Bret Hart Comments On Lack Of African American World Champions, Says Tony Atlas Was Almost WWE World Heavyweight Champion, More

WrestleZone Radio proudly presents the latest episode of The Sharpshooter Show w/ Bret “The Hitman” Hart. A new episodes are released every Tuesday!

It also features his sons Blade & Dallas as well as WrestleZone Radio’s Nick Hausman as the co-hosts.

You can find some of Bret’s comments from the episode transcribed below.

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On WWE’s lack of African American World Heavyweight Champions:

BH: I can’t argue that The Rock’s not an African American. He’s half and I think that qualifies him. At least enough to dispel any kind of prejudices behind it. Booker T has been World Champion. Ron Simmons was a great World Champion in WCW. It happens. I think it could happen more. I believe there are a lot of things that it takes to be a great wrestler. You’ve got to have a great body. A great look. You have to have a great ability to sell yourself and you have to have a great ability to actually wrestle. If you look at The Rock, Booker T and Ron Simmons as just three examples. They fit all of those categories. Rock had a great look. Was one of the greatest promo guys that’s ever been in the business. Maybe he still is. He’s an exceptionally good worker. Ron Simmons is another guy that was very much feared and respected in the business and was a very good talker. A good character. Had a good look. Had a good history. He had all of these qualities that made him a potential champion. Booker T is another guy who had a good look and could talk. His work stands out as spectacular.

On African American wrestlers that could have become WWE World Heavyweight Champion:

BH: I know it was years ago there was talk about Tony Atlas becoming World Champion. Back years and years ago. They were giving him a big push in New York. I think he ended up having a serious cocaine problem and they passed on him. There’s maybe wrestlers that could have been or were on the verge of happening. For whatever reason it didn’t happen. Junkyard Dog, I don’t know that you’d look at him work wise. He had a great talk and schtick and everything. He was not the worker that a World Champion should be. I don’t think he was capable of it. I think you can just look at a lot of wrestling characters over the years and the ones that are bypassed you go, “Oh, he could have been!” I don’t know. You have to look really closely and see what flaws they had. I think today it’s different. There’s a lot of really good wrestlers that could potentially be World Champions for sure. I would say there might have been some hesitation back in the 70’s. Maybe racial profiling or the thinking back then was that black guys weren’t good enough to be World Champion. Maybe the politics of it all. There might have been a lot of that going on. It’s hard to say. The guys who were champion were Hogan in those days. You look at Warrior and you look at Macho Man. I don’t look back and go, “There’s a lot of guys who could have been World Champion instead of those guys.” Hogan stood out so much that you could argue Tony Atlas couldn’t have gotten his chance. He had his chance just before Hogan and he may have flubbed it for himself. Butch Reed, those guys, they had a good run and they did well but I don’t know that they were World Champion caliber. 

This episode features Bret and his sons Blade & Dallas talking to WrestleZone Radio’s Nick Hausman about a variety of topics coming out of WrestleMania 32 & the post-WrestleMania 32 RAW. Including:

  • Bret’s recent appearance at Dreamwave wrestling in Lasalle, IL
  • Shane McMahon running RAW for two weeks in a row after his Hell in a Cell match with Undertaker at WrestleMania 32
  • Cesaro’s in-ring work and his new tear away suit entrance
  • The Bullet Club’s Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows’ debut on Monday Night RAW
  • How the post-WrestleMania time of the year is usually when WWE does cuts to the roster
  • The WWE’s lack of African American champions and why that may be
  • Whether Bret sees Shinsuke Nakamura as a future WWE World Heavyweight Champion
  • Apollo Crews’ run on the WWE main roster
  • Roman Reigns’ as “The Guy” in WWE
  • Bray Wyatt’s potential as a babyface
  • Natalya’s match with Charlotte from Monday Night RAW
  • Dr. Phil’s work with Charlotte and Ric Flair on RAW
  • More…

This episode also features Bret giving his “4 Out Of 10” award of the week as well as answering questions from the #AskTheHitman mailbag.

You can listen to the full archives of The Sharpshooter Show in the embedded audio player below:

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