Opie says Bret entered the studio who wrote a great book, tells Bret that he didn't read it yet but has thumb thru it & likes what he sees. He says the title's "Hitman" [NOTE FROM JEFF:The whole title's called "Hitman:My Real Life In The Cartoon World Of Wrestling": http://tinyurl.com/46gpyh ], welcomes him to the show & Bret says it's nice to be there. Opie asked Bret as to what's happened to him because all of a sudden, he was out of wrestling & didn't know if others knew what happened. Bret says that after his brother Owen's accident [being killed at the "Over The Edge '99" PPV: http://tinyurl.com/5xl5dp ], he got kicked in the head by Bill Goldberg.

Bret says he's had a concussion problem for a couple of years, says it put the cherry on the cake & says 2 years later he had a stroke in 2002. Opie feels that not too many people know that, Anthony asks if that was due to the kick to the head & Bret feels that they're connected. Opie asks as to how did he get the stroke & if he was at home when it happened, Bret says he was riding his bicycle & hit a little hole in the grass. He then says it was a big hole, fell off the bike sideways & landed on his head. He says for a guy making a living by landing on his head, says it was like a tiny little baby doing a head stand on the grass & it was nothing & says he didn't hurt himself when he got the stroke.

Opie asks if he was laying there knowing that he was in deep trouble, Bret says he thought he pinched a nerve & lost everything on the left side of himself instantly. He says after that he was in a wheelchair for 3 months, Jim Norton asks as to what was it like getting the stroke & if it felt like the 1/2 of his body couldn't move & if something horrible was happening. Bret says nothing hurt, says 1/2 of his body was dead & it was like that until the next day. He says it took a couple of years to get thru it & says he was real lucky that he got 80 or 90% [of the feeling] back. Anthony asks where did Goldberg kick him & Bret says it was the back of the head.

Bret says he'd compare it to someone taking a hockey stick & cracking you across the back of the neck as hard as they can. Opie asked if he broke anything or crack anything there, Bret says he had a hole in the back of the neck about the size of a quarter & says it'll never heal. Anthony says that's amazing, asked as to what move Goldberg did & how did it screw up because both of them were flinging each other like crazy. Bret says Goldberg did a mule kick, Opie asks if it cracked his skull & Bret says no it just bruised his brain big time. Norton says wrestler's got "real men injuries", says when HHH was there & talked about his calf muscle.

Anthony says HHH's calf muscle snapped what connects the calf muscle to the ankle & it rolled up in the back of his leg or shin. Opie asks that after the kick if it was it for Bret & never wrestled again, Bret says he wrestled for 2 weeks till he went home & Opie says Bret realized there's no way he can do this. Bret says he was talking mush & says that his doctor told him that he's done & after that, he stopped [wrestling]. Opie asks if he blamed the stroke on wrestling or too many hits or some on steroids. Bret says he don't think it's steroids, asks if Opie's referring to the stroke & Opie says yes. Bret says he'll never know what was the real cause of it.

Bret says there was no explanation or a history for it, says in regards to the fall that he had on the grass & says if you've been sitting on a park bench & watched it, you'd probably burst out laughing & says it was nothing. Norton says he don't follow wrestling but knows who Bret is & asks if he has a bad relationship with Vince & WWE. Bret says no, says when going thru what he went thru like Owen did & all the things that happened & the stroke, you kinda learn to move on past those kind of things. He says you can't carry around lots of hard feelings, says the only thing that he can say about the stroke is that the 1 big factor's stress.

Bret says it's a big factor that most people don't think about sometimes, says there's no explanation on him having the stroke & says he does know that he was under lots of stress. Opie says due to Owen's death & others that Bret was close to in wrestling die. Bret says his brother-in-law The British Bulldog [Davey Boy Smith] died maybe 10 days before his stroke & when Opie asked on how Davey died, Bret says it was an overdose: http://tinyurl.com/4t2jql . Opie says Bret was friends with Chris Benoit who trained with him back in the day, Bret says he knew Chris when he was 10 & Anthony says all of them are like they're in a war or something by watching his buddies die & says that's awful.

Opie says it's why Bret's book will be a great read because he ain't holding back, says lots of guys hold back when writing about their lives & their buddy Sam says the book's amazing & don't hold back at all. He says Bret talked about the guys [wrestlers] would line up to get possibly steroids behind the scenes from a doctor [George Zahorian] who was shooting everyone up. Bret says he don't remember the doctor shooting anyone up but recalls the doctor distributing the steroids like candy as well as downers & anything else he had. He says the doctor was not much different then a drug addict or a dealer selling at a school.

Norton says Bret's book is 550 pages, says it's not a "I need to make money" book where it's double space & says most guys will have their books like 120 pages & double space it. Opie says it's like Norton's book ["Happy Endings:The Tales Of A Meaty-Breasted Zilch": http://tinyurl.com/44thhu ], Norton says his book's all substance & asks as to how many prostitute stories can you tell. He says Sam read Bret's book, says that Sam knows lots on wrestling & asks as to what was the most amazing thing that he learned from it because Sam loved the book. Opie says Sam reads all of the wrestling books, Sam says 1 of the key things to the book's that it's not commissioned by WWE.

Sam says it's Bret's story & not like a ghostwriter who's with WWE where they'll say "well you can't say that but you can say this". He says Bret's honest recollection & opinion on everything that's happened, says for those that're Sam's age that grew up watching wrestling, you get an inside story before there was an internet. He says now people kinda know what's going on behind the scenes or they think they do due to what's reported on the internet. He says in the 80's & early 90's, no one knew anything except what was on TV & says Bret's book is the 1st that he's read that can honestly goes back & says on everything that went on.

Sam says on what details that Bret goes into on what happened 10 to 15 years ago & says it's incredible. Opie says Bret admitted on cheating on his wife [Julie] on the road & Bret says he put it into prospective on what brings those kind of things. Opie asked on how that came about, Norton says opportunity & Bret says he was 20 when getting into wrestling & was 43 when he got out. He says he had 23 years of possibly having 300 days yearly & it didn't include the travel days to home. He says he had the farthest trip back then most of the wrestlers & says getting home was usually a 1/2 day. Norton asks Bret as to where he's from & Bret says Calgary.

Bret says he lived a life in a suitcase, says most of the affairs that he had on the road he says he don't look at those as bad things but as survival. He feels that lots of people that he was with he saw them as good friends that helped him thru some tough times. He says you can't hang out with wrestlers for 23 years, Anthony says that's a good way to put it & says "good friends, a good egg". Opie asks as to how can you be faithful on the road if you're out there 300 days yearly & how can you have a real relationship with someone back home. Norton says he can't be faithful when going for a weekend, Bret says he got his break in wrestling because he wasn't 1 of the steroid freak kind of guys.

Bret says they needed someone that can carry the banner for the company, not fail a drug test or get busted at the border. He says this was in the early 90's when they started doing real drug testing & feels that's how he kinda got his spot as the champ. He says prior to steroids in '84 & '85 when he was taking them or did take them like everyone else. He says you don't have much choice, says when people tell him that he's in a room with all these guys that's juiced up to the gills. He says you wanna be competitive feed your family & either be a winner or 1 of the bottom guys on the card & it's a decision that you have to make right away.

Bret says he didn't take steroids till he got to that point in his life & says no one made him take them. Anthony asked if he was happy after taking them & noticed a difference. Bret says he took them because he blew his knee out at the time when he started out. He says he was scared that he'll miss his opportunity because he couldn't do anything. He says he took them a few months before he got there [WWF], says he had a Japan tour at the time & says he took them 2 weeks before going to Japan for the 1st time ever. He says he'd never make it to Japan & wouldn't have survived the tour. He says he remembers on the tour he did everything.

Bret says it was like 3 weeks when the muscle returned, he was doing dropkicks & other stuff that he didn't do for 9 months. He says when blewing his knee out in February of that year he wrestled till July with a bad knee because there was no other way around it. Anthony says these guys have to work injured or someone else will step into their spot, Bret says there's no one to pay the bills & says as soon as you're hurt in wrestling, you're a liability. He says they'll pat you on the back & tell you that they'll call you in about 4 months. Anthony says there's no pension plan & it's pretty much, you're gone & make a life for yourself other then wrestling.

Opie asked Bret when he took steroids if he felt roid rage, Bret says no & wasn't too heavy into them. Opie says in Benoit's case lots of people said he had roid rage, Bret felt that Benoit had some roid rage & don't doubt that steroids contributed to it, but didn't believe for a second that it was the deciding factor. Opie says he & Anthony talked to other wrestlers since the Benoit incident occured & says all of them are shocked that Benoit would do anything like that. Bret says Chris was 1 of the nicest guys you'd ever meet, says that in the whole time he knew him, Chris would walk an old lady across the street. He says Chris was a nice guy that you'd need to look more into judging him by that kind of way of his character.

Opie asked Bret on what he thought happened because they're rumors that Chris may've had a seizure going in his head that was undetected. Bret says if you look close it was possibly related to the head injuries Chris had. He says Chris' brain was like mush & had the brain of a 90 year old Alzheimer kind of guy & was fuzzy in the head. He says from his own circumstance of concussions, you can have a concussion as bad as he had himself & it was bad & says he still has lingering affects from it. He says when having it, he remembers Vince telling him on how he can catch airplanes, rent his car & drive to the building & it's like "how messed up is this guy".

Bret says he himself was like a robot for 2 years, says he can do everything & says he can have a conversation with O&A now. He says he was doing a book tour then & doing lots media, but don't remember any of it. He says it's just a blur, says people don't know & feel that he's fine because fans just talked to him. He says he can talk but just can't remember anything you said & says he wouldn't remember on what he spoke about. Norton says it's like a blackout, Bret says probably & feels that he don't know what the circumstances on Benoit was, but feels that Chris was in a situation where he was pressured by his wife [Nancy] to stay home more.

Bret says at the same time Chris was getting pressured from WWE that told him if he wants to be 1 of the top guys, they need him on the road more. He says Chris was in a tug of war with with his wife & the business & felt that in the end, it may've drove Chris off the deep end. He thinks that Chris came home, had a fight [with Nancy] & Opie felt that Chris may've snapped. Anthony says there's so much tragedy in wrestling, says it's odd because it's an entertaining fun thing to watch. Bret says it's a cartoon world, Anthony says that's on the outside & says when tearing away a little bit of that curtain, it's full of tragedy & it's unbelievable

Anthony says the death of Bret's brother was horrific in front of a crowd & is sure that it affected Bret. He asks as to what was it like going thru that, Bret says it was 1 of those things that he'll never understand on what Owen was thinking. He says Owen was the most careful, cautious guy in the world. He says Owen didn't take any chances on anything like that, says that Owen may've felt that they [WWE] knew what they were doing. He says in the end sadly the guy who put that [planned Blue Blazer ring entrance from the ceiling] stunt together didn't know what he was doing & it was a horrible tragedy. Norton says he remembers when it happened & asked if the cable snapped & didn't safety test it.

Opie says the harness wasn't connected, Bret says it had an 8 lb pressure & remembers the Kansas City cops tell him that if you pulled a trigger on a gun, that's all it took to release. He feels that when Owen got to the top, says it's pretty high & says he remembers looking at it. He says Owen was hanging there, says Owen ran up was wearing overalls & had to take it off & pull it off over his boots. He says he has his [Blue Blazer] mask on with the cape, then they got him to climb over off next to a "core cloth" & just hang there. He says it takes an 8 lb pressure to release the safety clip, says Owen's breathing & says he remembers he himself walking up there & saw all those steps to the top & says Owen ran.

Bret says as soon as Owen did that interview [the last one ever before he died] at the bottom of the building, he raced up lots of flights of stairs on a ladder, all the way down the cat walk & all the way to the "cloth". He says he knows the pressure when breathing hard after running up there & you're nervous because the match's about to start & you're hanging there. He says the whole thing's gotta be scary looking, says Owen's taking deep breaths & when they released them, the guy that was supposed to be watching him was looking 1 way & looked over & said Owen was 1/2 way down the ring by then. Norton asked as to how high did Owen fall & Bret says he don't know.

Bret heard that it was 75 to 80 feet, Opie says he heard that it caused a riff in his family & asked on how that happened. Bret says when coming from a big family you'll get situations where people get envious & says in his case everyone thought that Vince made Bret as a millionaire & a star. He says in lots of ways they thought that Vince could give them the same things to their husbands. He says some people started to look out for themselves & thought they'd give their husband a job & work for Vince. He says there's desparate people that do desparate things at times & says he'll never understand where some of the come from & says it screwed up the whole family.

Anthony asks Bret if he got any flack from anyone that he wrote in his book, Bret says no & says most of the wrestlers that he hoped would respond to him, did not & feels a certain majority of them can't read. Anthony asks Bret as to who would he like to respond to him, Bret says he don't care & says he wrote his book without any restrains. He hopes that guys like Undertaker & Steve Austin will call him & say they liked the book. Anthony asked Bret if he fell out of it when he got injured or something happens that's career ending in wrestling & if it's almost like he's an outcast because all of sudden, the phone calls stop & don't see anyone.

Bret says no, says it's like you have 1 life as a wrestler on the road with the wrestlers & the 2nd you get hurt, you return to this other world that you had & never hear from anyone. He says most poor wrestlers are on the road & still doing the grind type of thing. He says you can't call wrestlers & bother them, says he still has friends that still wrestle & says the ones that're on the road you can't bother them. He says you can't bother them when they return home for 48 hours & says "I'll call you someday when you're really done". He says it don't happen & says you don't talk to anyone again. Opie asks on where Bret's at with Vince.

Opie asks about the punch that he gave to Vince behind closed doors & asked if it was a documentary. Bret says it's "Wrestling With Shadows": http://tinyurl.com/3jqjx2 , Opie says Bret had cameras follow him around & Vince goes into a room & Bret pretty much knocked him out. He says Vince walks out with a black eye, Anthony said Vince was staggering & Opie feels that Vince f'd Bret over. He says Vince was supposed to make Bret champ in his hometown, Bret says in wrestling you're supposed to be an independent contractor & you're in business with yourself. He says he had protections in his contract & says WWE decided that they weren't gonna pay him anymore.

Bret says he was pushed out of WWE, says what was expected for him to go to WCW & see what kind of offer they'd give him & says WCW gave him a low blow offer. He says WCW gave him a huge offer the year before [he left], says he feels that they were banking on him that he'd never get the same offer but did get the same offer. He says once he was leaving & after he got pushed & asked out, Vince was actually helping him negociate & says Vince was like his friend by telling him that he's the 1st guy. He says that Vince told him that the company was going down the toilet & wanted to see that Bret was the 1st out & can get his contract set before all would happen.

Bret says it was all baloney, says he believed Vince & took the WCW deal & in the week of that process when the whole thing came down, they decided that since he was leaving they wanted to tear Bret down as much as possible. He says they wanted to make sure that Bret had little value when going to WCW as if WWE could beat him & lower everything for him. He says WCW wanted to at the time use him to open the door to Canada & make it 1 of their big markets. He says there was lots of potential in him going there, says they talked it out & was in a situation with Pat Robertson's friend, Shawn Michaels. He says HBK had lots of problems with him for years.

Bret says HBK told him a few weeks earlier that he'd never lose to Bret in a match & after he walked to HBK, he had no problem if they'd do it at Survivor Series ['97]: http://tinyurl.com/4q4abe if he'd get the belt, it wouldn't be a big deal to him. He says they had a little fisty cuff about it 6 months before it, says he had no problems doing anything with HBK but once he disrespected him in the dressing room, he said the hell with HBK & he can play the same way. He says he'll never let HBK beat him, says that Vince told him that he can leave anyway that he wanted & stood by it by saying that he'll do anything that Vince wanted, but won't lose to HBK.

Opie says it was agreed that Bret would've won against HBK, Bret says they agreed to an ending to the match that would've made everyone happy. Opie says Bret would've went out as champ, Bret says he was in a funny situation in Canada on where the whole thing was built up. He says he was a big Canadian hero at the time, says it was a case on where he didn't think that it was the right thing to do & it was lowering his stock. He says he saw it as a business decision by sticking up for himself as a business man & had every right to do it. He says WWE lied & cheated him in the match [aka the "Montreal Screwjob": http://tinyurlcom/2erhdw ] & Opie said WWE made sure that HBK won.

Opie says it was done in front of a Canadian crowd, asked if it was in Calgary & Bret said Montreal. Opie says Bret was like "what the F" because this wasn't agreed upon ahead of time & says Bret spat at Vince's face. He says behind closed doors Bret gave Vince a good 1, Bret says the truth about it was that Vince confronted him in the dressing room & asked him to leave. He told Vince that if he didn't leave he'll get hurt, says Vince stood in the dressing room with 3 or 4 hencemen [Gerald Brisco, Sgt. Slaughter & Shane McMahon] with him. He says he had [Jim] Neidhart, Davey [Boy Smith], Owen, Rick Rude & Undertaker.

Bret says HBK was sitting in the corner & if you'll read in [Bret's] book that he was balling his eyes out the whole time & didn't stop blubbering when it all happened. Norton asked on why HBK blubbered, Bret says HBK was scared to death & called him a coward. He says as he came out of the shower & was naked, says that Davey Boy would always steal his towels so he'd come out naked with dripping water. He says he saw Vince & thought if he had to do a movie on this, he wouldn't have an actor do that scene naked. So he got a towel, sat & had a conversation with Vince & told him as soon as he's dressed, if he's still there he'll knock him out.

Bret says he remembers putting his clothes on, tying his last shoe lace & thought that as soon as he's finished, it's showtime. He says Vince ain't going no where & he's man enough to give Vince what he deserved. He says it [punching out Vince] was the most beautiful thing that he did in his life, Norton asked on how it felt & Bret says his hand was broke because he hit Vince with an upper cut, which was the 1 that gave [James] "Buster" Douglas did to Mike Tyson. He says it was a beautiful punch in the world, says it was perfect & got a nice twist into it as if it was a Popeye cartoon. He says he's surprised that Vince's head didn't hit the ceiling.

Bret says Vince came down & rolled on his ankle & almost breaking it. He says he hit Vince in the jaw & it's how he got the black eye & says he didn't hit him right in the face. Anthony said Vince staggered out of there, Bret says Vince was out cold for about 2 minutes & was on the ground like a star. Norton says Vince's a big bastard & not small, Bret says Vince went down hard & says it's all in his book. He says he still feels that it was the smartest thing he ever did & the right thing to do. Opie asked if Vince's boys jumped on him after that, Bret says he expected a pull apart & it's why he did the upper cut. He says if he would've done the overhanded right, they would've hooked his arm.

Bret says it would've been like in wrestling where everyone jumps on you, Norton said he wanted to land the punch & Bret said he wanted to kill him. Norton asked on why he didn't leave because as soon as the 2nd shoe was being applyed he could've told Vince that he'd talk to him later & leave. Opie says it's not like Vince was built like Sam, says these guys won't back down to often & Anthony says they're going wild with the "break" sign. Norton says they have to break & Bret's got other press to do, Opie says Bret's book was in Canada a few years ago & Bret says 1. Opie says it's in this country, says he's read lots of wrestling books & he'll read his soon.

Opie says Sam told him that it's the best 1 that's come out, Bret says it took 7 years to write it by himself & wrote it thru his stroke, the concussion & thru lots of tragedy. He says he wrote it from the heart & hopes everyone likes it Opie says Bret didn't hold back & they've only touched the surface on the stories that's in it. He says it's a pleasure having him in the studio & then they went for their break. After the break & after Bret left Norton gave some plugs for Bret's book signings, which was Friday at 1PM at Borders Books in Manhattan, Saturday 11AM at Bookends in Ridgewood, NJ & 4PM at Borders in Bridgewater Township, NJ.

Norton says Bret's a wrestler & will do a lot more people then he did [with his own book signings]. Opie says Bret's seen a lot, says there was no 1 bigger for a long time then him & has stories to tell. He says Bret's telling it with his book, says they take pride for the fact that they screwed [WPIX] ch.11 because Bret was supposed to do an interview there 30 minutes ago. Opie says they're giving them lots of signs & told them that they'd hang out with Bret & when they're ready to end they will. He says they won't cut off the story about Bret punching out Vince & it's unbelievable. Norton says he can sense it by Bret looking at him that he was gonna do as they've instructed.

Norton says Bret's a freightning guy, Opie agrees & Norton says Bret's quiet & ain't trying to be intiminating. He says that is what's scary about Bret by being a quite, nice dude & don't want Bret's fist in his face. Opie says everyone told them that Bret could snap like that & was telling Anthony to do his "angry Vince" impression. Anthony says that he didn't feel that the comedy portion of it was gonna shine thru & that ended the segment there.