current Canadian stars, I hope they "prove me wrong." (Well, maybe not Neidhart. :-)]. Otherwise, the years of dedication and loyalty these men put into Our Great Sport(tm Shill-Vone, Tony) will be nothing more than a tiny footnote in the shadow of Vince McMahon: owner of the wrestling industry at last.

And as always, you *can* qu---oh wait. One more thing to take care of:

Well, I'm not gonna say that this will be my last contribution to [slash]. I, after all, made whatever little name I have for myself as a writer here. I do have Rant Central and the OW.com site to deal with, though, so even money says this is my final 20-second job to Crowbar via backslide before going to ECW or something like that. While I'm on that topic, some of those "in the know" about the always stormy Delphi waters may have equated my disappearance with certain problems Our Fearless Leader had (or didn't have) with several former [slash] contributors.

To steal a catchphrase: OH HELL NO. I freely admit that certain members of groups I belong to hate this place with a passion, but I'm not "certain members". I will always appreciate that Chris gave me the opportunity to publish my work here, (and pimped it several times in the earlier days), and he is also responsible for publishing the works of many writers who I enjoy reading (some of whom now write for me, some of whom have gone on to bigger and better and some of whom I still travel to [slash] to read.)

Maybe some people have sour grapes about this, this, or that, but I have one thing to say: thanks, Chris. You may not owe me anything, :-), but I damn sure will always owe you a debt of gratitude for the opportunity that has, either directly or indirectly, led to me being somewhat of a "Internet Wrestling Personality" (HA!) and a webmaster myself. If this is indeed my last time appearing in the ever-holy second-rate HTML (ha! Kidding, kidding), it's an honor for those to be my last words here.

You damn RIGHT: you *can* quote me on that.

Main BLAH	DON'T QUOTE ME ON THAT Hi there. For the people that may not have been around when I actually wrote more often, hi, I'm Mr/Rob T, cool Webmastering type person (in fact, I webmaster the Oracles site) and allegedly good columnist. Rumors of my [slash] departure due to a)death, b)too much enjoyment of homosexual pornographic activities, c)an encounter in a dark alley with Colonic Crud or d)being from Texas are all either untrue or greatly exaggerated. :-) "And I said to the guy, I said, "dammit! I listened to Vince and jobbed to an washed-up wrestler-turned-announcer after headlining ECW, being the Human Crime Spree and all that and now they won't even let MIDEON sell for me? My mood is changing - f-Vince and his "monster" pushes!" Shooters News Update in Quotes: "Bret Hart has officially retired from professional wrestling. In an announcement on his Website yesterday, Hart cited the dangerousness of returning to the ring with his history of concussions as the reason for hanging up the boots. It's really a shame that in wrestling there's no such thing as a glorious retirement." -Luke Johnston, The Shooters There were a lot of varied reactions to Bret Hart's firing and subsequent retirement. Disgust, respect, outright "hit the road, Jack, and don't let the door hit ya", etc. etc. etc. It's a damn shame that Bret Hart, whether or not you respect the man as a person, was forced out the door in the way he was, but what's even worse than that? His retirement more than likely marks his "shoot interview" as the last appearance of any Hart Foundation member on American (wrestling) TV. If there were a "tragedy" written in Shakespearean style about professional wrestling, the Hart Foundation* would probably appear in it. Six talented guys (for the technical smart marks, Dynamite Kid was probably never a "member" of the Hart Foundation - he appears here by way of his longtime tag team with Davey Boy Smith.), all of whom trained and most of whom learned the sport in the legendary Hart Dungeon. Arguably the most talented stable of wrestlers, workrate wise, that ever appeared on American TV. Countless WWF Tag Title honors, 10 (maybe more) IC titles, 5 World Titles (counting the WCW title Bret Hart "held") and 2 WCW US titles between them. For clarification purposes, there were two Hart Foundations: the tag team with Bret Hart in the early '90s and the stable in 1998 with the Canada/USA angle. Since the members of the tag team also ended up being members of the '98 stable, it's not relevant to the point, but just thought I'd help you out by supplying more Useless Facts(tm The Animaniacs). There was ALSO a "New Hart Foundation", but since we ALL know that it is an ironclad law of wrestling that all ripoffs of a past good tag team with new member(s) (see: The Blackjacks, The New Rockers, Harlem Heat (Big T), LOD (Droz), etc.) must suck worse than Trish or the Hardys on the mic and die mercifully in a month or so (if that long) , we'll ignore that part. Where are they now? -Owen Hart: dead, the innocent victim of a stunt gone wrong on WWF PPV. -"The Loose Cannon" Brian Pillman: dead (heart attack?) the day of a WWF PPV. -Bret Hart: Retired, and he ended up losing his brother, his wife, getting "let go" and royally screwed by BOTH of the big 2, and becoming one of the most bitter and whiny men in the business. -Dynamite Kid: wheelchair bound for life in his England home. (again, not officially a HF member to my knowledge.) -Davey "The British Bulldog" Smith - after a failed WCW run, and an attempted return to the WWF aborted by his painkiller addiction, he sits in jail now, charged with threatening to kill his wife and sister-in-law. (That was also in that news update I quoted earlier - thanks, Lukester!) -Jim Neidhart: sad as it is, Jim Neidhart is the only active wrestling member of the Hart Foundation left. The curse hasn't done him in yet: he's still wrestling on the indies (and in Stampede? Is that still going?). It is so ironic, in my opinion, that "The Anvil", considered to be the least prolific (and possibly the dark sheep in terms of workrate) outlasted the rest of them in the sport. There's the legacy, folks: crippled, dead, or in retirement, battling demons, both wrestling-related and personal. They gave 10, 13, 15, even 20 years to the sport that they loved, and they have it to thank for being dead, crippled, or being permanently emotionally "messed-up" (scarred, damaged, whatever works for you.) Thinking about it that way, I can no longer blame Bret Hart for hating Vince McMahon. Call it a heel turn, call it whatever: The man has risen to multi-billionaire status on the bodies of his friends and family. 500,000+ were watching @ 29.95 when Owen Hart plunged to his death, and whether or not you agree, in Bret's eyes that 29.95 was more important to Vince than Owen when Vince refused to stop the show. Bret (and maybe DBS) brought some of their problems upon themselves, yes, but it's just a damn shame that a WCW FedEx letter is the closure to the horrific destruction of six (okay, five) of arguably one of the most talented set of performers ever to appear on American wrestling TV. We may yet see DBS recover, or Neidhart make it back to the big two, or Bret wrestle "his last match" on his own terms, some of you reading might say. Good: to rip off one of our current Canadian stars, I hope they "prove me wrong." (Well, maybe not Neidhart. :-)]. Otherwise, the years of dedication and loyalty these men put into Our Great Sport(tm Shill-Vone, Tony) will be nothing more than a tiny footnote in the shadow of Vince McMahon: owner of the wrestling industry at last. And as always, you can* qu---oh wait. One more thing to take care of: Well, I'm not gonna say that this will be my last contribution to [slash]. I, after all, made whatever little name I have for myself as a writer here. I do have Rant Central and the OW.com site to deal with, though, so even money says this is my final 20-second job to Crowbar via backslide before going to ECW or something like that. While I'm on that topic, some of those "in the know" about the always stormy Delphi waters may have equated my disappearance with certain problems Our Fearless Leader had (or didn't have) with several former [slash] contributors. To steal a catchphrase: OH HELL NO. I freely admit that certain members of groups I belong to hate this place with a passion, but I'm not "certain members". I will always appreciate that Chris gave me the opportunity to publish my work here, (and pimped it several times in the earlier days), and he is also responsible for publishing the works of many writers who I enjoy reading (some of whom now write for me, some of whom have gone on to bigger and better and some of whom I still travel to [slash] to read.) Maybe some people have sour grapes about this, this, or that, but I have one thing to say: thanks, Chris. You may not owe me anything, :-), but I damn sure will always owe you a debt of gratitude for the opportunity that has, either directly or indirectly, led to me being somewhat of a "Internet Wrestling Personality" (HA!) and a webmaster myself. If this is indeed my last time appearing in the ever-holy second-rate HTML (ha! Kidding, kidding), it's an honor for those to be my last words here. You damn RIGHT: you can quote me on that. "Mr. T" Robert Harris [slash] wrestling Email the author Visit The Oracles War Visit Rant Central	BLAH
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