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Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman

2010 documentary film

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ23755353 ↗
Source-derived summary

Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman also known as just Survival of the Hitman is a 2010 television documentary film chronicling Canadian professional wrestler Bret Hart's life as he prepared for his in-ring return at WrestleMania XXVI after a ten-year absence from the ring after a career ending concussion. It also covers the rise of Hart's career and his split with World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in 1997. It is a Fight Network original documentary and first aired March 22, 2010. The documentary was produced by John Pollock, Jorge Barbosa and Wai Ting. The documentary features interviews with Bret, members of Hart's family, former head of WWE Canada Carl De Marco, former sports agent Gord Kirke and producer of Wrestling with Shadows, Paul Jay. It also features archive footage of wrestlers, Dynamite Kid, Bad News Allen, Curt Hennig and Ric Flair.

It is the third documentary about Bret Hart, the first being Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows in 1998 which chronicles Hart's last days wrestling in the WWF and the second Bret "Hit Man" Hart: The Best There Is, the Best There Was, the Best There Ever Will Be in 2005 which is a DVD released by WWE Home Video.

Production

The project originally began as a feature idea concerning Bret Hart's return to the WWE but it continued to grow when Hart got involved, thus changing the concept into a two-hour documentary. The documentary producers have stated that while interviewing Hart it was necessary to avoid showing copyrighted material from WWE which prompted them to make the decision to film Hart's reactions while watching tapes of his old work while he commentated over them. They have also stated that while filming they ended up with several hours of footage which had to be excluded from the film to avoid going over the time limit.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman” is 2010 documentary film. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bret, Hart and Survival, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2010, 1997, 1998, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2010. For this dossier, Bret, Hart and Survival is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2010 documentary film” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23755353. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010, 1997, 1998 and 2005.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman primary sources, Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman archive and Bret research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bret Hart: Survival of the Hitman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.