The doc­u­men­tary that sep­a­rat­ed fact from fic­tion in pro­fes­sion­al wrestling

What does a man do when the peo­ple he trusts ignore his moral fibre and betray his good nature? Does he grit his teeth and car­ry on regard­less or does he chal­lenge them for bet­ter or worse? This may sound like the syn­op­sis to a cheap Hol­ly­wood thriller but back in 1997, pro­fes­sion­al wrestler Bret Hart faced this very problem.

Detrac­tors of wrestling will always point to the fact that every­thing is script­ed and pre­de­ter­mined, there­fore fake. In 1998, Paul Jay’s fly-on-the-wall doc­u­men­tary, Hit­man Hart: Wrestling with Shad­ows, blurred the line between fact and fic­tion in this much maligned sports enter­tain­ment indus­try, effec­tive­ly giv­ing its audi­ence a front row seat for one of the most shock­ing betray­als ever cap­tured on film.

The film doc­u­ments a year in the life of one of wrestling’s biggest super­stars. At his peak in the ​’90s, Hart could do no wrong and was untouch­able at the sum­mit of the wrestling moun­tain. But by 1997 his hon­est and fam­i­ly-friend­ly char­ac­ter was los­ing its appeal with audi­ences, who had turned their atten­tions to edgi­er char­ac­ters like Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold Steve Austin.

This exis­ten­tial cri­sis is one of the many chal­lenges Hart faces in the film, whose arc rests on his rela­tion­ship with Vince McMa­hon, the man with com­plete cre­ative con­trol as own­er of the WWF aka World Wrestling Fed­er­a­tion. (The organ­i­sa­tion changed its name to World Wrestling Enter­tain­ment in 2002 to avoid con­fu­sion with the ani­mal charity.)

At the point of film­ing, Hart’s tenure with the WWF was com­ing to a bit­ter con­clu­sion. He had worked for the com­pa­ny for 14 years and saw McMa­hon as a father fig­ure. How­ev­er, rival fed­er­a­tion WCW had pitched a $9 mil­lion deal, a sum that would have set up him and his fam­i­ly for the rest of their lives. Although there are nev­er any ver­bal or phys­i­cal alter­ca­tions between Hart and McMa­hon in the film, Jay cap­tures the ten­sion between both men per­fect­ly through their body lan­guage and con­duct towards one anoth­er, which is both awk­ward and thrilling.

This cul­mi­nates in a con­tro­ver­sial moment that remains a talk­ing point among wrestling fans. Hart is forced out of the com­pa­ny in humil­i­at­ing cir­cum­stances. The rules in the ring are changed in order to make sure that our hero can­not leave a com­pa­ny that his become his home with his head held high. In sport­ing terms this mis­car­riage of jus­tice and trust is the equiv­a­lent of a foot­ball ref­er­ee blow­ing for full time in the World Cup final on 80 min­utes with the score at 1 – 0, declar­ing that the vic­to­ri­ous side won the con­test fair and square.

It’s easy to sug­gest that Jay got lucky when mak­ing this film. Rarely does a doc­u­men­tary mak­er – who effec­tive­ly set out to make a biog­ra­phy – get pre­sent­ed with a sto­ry so mon­u­men­tal and shock­ing that it eclipses every­thing that has gone before in the film’s nar­ra­tive. Jay doesn’t try to enforce his voice or thoughts into the film. He sim­ply lets the cam­era roll as this Shake­speare­an dra­ma unfolds before him. Whether at the Hart fam­i­ly home, in the con­fines of a vehi­cle or back­stage at a major show, the exchanges between the var­i­ous fig­ures in the film feel so inti­mate and secret, you’re not sure if you should be watch­ing at all.

This isn’t a film about wrestling or the way the indus­try is run. It’s a doc­u­ment of the destruc­tion of one man’s char­ac­ter and how he was pow­er­less to stop his own assassination.

Wrestle­ma­nia 32 takes place 3 April at the AT&T Sta­di­um in Arling­ton, Texas.