Bret "Hitman" Hart: The Best There Was, the Best There Is, the Best There Will Ever Be.

This book is not about twisted tales like that of Mankind, nor about inspiring personalities like that of the Rocks it is about proving one thing who is the best there is, best there was and the best there ever will be. I would not say it is exactly a biography but a great book.

I will not lie. Bret Hart is what he wants to be to more people in my mind. He is one of my own personal heroes. In this book, you can relive som of Bret's most amazing matches with tremendous full color photos from them as well as hear some really good comentary by Bret, Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, & Goldberg. It's a really good book for all the Bret Hart fans out there. It's also a great book for parents who don't know about wrestling and want to show the side of wrestling that I miss. Purity.

This is a very handsome package, with many pictures and an attractive un-wonky book design (so distracting and unnecessary in the Mankind and Rock books). But after the content expectations and standards set by the WWF autobiographies, this book disappoints.1. The author credit is Bret Hart's, but it's written in third person--except for the reprint of Bret's Calgary Sun eulogy for his brother Owen. Roddy Piper's intro is nearly the same length as the eulogy--he should have gotten cover credit too! This book is clearly not written by Bret Hart; that he is credited is very misleading.2. Roddy Piper writes as if wrestling is not "a work." Given the context of the Foley and Johnson books which take pains up front to explain the realities of the business, Piper's point of view is somewhat embarrassing. The body text takes a "work" tone as well, focusing more on the drama inside the ring than the enigma of the man.3. Most jarringly, the text obviously spends a lot of time talking about Hart's classic WWF matches...but as beautifully reproduced as the photos in this book are, there are very few pictures of the WWF days...no pictures of Davey Boy Smith, his brother-in-law and the man with whom Bret had his finest match, only one picture of tag team partner Jim "the Anvil" Neidhart. It's a really HUGE gap. No pictures with his major belts. All recent photos are from WCW. It makes the book a somewhat disconcerting read, as biographies go. Clearly this is based on Bret's and Vince McMahon's emnity and that rights could not be obtained for WWF-era photos. I am sorry for that.4. Finally, while the book is a treasure trove of Hart-family-growing-up photos, there are only two small photos of Bret's wife Julie, and none of his four children. The book's text doesn't even go near what I would think are two important life dramas--the end of his marriage, and the filming and release of Wrestling with Shadows.All in all, a must for Hitman completists, of which I am one, if only for the rare Hart family photos. It's more an expanded article from Pro Wrestling Weekly than it is a true biography. Bret Hart's life is one of the more interesting and heart-wrenching human dramas in this whacked-out industry, full of beauty, idealism, tragedy, and irony. It's a story that's very far from over. I can't wait to hear him tell us about it someday.

I waited for months for this book to be released and now that I've got it, I have mixed feelings about it. The book itself is a large glossy thing much like an elaborate magazine. There are lots of photos throughout the book, particularly from his WCW days...in fact there are surprisingly few pictures from his 14 years with the WWF. Some of the photos appear more than once and the reader feels a little cheated. Many of the photos I had seen before at various times. There were only a handful of them (like Bret during his Stampede days) that I hadn't seen. The preface, written by Rowdy Roddy Piper (a close friend of Bret's for over 15 years) was interesting reading and revealed a couple of things I was unaware of. The remainder of the book, though, skims over an illustrious career that has spanned over 2 decades. Bret finishes the book with a section called 'Reflections Of A Big Brother' - remembering his brother, Owen. This section is taken from Bret's Calgary Sun column written on 31 May 1999 when he wrote about Owen's death. Having been a fan of Bret Hart's for 14 years, I expected more from this book. I wanted a more 'in depth' look into his life. After viewing his 1998 documentary 'Wrestling With Shadows' and hearing Bret talk about how as a child he feared his father, Stu, and thinking that every breath may have been his last while training in 'the dungeon', I was hoping for more of this sort of stuff in this book. This may sound selfish but I wanted to read about how Bret felt about living in the infamous Hart House; about when he met and married his wife, Julie; the joy his children bring him and how difficult it is to be away from them for weeks at a time; how his brother Dean's death affected him. Those people who have only become Bret Hart fans in the last couple of years will probably find this book an interesting read and will think 'I didn't know that...'. But for the millions of us who have been loyal Hitman supporters for 10+ years will find this book a disappointment. Most of you will know a majority of the information written here and will close the book thinking 'Is that it?' Bret has always had the reputation of being honest and forthright, and that's what I'm being here. Like it or not...it's your choice.