WWE Hall of Famer Bret “The Hitman” Hart appeared on The Masked Man Show, where he discussed various topics, including the origin of the Sharpshooter.
Hart said, “Vince McMahon said, ‘We want you to use the Scorpion Deathlock.’ ‘Okay.’ ‘Do you know how to put it on?’ ‘No.’ I always say I learned it in my dad’s basement, but we didn’t. I learned it in Japan.”
He continued, “I had it put on me a few times, but I never put on a sharpshooter. That was a thing too, Vince was like, ‘We have to call it a different name.’ We weren’t going to call it the Scorpion.”
On calling it the Sharpshooter:
“We went through a bunch of names and I think I threw out Sharpshooter. Vince goes, ‘That’s the one.’ I said, ‘I don’t know how to put it on, but I’ll go find somebody that knows how and get somebody to show me.’ I went walking all around the dressing room area asking guys, ‘Do you know how to put the scorpion deathlock on?’ You wouldn’t be surprised to know that nobody knew how to put it on. Finally, it was Konnan. He said, ‘I know exactly how to put it on.’ We went in the shower.”
Hart added, “I would have loved to have done it on carpet, but the only place I could do it where there was any room was the shower. I put it on, walked out, put it on in the ring, and that was it.”
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(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
