WWE Network Removes Six Documentaries Featuring Former World Champion

The WWE Network recently pulled several documentaries from its streaming service, all of which prominently featured Hall of Famer Bret Hart.

PWInsider reported on Thursday that the six titles might have been removed because the retired wrestler owns the rights to the footage from his matches in Stampede Wrestling, the Calgary-based promotion founded by his father, the late Stu Hart. Although WWE technically owns the Stampede video library, the outlet noted that “The Hitman” purchased the aforementioned footage from his parents before they died.

The documentaries that were removed include Bret Hart — The Best There Is, the Best There Was, the Best There Ever Will Be (2005); Hart and Soul: Hart Family Anthology and WWE Top 50 Superstars (2010); Greatest Rivalries: Bret vs. Shawn (2011); Bret Hart: The Dungeon Collection (2013); and The Most Powerful Families in Wrestling (2019).

According to a 2017 report from Sportskeeda, the first of these titles was notable as Hart claimed he only agreed to participate in its making so that it wouldn’t be turned into a mostly unflattering retrospective of his career. Allegedly, the film was supposed to feature a number of “derisive” comments from some of the top names he worked with.

As further pointed out by PWInsider, the WWE Network was previously forced to remove full episodes of Stampede’s eponymous television show in 2015 — not long after they arrived on the service. As a result, the service has only streamed content from the now-defunct Canadian promotion that does not feature the former world champion in action. Both Hart and WWE have since been stalemated on the terms of usage for those matches, which mostly took place before he started working for the company in the mid-1980s.

However, there might be a possibility that the WWE Network will re-upload the deleted documentaries with some “slight” edits at some point in the future. According to PWInsider, this would back up the theory that at least some of the titles were pulled because they included clips from Hart’s Stampede matches.

Hart’s apparent issues with WWE over his father’s old promotion date back to the time when Vince McMahon bought Stampede in 1984 for $750,000. As cited by Wrestling Inc., the legendary grappler alleged on an episode of his Confessions of The Hitman online series last month that the chairman forgot to pay his parents for the purchase, even as he effectively took over the Calgary territory. He added that he only found that out several years after the fact, also speculating that his parents chose to not sue McMahon over the matter because they were concerned Hart might lose his spot as one of WWE’s up-and-coming stars.