{"id":176654,"date":"2018-08-14T04:49:30","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T08:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=176654"},"modified":"2018-08-14T04:49:30","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T08:49:30","slug":"former-wwe-star-jim-anvil-neidhart-member-hart-foundation-dies-63","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/14\/former-wwe-star-jim-anvil-neidhart-member-hart-foundation-dies-63\/","title":{"rendered":"Former WWE star Jim (The Anvil) Neidhart, member of hart Foundation, dies at 63"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cWhat a great run we had. I couldn’t believe how it took off.\u201d (File Photo<\/a> By Miguel Discart from Bruxelles, Belgique\/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. \u2014 Jim (The Anvil) Neidhart, who joined with brother-in-law Bret Hart to form one of the top tag teams in the 1980s with the WWE, has died. He was 63.<\/p>\n

The Pasco Sheriff’s Office said Neidhart fell at home, hit his head and \u201csuccumbed to his injury\u201d on Monday in Wesley Chapel, Florida. No foul play was suspected.<\/p>\n

Neidhart’s daughter, known as Natalya, wrestles for the WWE and is a former women’s champion. Neidhart made appearances with his daughter in the WWE reality series, \u201cTotal Divas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neidhart, Bret (Hitman) Hart and manager Jimmy \u201cThe Mouth of the South\u201d Hart made up the Hart Foundation stable in the 1980s and 1990s and the tag team won two WWE championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a great run we had. I couldn’t believe how it took off,\u201d Jimmy Hart told The Associated Press. \u201cBut the reason why was, Neidhart was such a great character back then. Bret was more cool, the girls loved him. Neidhart and myself were kind of the evil twins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neidhart married Hart’s sister, Ellie, and became part of the famed family wrestling dynasty in Canada. Stu Hart trained his sons, including Bret and former WWE star Owen Hart, as well as Neidhart in the 1970s. Neidhart started his pro wrestling career in Stu Hart’s Calgary-based Stampede Wrestling promotion and eventually signed with the WWE in 1985.<\/p>\n

Hart posted a picture on social media of himself with Neidhart and the WWE tag team belts around their waists with the caption, \u201cStunned and saddened. I just don’t have the words right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neidhart wrestled mostly for WWE from 1985 to 1997 and was known for his pink and black gear, maniacal laugh and goatee.<\/p>\n

Ross Hart, his brother-in-law and a former pro wrestler, told The Associated Press that Neidhart suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and it was believed he suffered a grand mal seizure on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe got up (Monday) morning and went to lower the temperature on the air conditioner and he just collapsed and I think died pretty quickly,\u201d Hart said. \u201cI was think this was stemming from Alzheimer’s which he’d been battling for some time. It’s a struggle he’s been going through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy Hart said Neidhart seemed in good health when they last saw each other in April on WrestleMania weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was witty, he was funny. He seemed sharp as a tack,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n

Neidhart was a shot put start in high school in California in the early 1970s and had brief tryouts for NFL teams before becoming a pro wrestler.<\/p>\n

The Hart Foundation started as bad guys in WWE and won their first tag team championship in 1987 with the help of a crooked referee. They won the tag titles again in 1990 but split up not long after their second reign ended. Bret Hart was the wrestling technician of the team while Neidhart brought the raw force and power that made them fan favourites later in their run.<\/p>\n

As a singles wrestler, Hart would become one of the biggest stars in WWE history and made the promotion’s Hall of Fame. Neidhart foundered for most of the 1990s before aligning again with Hart, Owen Hart, Brian Pillman and the British Bulldog to form a new Hart Foundation and become the top faction in WWE.<\/p>\n

Hart is the only wrestler from that incarnation still alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very gifted athletically, even though Bret got more of the credit,\u201d Ross Hart said. \u201cHe was more of the power behind the team but at times he did some incredibly gifted things in the ring. He was like a water buffalo. He was tough to control and tame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neidhart wrestled briefly for other wrestling promotions and had brushes with the law and spent time in drug rehabilitation later in life.<\/p>\n

But he found a second act as comic relief on \u201cTotal Divas\u201d and was filmed going shopping with his daughter and teaching wrestlers how to golf.<\/p>\n

Neidhart is the latest in a string of big wrestling names who have died in 2018, including Bruno Sammartino, Vader, Brian Christopher and Nikolai Volkoff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. \u2014 Jim (The Anvil) Neidhart, who joined with brother-in-law Bret Hart to form one of the top …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":176662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","mauthors-dan-gelston","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}