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Post by The Deadly Snake on May 14, 2011 4:23:12 GMT -5
I can't believe all of you said Bret. You are forgetting ONE VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL.
Vince McMahon signed a contract to allow creative control for his last days in the WWE. Vince McMahon broke the contract. Therfore, legally, he was wrong.
Why can't any of you people who said Bret screwed Bret even recgonize this very basic fact? Vince broke a written contract, plain and simple. Bret could have SUED for breach of contract. He didn't.
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Post by thelonewolf527 on May 14, 2011 4:24:39 GMT -5
I can't believe all of you said Bret. You are forgetting ONE VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL Vince McMahon signed a contract to allow creative control for his last days in the WWE. Vince McMahon broke the contract. Therfore, legally, he was wrong. Why can't any of you people who said Bret screwed Bret even recgonize this very basic fact? Vince broke a written contract, plain and simple. Bret could have SUED for breach of contract. He didn't. Reasonable creative control. That means that Bret was allowed to say no to storylines that he didn't want to take part of as long as it was within reason. He can't refuse to drop the title the day before he was going to be leaving.
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Post by The Deadly Snake on May 14, 2011 4:27:54 GMT -5
I can't believe all of you said Bret. You are forgetting ONE VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL Vince McMahon signed a contract to allow creative control for his last days in the WWE. Vince McMahon broke the contract. Therfore, legally, he was wrong. Why can't any of you people who said Bret screwed Bret even recgonize this very basic fact? Vince broke a written contract, plain and simple. Bret could have SUED for breach of contract. He didn't. Reasonable creative control. That means that Bret was allowed to say no to storylines that he didn't want to take part of as long as it was within reason. He can't refuse to drop the title the day before he was going to be leaving. That's a fair point. I concede that. But herein lies the problem-what's reasonable creative control? And if refusing to drop the title was unreasonable, couldn't Vince have forced Bret to do it anyway, claiming he was unreasonable? I do think Bret should have dropped it as told. But When push to came to shove, Vince chose the cowardly route rather than tackling the problem head-on. Vince should have forced his hand-he determined what was reasonable, not Bret. And if push came to shove, Vince would have won out. The only reason he wouldn't... is because he believed that Bret was within his "reasonable creative control". Why otherwise do such a shady way to take the belt off of him?
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Post by celticjobber on May 14, 2011 4:46:48 GMT -5
I can't believe all of you said Bret. You are forgetting ONE VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL Vince McMahon signed a contract to allow creative control for his last days in the WWE. Vince McMahon broke the contract. Therfore, legally, he was wrong. Why can't any of you people who said Bret screwed Bret even recgonize this very basic fact? Vince broke a written contract, plain and simple. Bret could have SUED for breach of contract. He didn't. Reasonable creative control. That means that Bret was allowed to say no to storylines that he didn't want to take part of as long as it was within reason. He can't refuse to drop the title the day before he was going to be leaving.But Bret had several weeks left on his WWF contract. Most people saying "Bret screwed Bret" don't seem to realize that fact. Bret had almost a month left on his WWF contract after Survivor Series 1997. It wasn't imperative for him to drop the title that night. Bret and Vince had several weeks left to work things out. And if Vince was straight-up hell bent on Bret dropping the title that night, Bret had agreed to job to almost anyone except Shawn (because Shawn figuratively spit in Bret's face and told him he wouldn't do the same for him).
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Post by TheMediocreWarrior on May 14, 2011 12:35:41 GMT -5
Bret screwed Bret.
He let his ego get in the way of doing what you are supposed to do, put someone over on the way out. You don't like Shawn? Then go cry about it. A lot of people in the world have to work with people they don't like, that's life. A ton of other wrestlers would have liked to have had Bret's problem.
What Vince did was pretty scummy, but Bret Hart brought it onto himself. It was dumb of Vince to give Bret creative control, but I think it also said "reasonable creative control". There's nothing reasonable about what Bret wanted.
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Post by The Deadly Snake on May 14, 2011 15:18:17 GMT -5
Bret screwed Bret. He let his ego get in the way of doing what you are supposed to do, put someone over on the way out. You don't like Shawn? Then go cry about it. A lot of people in the world have to work with people they don't like, that's life. A ton of other wrestlers would have liked to have had Bret's problem. What Vince did was pretty scummy, but Bret Hart brought it onto himself. It was dumb of Vince to give Bret creative control, but I think it also said "reasonable creative control". There's nothing reasonable about what Bret wanted. While I don't disagree, a contract is a contract is a contract. If Vicne thought he was unreasonable, why didn't he force Bret's hand openly? If "reasonable creative control" wasn't "creative control" in the pure sense, he should have been able to force Bret's hand without screwing him. He didn't. That implies he at least believed Bret had a case legally. What Bret did may have been wrong, buti t wasn't LEGALLY wrong, what vince did was both wrong and LEGALLY wrong. If Vince was so confident about "reasonable creative control", he should forced Bret to drop the title without screwing him. Let's face it-Vince, despite his "ballsy" reputation, refused to step his foot down when he should have, causing everyone (including himself) more pain then should have happened.
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NOwave
Don Corleone
Posts: 1,735
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Post by NOwave on May 14, 2011 22:27:08 GMT -5
Clearly they were both in the wrong. Vince should not have changed the script without telling Bret, and Bret should not have refused to drop the belt.
Bret could have done the right thing by agreeing to drop the belt to HBK, but demanding a specific type of finish that didn't make him look bad. (referee misses the foot on the ropes and counts the pin or something similar)
Vince could have done the right thing after Bret refused to drop the belt to HBK by simply vacating the belt and not having the match at all. Then have a tournament that was won by Shawn.
In other words, there were all kinds of ways the screwjob could have been avoided.
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Lardlad
El Dandy
Live reaction to @WWE #WWENetwork
Posts: 8,250
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Post by Lardlad on May 30, 2011 6:49:24 GMT -5
It's too bad Julie Hart isn't an option. A friend of mine in high school always used to should "Julie screwed Bret, watch Wrestling With Shadows, you'll see!!" So there you have it. It was Julie who screwed Bret....
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Post by Citizen Zero on May 30, 2011 7:06:48 GMT -5
I can't believe all of you said Bret. You are forgetting ONE VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL. Vince McMahon signed a contract to allow creative control for his last days in the WWE. Vince McMahon broke the contract. Therfore, legally, he was wrong. Why can't any of you people who said Bret screwed Bret even recgonize this very basic fact? Vince broke a written contract, plain and simple. Bret could have SUED for breach of contract. He didn't. I didn't say Bret was in the wrong. But his diva-like behavior didn't help the situation either.
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Post by Citizen Snips Has Left on May 30, 2011 7:20:13 GMT -5
I can't believe all of you said Bret. You are forgetting ONE VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL. Vince McMahon signed a contract to allow creative control for his last days in the WWE. Vince McMahon broke the contract. Therfore, legally, he was wrong. Why can't any of you people who said Bret screwed Bret even recgonize this very basic fact? Vince broke a written contract, plain and simple. Bret could have SUED for breach of contract. He didn't. The one thing I never got about the entire story: Why didn't Bret threaten to sue Vince the very first time he told Bret he was going to breach the contract? That would've been most people's very first reaction. Owen even told him to sue Vince months before the Screwjob. Bret just seems to think that's something that's entirely legal in his book. And in retrospect, the problem with Shawn would've sorted itself out in a couple months when he got injured. Hart could've taken Foley's place as Austin's first handpicked corporate challenger and then slowly started a face turn when Taker started turning heel. No muss, no fuss.
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Post by "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay on May 30, 2011 7:35:21 GMT -5
Bret. If anyone else, like if the roles had been reversed to Shawn, or if Bret had been Hogan, Nash, etc. had refused to lose to Bret, then everyone would be livid.
Bret losing on Canadian soil to Shawn would have got Shawn an enormous amount of heat with the crowd. It wouldn't be a burial for Bret, because they could still have screwed him in the storyline, but he could then walk out of the company having not lost his championship clean. Or they could've done an injury angle and he could've forfeited the belt without losing it but that would bury WWE's next champions.
Vince resorted to desperate measures, and was an asshole about it - no denials from me. But it was because Bret wouldn't play ball in the first place.
If I was a wrestler, I would job to anyone the promoter wanted me to job to, especially if it was Vince, because if I was good enough or I'd truly caught on with the crowd then I'd be over no matter how many times I lost, such as with The Rock - Rocky lost constantly but he stayed over, and he sold for everyone too.
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Post by Piccolo on May 30, 2011 8:11:17 GMT -5
Re: the legal issue, I imagine the entire point of Vince not pressing and Bret not suing is that the language IS so vague. They'd both have to yield to whatever a judge deemed "reasonable", which may not be a definition either one of them agreed with. Re: Bret having a month left on his contract, I believe the point was not "when Bret shows up in WCW", but "when WCW announces that it has acquired Bret." Finally, there was a large contingent of people, Bret included, responsible for Bret getting screwed. I feel rather sorry for everyone involved... Vince for being backed into a corner where he was in danger of losing his company because of crappy wording on a contract, Bret for being asked to leave and being insecure about his legacy, Shawn for being a drug-addled mess who was also insecure about his spot... none of them were in a position to be making anything but bad decisions. Really, if I look at it that way, one person emerges as the Machiavellian mastermind here, and that's Triple H. But we already knew that, and he's so darn likable that it's hard for me to be very angry with him about it. Of course, his success still depended on Shawn's success at that point, so maybe he, like everyone else, was also only protecting his own future.
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Post by Citizen Snips Has Left on May 30, 2011 9:45:52 GMT -5
Re: the legal issue, I imagine the entire point of Vince not pressing and Bret not suing is that the language IS so vague. They'd both have to yield to whatever a judge deemed "reasonable", which may not be a definition either one of them agreed with. My question about the contract itself has nothing to do with the reasonable creative control. It has to do with Vince telling Bret in September, "Hey, I'm not going to pay you the money I owe you right now. Give it to ya later though, buddy. Promise, promise!" That's the point where Bret should have said "Either you pay me my money or I'm done right now."There wouldn't have been an argument over who and where the belt gets dropped, Bret just leaves it with Vince before dragging him into court. I guess it goes in with how seriously Bret takes himself and the business, but I've never gotten how he just fell for all these mind-games and traps of Vince's without taking a step back and saying "Wait, we have a legally binding contract and he can't breach it by not paying me..." Just because Vince regretted giving him that contract doesn't mean he had any legal right to weasel out of it like he did. How many football, baseball, basketball teams etc end up signing guys for huge contracts and have them turn into colossal busts? The owners can't just say "Well, I'm not gonna pay you, but if you want to see if any other teams will sign you to a different contract, knock yourself out" So I guess in the end..the entire thing started because Bret allowed himself to be manipulated by Vince.
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Post by Piccolo on May 30, 2011 10:57:15 GMT -5
Oh, I totally agree with that, which is why I sort of continue to suspect that it might've been a really long-running work. The story was just too full of holes. But I guess it's quite possible that Bret was just an idiot.
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Post by smokey1980 on May 30, 2011 11:05:48 GMT -5
I like Bret, but he should've just jobbed. I'm not really comfortable with how Vince decided to handle it, but Bret could've avoided that possible outcome by doing the right thing to begin with. That's my take.
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Lardlad
El Dandy
Live reaction to @WWE #WWENetwork
Posts: 8,250
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Post by Lardlad on May 31, 2011 6:23:45 GMT -5
5 votes for Pat Patterson. Can someone explain why some might consider Patterson to have screwed Bret Hart (no homo)
Because I re-watched Wrestling With Shadows on Sunday, and the only time I saw Patterson was out in the ring earlier in the day going over the match with Bret. I never heard Pattersons name as being "in the know" before, just Vince, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Gerry Briscoe (possibly Cornette and Jim Ross as well, thought Meltzer said they came out of a meeting stone-faced, but not sure if they knew or just had a general idea)....
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Post by Confused Mark Wahlberg on May 31, 2011 7:08:33 GMT -5
Hey! Spoiler tag next time!
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Post by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew on May 31, 2011 9:04:44 GMT -5
Reasonable creative control. That means that Bret was allowed to say no to storylines that he didn't want to take part of as long as it was within reason. He can't refuse to drop the title the day before he was going to be leaving. But Bret had several weeks left on his WWF contract. Most people saying "Bret screwed Bret" don't seem to realize that fact. Bret had almost a month left on his WWF contract after Survivor Series 1997. It wasn't imperative for him to drop the title that night. Bret and Vince had several weeks left to work things out. And if Vince was straight-up hell bent on Bret dropping the title that night, Bret had agreed to job to almost anyone except Shawn (because Shawn figuratively spit in Bret's face and told him he wouldn't do the same for him). Except that the money was going to be made on Bret/Shawn. Anyone else in Shawn's place that night would have sucked the life out of the show.
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Post by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew on May 31, 2011 9:10:32 GMT -5
Just because Vince regretted giving him that contract doesn't mean he had any legal right to weasel out of it like he did. How many football, baseball, basketball teams etc end up signing guys for huge contracts and have them turn into colossal busts? The owners can't just say "Well, I'm not gonna pay you, but if you want to see if any other teams will sign you to a different contract, knock yourself out" There is one gaping hole with your analogy. The owners of those pro teams must follow league rules set by the collective bargaining agreements between players and owners. There is no such thing in WWE. It's Vince's rules.
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Lardlad
El Dandy
Live reaction to @WWE #WWENetwork
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Post by Lardlad on Jun 23, 2011 11:44:51 GMT -5
After re-reading Bret's book this week, I still can't decide. But leaning towards Vince because Vince signed the deal with Bret and then claims he had to back out of the deal due to financial problems... yet a few months later he paid Mike Tyson $3 million to come in for WrestleMania? Hmmm.
One interesting point is that Bret seems to get over Earl Hebner "screwing" him because he was just doing his job. But then couldn't the same be said for Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Briscoe, ETC.? Basically anyone but Vince... ?
EDIT: And from the last page, hoping someone can answer: 5 votes for Pat Patterson. Can someone explain why some might consider Patterson to have screwed Bret Hart (no homo)
Because I re-watched Wrestling With Shadows on Sunday, and the only time I saw Patterson was out in the ring earlier in the day going over the match with Bret. I never heard Pattersons name as being "in the know" before, just Vince, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Gerry Briscoe (possibly Cornette and Jim Ross as well, thought Meltzer said they came out of a meeting stone-faced, but not sure if they knew or just had a general idea)
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