Did you know that before Bret Hart was a wrestler he was a grave digger? In 1977, he was accepted into film school at Mount Royal College in Calgary to embark on a new dream of establishing a movie production company with his friend, Jim. Unfortunately, Jim moved away the day before they started class, and Bret struggled to focus on his grades; so he abandoned film school and got a job raking leaves and digging graves at a local cemetery.
As Bret saw Harley Race and Andre the Giant compete against each other at the Stampede Super Show in July, Hart received an offer from Verne Gagne to come down to Minneapolis to be personally trained by Verne.
Bret intended to take Verne up on this offer, so he decided to referee for his father a few days a week and then work a day job to save money for the Minneapolis trip.
This was when Bret started to rethink his career as a professional wrestler.
Before Bret could head down to be trained by Verne, he received an offer from Mr. Hito and Kazuo Sakurada to teach him professional wrestling.
Bret eagerly accepted their offer.
The two taught Bret in their spare time, forcing him to take bumps for five months until he was deemed good enough to wrestle.
Every training session concluded with Bret taking 50 slams in a row, which allowed Hart to learn how to properly get up from lying flat on his back.
The most important lessons Mr. Hito and Mr. Sakurada taught Bret was how to protect himself and, more importantly, how to protect his opponent from ever getting hurt.