Jimmy Hart recalls being shot by wrestling fan with dart gun
Jimmy Hart revisited the night a fan shot him with a homemade dart gun at a wrestling event.
He detailed the incident to Cody Rhodes on the latest episode of What Do You Wanna Talk About? Podcast. It happened after a six-man tag team match featuring himself, The Dream Machine (Troy Graham) and Handsome Jimmy (Jimmy Valiant) against Jerry Lawler, Jerry Jarrett and Dylan D. When he was being carried out after the match, he initially thought his tights were burnt but backstage learned he had been shot with a dart gun.
“I didn’t complain or get mad. I loved that when we had people (mad), you know, I got shot one time in Louisville. Everybody has, in the rump with a dart gun. A guy made a homemade dart, hit me right up. They, he got a cheap little straw from Wendy’s or McDonald’s or whatever building this big one made at home, took a little needle, like threading needle, put it in there, put a little thing on it and went as I was coming out because they had me draped over Handsome Jimmy’s shoulder.”
“It was a six man tag. It was like Jerry Lawler, Jerry Jarrett and Dylan D against me, the Dream Machine and Handsome Jimmy. And I’m leaning over the back. They carried me out. Of course I got beat right. So I’m leaning over the back and all of a sudden I’m going, ‘Oh God’. And I thought, ‘man, I hope nobody burnt my tights’ because we didn’t make a lot of money back then. And so I got back. I went, ‘Oh my, I hope my tights aren’t burnt.’ They go no, look, they went ‘whoa’ And I went ‘what is it?’ They go, ‘look, it’s a dart’. And I went ‘Oh my God,’. Then Miss Jarrett ran, she goes ‘you’ve got to go get a tetanus shot.'”
“I went ‘Oh my God, it’s going to take my whole payoff to go get a tetanus shot’, you know, but I went and got a tetanus shot.I didn’t have anything, thank goodness, but that’s what happened.”
Hart stated he does not hold any grudges over the incident and believes fan backlash comes with varied portrayals in wrestling.
“I don’t really get mad about it because we get the people upset over it and then we get mad because they get upset with those. It didn’t make any sense, right?”
Rosanne Raphael is a wrestling writer with over three and a half years of experience covering all things related to the industry. From a kindergarten teacher to PR Associate to turning her lifelong passion for the industry into a career, Rosanne is currently writing for F4W Online where she focuses on wrestling news, analysis, and storytelling.
Rosanne previously contributed to Sportskeeda as an Assistant Content Manager.
When not consumed by wrestling, Rosanne is a musician and an aspiring artist.