In perhaps the most poignant of all the reactions to date, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, whose up-and-down relationship with McMahon dates back 40 years, tore into the man he used to call a father figure in an interview with Slate.

“I’m going to speak my truth,” Hart clarified to Slate’s Abraham Josephine Riesman. “I’m not worried about Vince’s feelings. He’s never cared about mine.” And in true professional wrestler fashion, Hart cranked his take up several notches from there: “I don’t have any problem with everybody kicking his head around the parking lot,” he said. “I’m okay with the truth coming out.”

Hart had some time to prepare for the groundswell of this lawsuit, stating that others in the business had warned him that McMahon was going to be in major trouble soon enough — but nothing could brace him for some of what the lawsuit contained. 

“When you get that vision in your head,” he said of some of the most explicit details, “you go, ‘That’s messed up.’ It’s too sick and disgusting to really imagine.”

Contrary to the surprise that Rob Van Dam showed toward the text messages contained in the document, Hart put two and two together right away, saying, “They sound like Vince,” and he likened the man he knows so well, someone without whom, Hart said, “I wouldn’t be the same man I am today,” to some of recent history’s most deplorable human beings.

“It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer, Harvey Weinstein, or Jeffrey Epstein,” Hart said. “Vince will be a joke.”

As the wrestling world does its best to move forward in as positive a direction as possible after this, Hart has a hard time reconciling how he used to feel toward McMahon versus where his feelings lie now.

“I think, despite all of the issues I ever had with Vince, I know, deep down, I always respected him,” Hart said. “But now, knowing what kind of a weirdo he became, I have absolutely zero respect for him.”