Wrestling media has portrayed the Harts as the first family of professional wrestling, royalty in the squared circle with a legacy built upon hard work and genuine toughness. The truth, however, is that Bret and Owen were the only Hart siblings who achieved any real success in the sport, and the jealousy turned some of their brothers and sisters into bitter liars with crosses to bear. Diana Hart-Smith, ex-wife of Davey Boy Smith, authored the 2001 book Under the Mat: Inside Wrestling's Greatest Family. The book was filled with torrid scandals and serious accusations which raised the ire of both Owen's widow, Martha, and Bret himself. Martha pursued legal action, but Diana claimed that the stories were somehow twisted into lies during the editing process. This past summer, eldest Hart sibling Smith caused a row when he attempted to promote a match featuring David Benoit, the 21-year-old surviving son of Chris Benoit. David was scheduled to tag with his father's friend Chavo Guerrero, Jr. on a show for Hart Legacy Wrestling, but Chris Jericho got involved, successfully demanding Smith cancel the match in light of the fact that David had no training. Allegedly, Smith told Jericho he only wanted David to do an angle at the show... then told David he could get him through a match without training, no problem. As far as Bruce goes, there was this tweet from Bret on Feb. 1, 2012:
Apparently my brother Bruce called someone as me to try to get free tickets & them showed up as himself. no class.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
