Bruce Hart

Bruce Edward Hart (born January 13, 1950) is an American-born Canadian retired professional wrestler, promoter, booker, trainer and school teacher.

He is a second-generation wrestler and a member of the Hart wrestling family, being the second child of Stu and Helen Hart.

He is best known for his time in Stampede Wrestling and several appearances for WWE, often with his brothers Bret and Owen.

As a wrestler Hart carried a number of championships, including the Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship and participated in WWF's Survivor Series.

While his mother was pregnant with Hart she and her husband Stu suffered an automobile accident.

This resulted in his older brother Smith being cared for by their maternal grandparents for almost two years while Helen recovered in the hospital.

He is of Greek descent through his maternal grandmother and Irish through his maternal grandfather.

His father was mainly of Scots-Irish descent but also had Scottish and English ancestry.

Hart is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.

Bruce Hart began his wrestling training in 1971, at the age of 21, in his father's training school "The Dungeon".

Trained by Stu Hart, Bruce, like the rest of his family, was trained in and focused on a technically sound, amateur wrestling style.

He debuted in 1972, in his fathers Calgary promotion, Stampede Wrestling, tag teaming with Dan Kroffat in the main event, against North American Champion Kendo Nagasaki (the original masked British version) and his manager "Gorgeous" George Gillette (billed in Canada as "Lord Sloane of Kensington Gore".) For the next six months he remained a headline performer for the promotion, working against the likes of John Quinn, Benny Ramirez, Frank Butcher, Tor Kamata, Chatti Yokuchi and Yasu Fuji.

In June 1973, he suffered a serious shoulder injury which sidelined him for 9 months and nearly finished his career.

He returned in the summer of 1974, and continued as performer in Western Canada.

Hart kept wrestling on and off but had relatively few matches until after 1977.

He traveled to the United Kingdom in 1977, where he wrestled under the name "Bronco" Bruce Hart for the London based Joint Promotions.

While there, he met a young Tom Billington and offered him an opportunity to wrestle for Stampede, which Billington declined.

After a falling out with Joint Promotions, Billington, using the ring name Dynamite Kid, traveled to Canada and joined Stampede.

Dynamite quickly became a huge star in Western Canada.

As a result, Hart invited Billington's younger cousin, David Smith, to also come to Western Canada.

Smith, who originally wrestled as Young David, later became known as Davey Boy Smith (after British lightweight boxing champion - Dave Boy Green) after Hart decided that it was a better ring name.

In 1978 Hart and Billington worked together as a tag team in the German promotion Catch Wrestling Association, they wrestled against Angel Grey and Michael Seitz.

Hart also worked in singles matches against Seitz.

While working in Germany, Hart observed the German system of yellow cards to signify formal warnings (as with "Public Warnings" in British wrestling and "Avertisements" in French wrestling) three of which resulted in a red card and disqualification.

He would subsequently bring this system back to Stampede where it was also imposed.

From 1979 until 1984, Hart was in large part in charge of matchmaking and talent development, selling out regularly and producing a myriad of successful wrestlers, including: Jake Roberts, the Junkyard Dog, Jim Neidhart, "Dr. D." Dave Shultz, Honky Tonk Man, Bad News Allen (aka Bad News Brown) and Bret "the Hitman" Hart, the period was one where the company was generally breaking even.

In 1979 Hart won his first championship, the Stampede World Mid-Heavyweight Title from Dick Steinborn.

In 1980 Hart won two championships, the World Mid-Heavyweight Title for a second time and the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title.

By the end of 1982 Hart won the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship two times and then a third time by the beginning of 1983.

In 1983 Hart worked for New Japan Pro Wrestling in their NJPW Bloody Fight Series.

There he worked in singles matches against wrestlers such as Kengo Kimura, Kantaro Hoshino, Ryuma Go, Kuniaki Kobayashi and in tag team matches with wrestlers such as Bad News Allen and Tony St. Clair against Akira Maeda and Kengo Kimura with the former and against Isamu Teranishi and Rusher Kimura with the later as well as participating in three man tag matches with Dick Murdoch and Tony St. Clair against Antonio Inoki, Osamu Kido and Seiji Sakaguchi.

Hart later in the year returned to Stampede.

In March 1984 while back in Stampede Hart became Stampede International Tag Team Champion together with Davey Boy Smith.

Hart returned to New Japan in early April 1984 for the NJPW Big Fight Series where he primarily wrestled in singles matches, several of which were with Norio Honaga but also against other wrestlers such as Nobuhiko Takada, Tatsutoshi Goto, Masanobu Kurisu, Makoto Arakawa, Fumihiro Niikura, Isamu Teranishi.

He also took part in one known tag match, partnering with Hercules Ayala against Haruka Eigen and Kantaro Hoshino.

Near the end of 1984, Bruce's father, Stu, accepted an offer from WWF president, Vince McMahon, to sell the promotion for $1,000,000, plus 10% of all subsequent WWF gates in Western Canada to the WWF.

As part of the deal, several Stampede superstars, including Bret Hart, Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy and Neidhart also joined the WWF.

However, several months later, Bruce violated the terms of the agreement by assisting a rival promotion in the territory, leading McMahon to renege on the deal.

As a result, near the end of 1985, Stu Hart decided to re-open the promotion with Bruce running most of it.

Initially, the promotion, which had been hurt by the loss of most of its well-known wrestlers, struggled to remain afloat.