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Post by I *still* ✡ Johnny on May 13, 2011 12:27:36 GMT -5
Sunny, if you listen to Shawn Michaels. BEAT ME TO IT
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Post by romafan87 on May 13, 2011 12:30:34 GMT -5
A lot of people on the record have said it was a work, including Neidhardt. I think it was a work, too.
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Post by froggyfrog on May 13, 2011 12:32:37 GMT -5
It was Bret. You can't refuse to lose when youre leaving the company for the competitior it doesnt matter where you are get over yourself.
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Post by redpyramidsh on May 13, 2011 12:32:52 GMT -5
Eh, I agree with Bret's book, the canadian hero thing pretty much killed his character, he'd never get cheers in the USA again like he did a few years beforehand. There was no real way to turn him face again. Taker would've been an ideal candidate for the belt, and really it's not like they didn't do stupid s*** with the belt before that point anyway (Sid), so I don't believe it HAD TO GO ON HBK RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT.
Finally, why didn't Vince and Bret simply try to negotiate a new contract? :B Bret made it pretty clear in his book that he wanted to stay, and I'd imagine that to be sincere so he can stay with his brothers. Maybe they did and he was too fixated on something like HBK getting anywhere near his pay-grade or something. A shame, but I'm glad they both grew up and buried and the hatchet eventually, Shawn's antics are still hard to swallow though.
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Post by preferable on May 13, 2011 12:51:01 GMT -5
It was Bret. You can't refuse to lose when youre leaving the company for the competitior it doesnt matter where you are get over yourself. Exactly. And even if Bret had several weeks on his contract, presumably Vince wanted to get the title on him at a PPV and not just some random Raw. The problem is that Bret refused to drop the belt to Shawn Michaels. But it wasn't his call. I cannot see how Vince regrets it though to be honest as it launched him as perhaps the most successful and over heel in the companies history. I think the subsequent and unrelated personal tragedy of Bret and the Hart family has somehow been rolled up with the 'Screw Job' into a big ball of sympathy. But he deserves none for this incident. The correct thing to do would be to lay down the belt to Shawn Michaels, convincingly, and likely sit at home seeing out your contract. Another absurd thing about it is the whole 'But it's Montreal', like the venue makes ANY difference whatsoever. It would have been good for Vince if HBK won, normally that is. "Shawn Michaels, he beat the excellence of execution in his own back yard!" - would have been the push and Bret, rightly, would have been buried as a result of him going to the competition. Up until then Bret was used to working in a bubble, either for his father or Vince McMahon, in many ways a father figure. I don't think he actually appreciated what his responsibilities were. He wanted to not drop the belt to HBK because of personal issues. But, as I've said, it simply was not his call to make.
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nWoElite
Don Corleone
Putting The Band Back Together...
Posts: 1,686
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Post by nWoElite on May 13, 2011 12:59:04 GMT -5
Bret did. He had "reasonable" creative control, and his request was unreasonable. You do the job on the way out to who you are told to... not forfeit it on Raw so no one gets the rub. I don't care of Shawn was a prick back then, two wrongs don't make a right, and refusing to drop the belt to the top heel is unprofessional in it's own right. It's Vince's company, and Vince's belt. In the end, he's doing what's best for his business. I gotta agree. Bret should have dropped it, plain and simple. Bowing out on top due to retirement is one thing, but to leave and go to a rival company is NOT respectable.
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Post by johnnyk9 on May 13, 2011 13:36:39 GMT -5
Everybody screwed in the end I always thought
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Post by Young Game on May 13, 2011 13:46:33 GMT -5
A lot of people on the record have said it was a work, including Neidhart. I think it was a work, too. WHO screwed Bret? NEIDHART says it's a work. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but these could be clues.
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The Ichi
Patti Mayonnaise
AGGRESSIVE Executive Janitor of the Third Floor Manager's Bathroom
Posts: 37,304
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Post by The Ichi on May 13, 2011 13:48:09 GMT -5
A lot of people on the record have said it was a work, including Neidhardt. I think it was a work, too. Not everything is a work.
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The Ichi
Patti Mayonnaise
AGGRESSIVE Executive Janitor of the Third Floor Manager's Bathroom
Posts: 37,304
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Post by The Ichi on May 13, 2011 13:51:01 GMT -5
BTW, am I the only one who feels more sorry for the other Hart family members than Bret over this? Aside from Owen (who had to stay for contract reasons), the others just kind of drifted off into obscurity and any talk of them was in regards to Bret. Bulldog came back briefly in 1999 but that was just a depressing run.
Although it did give Owen a slight spark when people wanted to see him kick Vince/Shawn's ass afterwards.
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Post by FUNK_US/BRODUS on May 13, 2011 14:37:41 GMT -5
Yeah, Owen took the brunt of it. Although he had all that momentum, and then became the Blue Blazer a while later.
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Post by Crazy Diamond on May 13, 2011 17:05:55 GMT -5
A combination of Vince, Shawn, and HHH. If they were in the right, HBK wouldn't have had to lie about his role in it for 4 years straight, Vince wouldn't have tried to play the victim at first, and all three of them wouldn't have had to come up with excuses to justify what they did.
I do think that Bret should have done the job but I can see why he didn't. I don't why Vince wanted the belt back on HBK considering that he had refused to job and forfeited titles multiple times and yet Vince did nothing. Also, he didn't seem to care much for tradition to begin with considering how he helped wipe out the territories. It just reeks of double standards but it doesn't matter because it didn't work out in HBK and HHH's favor anyways because they got passed up by Austin and The Rock.
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Post by Citizen Zero on May 13, 2011 17:08:29 GMT -5
Yeah, Owen took the brunt of it. Although he had all that momentum, and then became the Blue Blazer a while later. Yeah, the person who got screwed over the hardest was definitely Owen.
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dav
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,037
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Post by dav on May 13, 2011 17:34:15 GMT -5
Yeah, Owen took the brunt of it. Although he had all that momentum, and then became the Blue Blazer a while later. Yeah, the person who got screwed over the hardest was definitely Owen. As well as Bulldog paying good money to leave the WWF only to gain the injury in WCW that would later contribute to his further drug addiction and death. Kind of a bum deal all round.
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Big L
Grimlock
Posts: 13,883
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Post by Big L on May 13, 2011 17:53:42 GMT -5
Pat
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Post by Zaq "That Guy" Buzzkill on May 13, 2011 18:02:06 GMT -5
Yeah, the person who got screwed over the hardest was definitely Owen. As well as Bulldog paying good money to leave the WWF only to gain the injury in WCW that would later contribute to his further drug addiction and death. Kind of a bum deal all round. The screwjob really was the start of of a horrible chain of events for the Hart family. All of them except Owen went to WCW which saw Brets career spiral into nothingness, Owen getting buried and eventually dieing in the ring, Bulldog's injury that led to his drug addiction and death, the legal proceedings of Owens death-the stress of which was a factor is Helen's death, Bret getting his neck injury and stroke, Stu not being the same after his wife died(which was a factor in his death), the whole division of the family during all this...
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Post by rchi84 on May 14, 2011 1:08:45 GMT -5
Bret should have asked Stu about what he would have done in a similar situation in Stampede Wrestling.
From a promoter's point of view, if Vince knew Bret was leaving, then it only makes sense that he would try to milk out one more revenue generating match out of the wrestler, before they are lost to the company.
Yeah, bret would have liked to job to Taker or Jarrett or Austin, but the fact is, the only Big match you could get out of Bret at that point in time was with Shawn, because of buzz their off-screen rivalry had generated.
A Bret-Shawn match was the only Main Event that was a guaranteed sell-out in Montreal, at a time when WWF was losing to WCW big time.
So Vince really had no other option than to setup this match at the last major PPV Bret would be available for.
Bret, for all the love of his character, should have thought of what his father would have done in a similar situation. You don't hold a gun to the head of a promoter who has paid you fair and square for close to ten years and choose your exit. You do whatever he tells you to do, because you know that your exit (as a top star of the company) is going to hurt them regardless of the results of the last match.
Yes, Vince benefited more but like someone stated above, the screwjob ultimately cemented Bret's position in people's minds, which he might not have otherwise.
Bret was a guy who was lumped together with guys like Steamboat and Macho Man, hailed by the smarks for their workrate, but not remembered by most of the wrestling fans in the same vein as Hogan, Warrior, Austin, Rock or even Cena.
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Post by molson5 on May 14, 2011 1:31:24 GMT -5
Anybody have a link on Neidhart saying it was a work?
I always thought it might be a work, but the secrecy all these years later makes me wonder. But the whole thing seemed so silly. Who cared about wins and losses in the 90s? Kayfabe was dead. Hall and Nash went out on their backs and were huge in WCW from day 1. Yes, Hart was maybe a mark for himself and made things difficult (which is why Vince was happy to rip up their contract and send him on his way, IMO), but this was 1997, the creative peak of pro wrestling - I'm sure all sides could come up with something agreeable to everyone if they wanted to.
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Post by joebob27 on May 14, 2011 1:46:40 GMT -5
Everyone involved should be embarassed, but most of it comes down on Bret. IT'S FAKE. He likes to bitch about "those" guys, but in this case, he was one of them. The only worse thing he could have done was just lie on the mat and let Michaels pin him. And the way it worked out, out of the three parties, the only one he damaged was himself. Sure, I guess karma got Michaels eventually, but this match really didn't do any harm to him, he's a heel, shit happens. Hell, the "angle" has been ripped off countless times since.
Vince? He just goes down the road to become a massively huge heel character, and between Bret taking off and Michaels getting hurt, he gets all of the idiocy out of the way, gets to push new guys, and his product skyrockets.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2011 2:12:55 GMT -5
You guys may not remember this, but a week after the great Kurt Angle Orlando Screwjob in TNA, Earl Hebner revealed that it was in fact him who screwed Bret.
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