Bret Hart Claims Hulk Hogan Got Him Buried Every Week in WCW

Bret Hart didn’t mince words when reflecting on his WCW run during an appearance on Inside the Ropes, and he’s placing the blame squarely on Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff for how badly things went.

Despite entering the company in December 1997 with massive momentum after the Montreal Screwjob, Hart says WCW squandered the opportunity—and that Hogan actively worked to keep him off TV. Hart described walking into WCW feeling like the hottest commodity in wrestling. He had just come off a legendary run in WWF, beating The Undertaker and Steve Austin, and famously knocking out Vince McMahon backstage. But WCW didn’t seem to know what to do with him.

“I thought I came in with so much momentum… I beat Undertaker for the world title. Beat Steve Austin. Like, destroyed Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13… I came with such potential.”

Hart went even further, calling WCW “stupid” for failing to capitalize on a red-hot star that could’ve reignited the company’s main event scene.

“It should have been me and Hulk Hogan right away, and I think I should have beat him for the title. And they should have made me champion. We could have wrestled a hundred times after that.”

But that feud never happened. According to Hart, there was a reason for that—and his name was Hulk Hogan.

“Every time my name came up, they’d go, ‘What are we going to do with Bret Hart this week?’ And all of a sudden Hulk Hogan would go—I don’t know, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know—but he would bury me, I guess.”

With Hogan holding major sway over creative, Hart claims that his name was routinely scratched from the show lineup.

“Because Hogan had so much clout with Bischoff, every week they just put a line through my name and I didn’t even work.”

Even worse, Hart said WCW wasted money flying him across the country for no reason, only to pull him from the card at the last minute.

“They’d fly me first class… I’d stay in a first-class hotel and get a Lincoln Continental… Then I’d get to the building and wait around till 5 or 6 o’clock, and then they’d tell me I was off. Then I’d just go home the next day.”

“I remember thinking—what kind of idiot pays me all this money to bring me all the way in and leave me off the card when I had so much momentum?”

By this point, Steve Austin was exploding in popularity in WWF—someone Hart had beaten clean not long before.

“I’m the guy that beat Steve Austin, their top guy right now. Why are you not doing anything with me?”

But according to Hart, the problem came down to Bischoff’s weakness and Hogan’s control.

“That was the insanity of WCW… Eric Bischoff actually didn’t have any genitals. Hulk Hogan was calling all the shots.”

And when it came to shutting down any plans for Bret Hart, Hogan allegedly made sure it didn’t happen.

“He—for whatever reason—just made sure that they didn’t do anything with me. I’ve got that from two or three different wrestlers that were in the room. They always said they just put a line through your name every night. Hogan would go, ‘I don’t want anything with that guy’ or ‘I’m not working with him.’”

Bret Hart’s time in WCW is often remembered as one of wrestling’s biggest missed opportunities—and if his story is true, it sounds like it was sabotage from within.