Former WWE wrestler Bret Hart once invited a man claiming to be Sammy Hagar backstage at a wrestling event and watched him do a lot of cocaine.
Hart, whose 1997 match with Stone Cold Steve Austin is being inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame later this month, tells the story during a recent appearance on the Dark Side Of The Ring: Unheard podcast.
“I remember Adrian [Adonis, fellow wrestler] was in front of me, right in front of my seat,” he remembers (via TJR Wrestling). “And I was talking to some guy, he’s sitting right beside me. He had on kind of like a rock ’n’ roll jacket, almost like one Jimmy Hart would’ve worn. He’s all excited, he goes, ‘You guys are wrestlers, aren’t ya? WWE wrestlers.’
“I go, ‘Yeah, we’re wrestlers,’ and start talking to him about wrestling. I asked [what he did] and he goes, ‘I’m a rock’n’roll singer. I’m Sammy Hagar.’”
Hart admits that, while he was somewhat familiar with the then-Van Halen frontman’s music, he had no idea what he looked like. The story continues on a limo ride that the wrestler and his tag team partner Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart were taking to legendary New York arena Madison Square Garden. Somehow, the imposter Hagar blagged his way into the car.
“I’m sitting beside Jim, and Jim kept going, ‘That’s not Sammy Hagar,’” says Hart. “I go, ‘What do you mean it’s not Sammy Hagar? It looks like… it could be Sammy Hagar. Why wouldn’t it be Sammy Hagar?’ ‘It’s not Sammy Hagar.’
“I said, ‘Have you ever seen Sammy Hagar?’ And then Jim goes, ‘Well, look at his watch.’ He’s got a Timex watch. He goes, ‘Sammy Hagar wouldn’t wear a Timex, he’d be wearing a Rolex. It’s not him.’”
Despite Neidhart’s doubts, ‘Hagar’ was permitted backstage at Madison Square Garden. The wannabe’s cocaine-snorting abilities subsequently fooled everyone into believing he was the real deal.
“Adrian passes a dollar bill to Sammy Hagar,” Hart continues, “who snorts a big line of cocaine in the dressing room. There’s people trying to get in the room, we’re like, ‘Go, go, go!’ and he’s snorting this big line of cocaine.
“And I remember as soon as he snorted it, he looked at me and Jim and this little trickle of blood came down his nostril. And I remember Jim looked at me and he goes, ‘It is Sammy Hagar!’”
Though Hart’s story ends there, the fake Hagar was able to keep up the con to the point that he was allowed into the ring that night. Viral footage on YouTube shows veteran announcer Howard Finkle introducing ‘Sammy Hagar’ to the audience, only for a man who looks nothing like the Van Halen man, and who has a British accent, to march into the ring and shout into the microphone.
Hagar joined Van Halen in 1985, replacing original frontman David Lee Roth, and left in 1996. He had another short stint in the band from 2003 to 2005. He was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007 and, nowadays, leads the supergroup Sammy Hagar And The Circle.
Hart’s match with Steve Austin will be inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame at a ceremony on Friday, April 18, at the Fontainebleau hotel in Las Vegas. It’ll be the first WWE “immortal moment” to be inducted and will make Hart a record-setting three-time WWE Hall Of Fame inductee. He was inducted as a solo performer in 2006 and for his tag team work with Neidhart in 2019.
The Hall Of Fame ceremony will precede WWE’s biggest annual event, Wrestlemania, which this year will take place at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada, on April 19 and 20.
