Bret Hart wishes Hulk Hogan 'had the courage to get in the ring with me'

The Hitman's interviews are the stuff of legend...we wouldn't have the 4/10 running joke without them.  At the same time, it's hard to process a Bret Hart conversation without thinking, as Triple H said on last Monday's Stone Cold Podcast on WWE Network, that "maybe some times he takes himself too seriously".

However you process his post-ring career, Hart is a legend and a student of the game, so when he does talk, it's worth considering what he has to say.  And in a recent interview with Anthony Notarile and Anthony Santaniello on The Sports Vision, Bret had a lot of interesting things to say at his discussed the arc of his career and the WWE-dominated current pro wrestling landscape.

Looking at today's product, and wrestlers at the top of the card like Daniel Bryan and Seth Rollins, Bret sees his influence - and thinks it might be a little greater than that of some of his contemporaries who's star shined a little brighter at the time:

I just think that as wrestling moves into the future, everyday it goes further and further from my day, I look at the wrestlers today and I realize that they're carrying the torch of my style. It's not about strongman spots and Hulk Hogan, and putting one hand behind your ear and working the crowd, and stuff like that. It's about guys that are out there suplexing each other, and doing a lot of complex wrestling moves, and a lot of action. That's the kind of wrestling that I brought to the game.

Pride in his workrate and the Hulkster are recurring themes in the interview, and Bret believes he could have added to the Hogan legacy - if the WWF & WCW poster boy would have worked with him:

There's a lot of wrestlers I worked with in those days that still stop me and tell me that the greatest match they ever had was with me...I take pride in that...

I wish guys like Hulk Hogan might've had the courage to get in the ring with me, because I maybe could've given him his best match that he ever had, also.

He's famously made peace with Vince McMahon and rejoined WWE after years of bad blood following the Montreal Screwjob, but it doesn't sound like a truce with another promoter is on the horizon.  Hart's views on his days in WCW are well known, so it's not news that he wasn't a fan of his time there...so much so that it might not be safe to put him in a room with Eric Bischoff to this day:

I could only be frustrated right from the day I started in WCW, and realized that it was a company run by a bunch of idiots that didn't have a clue what they were doing. And they dropped the ball with me just about from the time I got there. And then after they dropped the ball with me, they kicked it around, kicked it backwards and out of the stands for most of the time I was there.

I look back today, I'd like to strangle Eric Bischoff with my own pair of hands and just thank him for doing such a lousy job with my career, and lying about everything he ever said to me.

The entire interview includes his thoughts on John Cena, CM Punk, how Daniel Bryan reminds him of his late brother Owen...but one last thing that stuck out as worth highlighting was Bret's evaluation of niece Natalya, which includes a comment on the WWE's use of its women's roster:

I think, without a doubt, whatever anyone says or anyone thinks, Natalya Neidhart is the premier, best woman wrestler. Has been for maybe the last 10 years in the business. There's nobody that can touch her with or without titles, or whatever the hell they do in that division. Natalya Neidhart is, to me, heads and tails above all of them.

The emphasis there is mine.  Anyone want to try and tell the Hitman what the hell it is they do with the Divas division?

Or have thoughts on his legacy, and if he could have gotten a good-to-great match out of Hogan?  Or just want to see him get Easy E alone in a dark alley?

Let us know below, Cagesiders.