Gary Hart

Gary Hart died over the weekend at the age of sixty-six.

He featured heavily on a wrestling DVD I watched a number of days ago. His thoughts on the theme of the documentary were interesting and informative.

Hart was a well-known heel manager in wrestling. I didn't follow a company when he was employed by them, the only time I did see his work was when I would buy videotapes of old WCW shows and he would be on them.

The first time I saw him was on a video of WCW Starrcade '89.

There was a time in the Spring of 1994 when I would send off my weekly paper-round money to a company called Turnbuckles UK and get a WCW cassette. I timed it well, too. If I sent off the cheque (my Mother wrote it and I would give her the money) on the Monday the goods would get to me on the Friday or Saturday so I would have something to look forward to on the weekends.

It was during 1994 that I started looking to Japan and Mexico for more wrestling styles and one of my favourites was the Great Muta. On the tape of Starrcade 1989 the Japanese star was managed by Gary Hart.

When I first heard his name I thought he may have been related to the Hart family but I did my research and realised it was just a coincidence that there was another Hart involved with wrestling.

His stint in WCW was the only work I saw of him until a few weeks ago when I saw the WWE's DVD about World Class Championship Wrestling. He was in some of the most famous angles associated with the Texas-based company. As it seems appropriate and because Gary Hart played an important part in telling the story on the DVD, I will review it tomorrow.