Bret Hart has shared the story of the night a Sammy Hagar impersonator managed to get into the wrestling ring at Madison Square Garden during a WWF event.
The pro wrestling legend told the story on a recent episode of The Dark Side of the Ring television series. You can see him tell the tale below, beginning with meeting the phony “rock and roll singer” during a plane flight.
“I remember Adrian [Adonis, another wrestler] was in front of me, right in front of my seat,” Hart said. “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 [pro wrestling manager] Jimmy Hart would’ve worn. He’s all excited, he goes, ‘You guys are wrestlers, aren’t ya?’”
Hart goes on to explain that this was right around the time when Hagar first joined Van Halen, and that the impersonator talked his way into a limo ride with Hart and another wrestler, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart – who unlike Hart, initially wasn’t fooled.
“I’m sitting beside Jim, and Jim kept going, ‘That’s not Sammy Hagar,’” Hart recalls in the video below. “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 these doubts, the fake Hagar managed to talk his way into the wrestler’s backstage area at the Madison Square Garden show and turned Neidhart into a believer in a very unusual way.
“Adrian passes a dollar bill to Sammy Hagar, 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!’”
Read More: All 48 Sammy Hagar-Era Van Halen Songs Ranked Worst to Best
As you can see in the video below, “Hagar” somehow even managed to get himself invited into the ring, greeting the fans before a match between Dan Spivey and Paul Christy. Unlike Hart, many in the crowd – which probably included a large number of Long Island residents who owned VOA on cassette – quickly realized this wasn’t the real Red Rocker and began booing.
“It was kind of a mixed reaction, because ultimately in the end, you know, this guy was not Sammy Hagar,” Hart admits. Later on, an unspecified member of the New York Yankees confronted the impersonator backstage. “[He said] ‘I know Sammy Hagar.. and you’re not Sammy Hagar,’ Hart recalled. “And everyone just joking like slapped [“Hagar”], started hitting him, and then he walked right out into the crowd.”
Hart’s bosses were not pleased. “Clearly it didn’t look good on WWF to have somebody introduced as Sammy Hagar when he wasn’t,” he remembered. “They were running all around in the building. I remember George Scott, who was Vince McMahon’s right hand guy, the guy who handled the wrestlers, screaming, ‘Who the hell said that guy was Sammy Hagar?'”
Despite playing a large role in the mix-up, Hart humorously sold his friend down the river instead. “I said ‘I don’t know… all I know is he came with Adrian.'”
According to ProWrestlingFandom.com, Spivey and Christy fought at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1986. That’s almost two months after Van Halen released 5150, their first album with the real Hagar as their lead singer.
It would have been theoretically possible for the real Hagar to show up at this event. Van Halen performed in Roanoke, Virginia the night before and Atlanta the night after.
Watch ‘Sammy Hagar’ Appear at a WWF Event
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Solo or in a group, he proves there’s more than one way to rock.
Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
