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Post by jason1980s on Nov 26, 2013 16:25:32 GMT -5
To me the ending of the screwjob match was the ending to childhood. If I really wanted to write an essay on it, I'd give more information but something about that event seemed so innocent. Forget the country versus country deal, to me it was ethics versus lack of morals. It mirrors my coming into adulthood in high school around the same time.
I love the crowd reaction to the Team Canada/USA match. Furnas and Lafon hadn't done anything in WWF (injuries aside), Neidhart was just an extra, Bulldog was near main event yet not Bret caliber and that crowd went NUTS. The announcer seemed like he was announcing the capture and killing of Bin Laden, ala John Cena, if it had happened on a 9/11 anniversary. The Team Canada, who would be heels in the states even without the angle, were slapping the fans' hands. It all seemed like a fairy tale.
Austin defeated Owen but that wasn't really a Canada/USA match specifically. It was a grudge match even without the angle.
Then the main event comes. We have Bret who, at the least, always did his best to give a positive, quality performance to the fans against two guys (I add Hunter to this feud) who consider it giving fans their money's worth to be giving oral to a banana or dropping their draws even with a poster board over it their butt.
Granted Bret had his Tony Soprano affair moments, from what we've read, but that was beneath the surface. The positivity and the idealism was what we saw and I long for that in our everyday lives nowadays. WWF was huge in the late 90s and maybe the type of "entertainment" we see nowadays (Miley Cyrus for example) can't all be blamed on Michaels or Triple H but they certainly had a part in it. That sad, I do truly believe Michaels is a changed person.
I am one, based even on just a small portion of his late WWF career, who bestows god-like qualities on Bret.
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Post by goodbyehorses on Nov 26, 2013 16:50:40 GMT -5
Bret losing, after that build, and with everything HBK represented culturally at the time, would have been the U.S. equivalent in Canada of Sgt. Slaughter cleanly pinning Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 7. I'd like to believe that the Montreal Screwjob drove a young Rob Ford to crack cocaine.
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Post by Throwback on Nov 26, 2013 17:41:40 GMT -5
who consider it giving fans their money's worth to be giving oral to a banana or dropping their draws even with a poster board over it their butt. Ok. I've read this sentence over a few times. Can anyone explain what it means?
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Post by jason1980s on Nov 26, 2013 18:45:12 GMT -5
I am saying that, during the Michaels/Hunter 1997 DX, the performance they were giving included pretending to suck a banana and one of them dropped their pants while the other held a poster board to censor the rear end. I think one of the poster boards read "I'd rather be in Chyna." That's what they thought to be quality entertainment. I'd rather watch a -4/10 Bret Hart match (if there ever was one) than have to watch the original DX.
This couldn't have been Vince thinking of this stuff in the board room, for everything we read about him being behind the times. This, I'm sure, was Michaels or Hunter telling Vince what they felt would sell. Vince probably read the sign wondering why someone would want to be in Chyna when they have everything is so nice in America. Or perhaps he's thinking "no one eats a banana like that but that's MY Shawn so it's sure to be the popular thing."
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SEAN CARLESS
Hank Scorpio
More of a B+ player, actually
I'm Necessary Evil.
Posts: 5,770
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Post by SEAN CARLESS on Nov 26, 2013 19:37:19 GMT -5
He basically said that he dragged Davey Boy to do anything in their match at SummerSlam "I went up light as a feather, he went up like a weight." Basically shows what he thought of it. He lied about the ending too, saying that Davey didn't shake his hand at the end and screwed up was planned, despite the fact that Davey did the planned ending. Even if I'm going to say that's not a lie on Bret's part, a simple five minute DVD skip through would have allowed him to jog his memory. And let's not forget that everything had to come down to Davey Boy being on drugs and not, y'know, the fact that the guy was working through a really bad knee injury at the time. And I dispute that anyone gets 'carried' to anything, it takes two to tango, you can see Bulldog doing his share in the match. Although to be fair, Bret said he was the most popular guy in Europe at SummerSlam so he might not be deliberately lying, just delusional. Summerslam was sold mostly off the back of the world title fight between Warrior and Savage. It was the primary focus of UK editions of Superstars and Wrestling Challenge to. The Bret/Smith match went on last simply because it was a clean win to send the fans home happy as opposed to the cluster that was the WWE title match that evening. The PPV was sold off of the WWF Title match, true, but the house and gate was from Davey Boy challenging for the IC belt. Bret had as much credit as any opponent in big money draws did. I mean, take WrestleMania's 27, 28, and 29. Rock undoubtedly spiked the buyrates, but Cena as his antagonist has to be credited with the draw too since its a dance. Same with any Hogan opponent. And Bret's European run started in 1993 after he had been WWF Champion. WWF was doing every good European business at the time, and Bret was the top guy on the card Post-Mania 9 with Hogan MIA, and the most featured and promoted star over there for media appearances. Vince himself even credits Bret with being a rock for their business during a dark time, and how Europe was the one market that was strong while domestic was crumbling. (Coincidentally, in 2003, it was places like Australia that were booming, while Domestic was falling apart).
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Post by Bishblast on Nov 26, 2013 21:14:07 GMT -5
I love it and have read it three times since I got it three years ago... I put it behind Foley's first book in terms of favorite wrestling related books of all time (Death Of WCW would round out my top 3).
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Post by Throwback on Nov 26, 2013 23:35:22 GMT -5
Fact is McMahon did what he had to do in the face of talent not following instructions. It was one of those rare moments in wrestling where there wasn't a sudden walk out, WWE had the chance to bring closure to one of their greatest ever sagas. They wanted to do that by putting HBK over. That was entirely their prerogative. The fact he's a dick isn't relevant. It wasn't Bret's belt, it's not Bret's company and it was never Bret's call to make. He walked right into the screwjob and in the years post the event has allowed it to be the one thing that defined his career. That's his biggest mistake. Rather than playing along "Yeah, it was all a work, me and Vince are buddies" he instead became Bret 'screwjob' Hart. The best revenge on Vince would be too downplay the screwjob by going on Nitro and saying it was all a work, that the original idea of the outsiders coming to WCW to take it down from within is continuing with himself. Perhaps Vince could do another lawsuit but all Bret would have to do is say it once and the Mr. McMahon character never happens. We all remember Rick Rude being on Raw and Nitro the same night so I'm sure we would remember Bret screwing McMahon's screwjob. Would have been awesome, but he still had Wrestling with Shadows to sell.
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Boo!
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,417
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Post by Boo! on Nov 27, 2013 0:54:42 GMT -5
Summerslam was sold mostly off the back of the world title fight between Warrior and Savage. It was the primary focus of UK editions of Superstars and Wrestling Challenge to. The Bret/Smith match went on last simply because it was a clean win to send the fans home happy as opposed to the cluster that was the WWE title match that evening. The PPV was sold off of the WWF Title match, true, but the house and gate was from Davey Boy challenging for the IC belt. This isn't true. They sold something like 55,000 tickets on the first day before any matches were announced. It was the event that drew the gate because it was the first one in the UK. Besides the main focus of the television shows had been Savage vs Warrior with Flair/Perfect involvement. I don't even remember one single segment that built up the Bulldog vs Hart match as opposed to endless interviews/promos and in-ring build up for the world title match.
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SEAN CARLESS
Hank Scorpio
More of a B+ player, actually
I'm Necessary Evil.
Posts: 5,770
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Post by SEAN CARLESS on Nov 27, 2013 4:37:29 GMT -5
The PPV was sold off of the WWF Title match, true, but the house and gate was from Davey Boy challenging for the IC belt. This isn't true. They sold something like 55,000 tickets on the first day before any matches were announced. It was the event that drew the gate because it was the first one in the UK. Besides the main focus of the television shows had been Savage vs Warrior with Flair/Perfect involvement. I don't even remember one single segment that built up the Bulldog vs Hart match as opposed to endless interviews/promos and in-ring build up for the world title match. They sent Davey Boy over there to promote it during the summer because he had no programs (on the day the tickets went on sale) when the decision to run Wembley was made, changed from the originally intended and advertised site of Washington D.C. They adjusted the intended card from there, having Davey Boy face Bret for the IC title as the live event's main attraction, despite Shawn Michaels being advertised in WWF Magazine as getting the shot against Bret in a ladder match, and Bulldog facing Flair in a throw away midcard match. So, yes, they had every intention of building the event around Davey Boy, because they changed the site to Wembley, after Bulldog drew well during the previous 3 European tours, and got the lion share's reaction. They also did it, because this was their first major PPV without Hogan, and wanted a huge arena to show that they weren't hurting, built around a local hero who got them non-stop media coverage there. The end result was a PPV that did middling numbers overall, but a gate that still stands as WWF's real all-time paid attendance record.
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Post by celticjobber on Nov 27, 2013 6:08:32 GMT -5
The PPV was sold off of the WWF Title match, true, but the house and gate was from Davey Boy challenging for the IC belt. This isn't true. They sold something like 55,000 tickets on the first day before any matches were announced. It was the event that drew the gate because it was the first one in the UK. Besides the main focus of the television shows had been Savage vs Warrior with Flair/Perfect involvement. I don't even remember one single segment that built up the Bulldog vs Hart match as opposed to endless interviews/promos and in-ring build up for the world title match.I'm in the US, but I remember tons of segments hyping the Summerslam IC title match with various members of the Hart family talking about the giant rift Bret and Davey's feud was creating within the family. With one of Bret's brothers even "taking sides" with Davey Boy. It was all tremendously entertaining...
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Post by AnActualBear on Nov 27, 2013 6:44:08 GMT -5
Talking about the Montreal Screwjob in 2013. Bloody hell.
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Lardlad
El Dandy
Live reaction to @WWE #WWENetwork
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Post by Lardlad on Nov 27, 2013 7:18:58 GMT -5
It's the only wrestling book besides the Death of WCW that I've ever gone back and read again from start to finish.
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Post by azrael502 on Nov 27, 2013 11:39:53 GMT -5
i am gonna say this up front i am not a fan of Bret harts work in the ring.
But i have to say he wrote one hell of a good book anybody on the bench get it u wont regret it.
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saintpat
El Dandy
Release the hounds!!!
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Post by saintpat on Nov 27, 2013 18:38:52 GMT -5
I dunno if it was lying or completely or not, but Bret completely gave the wrong version of how the ending of the match went. In his book he said the plan was for Davey to shake his hand, but Davey got caught up celebrating and had Bret waiting around like an idiot in the ring and Bret had to go over to him and Diana to shake his hand. THat's... not exactly how the ending goes. Match is on youtube. Bret had some fixation with the "shake my hand" ending ... because that made it about Bret. He wanted the same moment with Shawn after the Ironman match. It goes back to Bret believing his gimmick and completely marking for himself: "I'm the Best There Is, the Best There Ever Was, the Best There Will Ever Be" ... so if I put you over, you need to shake my hand and acknowledge to the people watching that not only did you defeat a real-live Canadian HERO, you should also be thanking me for doing my job ... I mean the job." Haven't read the book in a few years and don't have a log of all Bret's match endings in front of me ... but was he ever so obsessed with him shaking the other guy's hand when he won? Did he make sure Ric Flair got his moment in the spotlight when Bret beat him? And that's another thing: Bret goes out of his way to bury Flair so many times. Seems he realizes a lot of people consider Flair to have been an all-time better worker than him and, well, Bret will make sure if you read his book that you understand who was REALLY better.
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Incognito
ALF
Putting the fun back in funeral
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Post by Incognito on Nov 27, 2013 19:32:12 GMT -5
Incidentally just listening to a Jake Roberts interview from last month where he says Bret's claim of never hurting anyone in the ring to be "bullshit". Jake calls him "dangerous" and mentions how Dynamite used to stiff him as revenge/payback for it. Does Jake also mention that little story where he was Stu Hart's North American Heavyweight Champion (you know the guy you count on to draw delicious money) and decided that for 6 or 7 weeks he was going to fake a knee injury that was bad enough that he did not wrestle, cost the company cash, would walk on crutches in front of the boys with pained expressions all because he wanted to relax? Jake was staying at Bret's house in '79 and when Hart left one morning to wrestle, he (Bret) had to turn back around to get something he forgot. He then of course sees Jake moving around the kitchen, with no crutches, making himself breakfast. That didn't stop Jake from meeting Bret at the door with the crutches and the stupid pained expressions. Bret did not confront him about it but Stu made subtle remarks to Jake to get him back in the ring. Could it be that Jake doesn't care for that little diddy being brought to light? If more and more wrestlers start talking about the "Bret Hart myth of being safe" then it will be what it will be but if Jake is the only one were going on here....well....yeah. Bless his recovered health and may he stay clean btw.
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Incognito
ALF
Putting the fun back in funeral
Posts: 1,024
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Post by Incognito on Nov 27, 2013 20:49:09 GMT -5
I dunno if it was lying or completely or not, but Bret completely gave the wrong version of how the ending of the match went. In his book he said the plan was for Davey to shake his hand, but Davey got caught up celebrating and had Bret waiting around like an idiot in the ring and Bret had to go over to him and Diana to shake his hand. THat's... not exactly how the ending goes. Match is on youtube. Bret had some fixation with the "shake my hand" ending ... because that made it about Bret. He wanted the same moment with Shawn after the Ironman match.
It goes back to Bret believing his gimmick and completely marking for himself: "I'm the Best There Is, the Best There Ever Was, the Best There Will Ever Be" ... so if I put you over, you need to shake my hand and acknowledge to the people watching that not only did you defeat a real-live Canadian HERO, you should also be thanking me for doing my job ... I mean the job." Haven't read the book in a few years and don't have a log of all Bret's match endings in front of me ... but was he ever so obsessed with him shaking the other guy's hand when he won? Did he make sure Ric Flair got his moment in the spotlight when Bret beat him? And that's another thing: Bret goes out of his way to bury Flair so many times. Seems he realizes a lot of people consider Flair to have been an all-time better worker than him and, well, Bret will make sure if you read his book that you understand who was REALLY better. Not true. Shawn and Bret composed that match for just over three hours and when it was done, Bret said that in order to feed the supposed heat between them (at that time it wasn't as bad as in '97) he wouldn't be shaking Shawn's hand after his victory.
Instead, Bret would simply walk out, leaving the crowd to assume that Bret was really pissed off at the ref's decision. Shawn said, "No problem." It worked. The next day Owen called Bret from Raw to tell him that the buzz in the dressing room was that Bret had real heat with Shawn because he didn't shake his hand at he end of the match. As for the SummerSlam deal, the context was that the feud between Davey and Bret was tearing up the family so a handshake at the end of the match would of signified a close to this emotional feud between "brothers." It's why Diana was in the ring and why he was hugging her too. I doubt Bret had Diana in there just so she could thank him publicly for doing the job on TV. As Bret put it, "it was the last detail to top it all off." Sometimes details are what make a match or feud truly special. Steve Austin is another guy that cares for details. He talked about how he had a match with Hart and was disappointed that he (Steve) made the mistake of getting up from the mat right after a move instead of staying on his back for 30 seconds. That being said I do agree that the ending of SummerSlam '92 seems to go off as planned. It did not seem awkward or forced so I don't know what Bret's issue is. The ending looked fine.
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saintpat
El Dandy
Release the hounds!!!
Posts: 7,664
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Post by saintpat on Nov 27, 2013 21:03:21 GMT -5
Bret had some fixation with the "shake my hand" ending ... because that made it about Bret. He wanted the same moment with Shawn after the Ironman match.
It goes back to Bret believing his gimmick and completely marking for himself: "I'm the Best There Is, the Best There Ever Was, the Best There Will Ever Be" ... so if I put you over, you need to shake my hand and acknowledge to the people watching that not only did you defeat a real-live Canadian HERO, you should also be thanking me for doing my job ... I mean the job." Haven't read the book in a few years and don't have a log of all Bret's match endings in front of me ... but was he ever so obsessed with him shaking the other guy's hand when he won? Did he make sure Ric Flair got his moment in the spotlight when Bret beat him? And that's another thing: Bret goes out of his way to bury Flair so many times. Seems he realizes a lot of people consider Flair to have been an all-time better worker than him and, well, Bret will make sure if you read his book that you understand who was REALLY better. Not true. Shawn and Bret composed that match for just over three hours and when it was done, Bret said that in order to feed the supposed heat between them (at that time it wasn't as bad as in '97) he wouldn't be shaking Shawn's hand after his victory.
Instead, Bret would simply walk out, leaving the crowd to assume that Bret was really pissed off at the ref's decision. Shawn said, "No problem." It worked. The next day Owen called Bret from Raw to tell him that the buzz in the dressing room was that Bret had real heat with Shawn because he didn't shake his hand at he end of the match. As for the SummerSlam deal, the context was that the feud between Davey and Bret was tearing up the family so a handshake at the end of the match would of signified a close to this emotional feud between "brothers." It's why Diana was in the ring and why he was hugging her too. I doubt Bret had Diana in there just so she could thank him publicly for doing the job on TV. As Bret put it, "it was the last detail to top it all off." Sometimes details are what make a match or feud truly special. Steve Austin is another guy that cares for details. He talked about how he had a match with Hart and was disappointed that he (Steve) made the mistake of getting up from the mat right after a move instead of staying on his back for 30 seconds. That being said I do agree that the ending of SummerSlam '92 seems to go off as planned. It did not seem awkward or forced so I don't know what Bret's issue is. The ending looked fine. You are correct, but I think my point is also correct. Just dug out my book and it mentions the planning of the match and Bret says that because he expected a rematch some months later he wanted to keep heat and walk out as if upset about the ref's decision to restart the match so he told Shawn "I wouldn't be shaking his hand after the match." HBK, of course, had no problem with that. But why the frak would he even mention it? Did all of his wins end with the other guy shaking his hand? Was Shawn in the habit of shaking hands of guys he defeated? I still think he had some kind of strange obsession with the "I lose and there should be a handshake" thing -- else why would that even be brought up during the planning of the match?
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Boo!
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,417
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Post by Boo! on Nov 28, 2013 2:02:22 GMT -5
Incidentally just listening to a Jake Roberts interview from last month where he says Bret's claim of never hurting anyone in the ring to be "bullshit". Jake calls him "dangerous" and mentions how Dynamite used to stiff him as revenge/payback for it. Does Jake also mention that little story where he was Stu Hart's North American Heavyweight Champion (you know the guy you count on to draw delicious money) and decided that for 6 or 7 weeks he was going to fake a knee injury that was bad enough that he did not wrestle, cost the company cash, would walk on crutches in front of the boys with pained expressions all because he wanted to relax? Jake was staying at Bret's house in '79 and when Hart left one morning to wrestle, he (Bret) had to turn back around to get something he forgot. He then of course sees Jake moving around the kitchen, with no crutches, making himself breakfast. That didn't stop Jake from meeting Bret at the door with the crutches and the stupid pained expressions. Bret did not confront him about it but Stu made subtle remarks to Jake to get him back in the ring. Could it be that Jake doesn't care for that little diddy being brought to light? If more and more wrestlers start talking about the "Bret Hart myth of being safe" then it will be what it will be but if Jake is the only one were going on here....well....yeah. Bless his recovered health and may he stay clean btw. DDP also said it. But what difference does it make. Why must anything anyone ever says negative about Bret get into a character assassination about the person making the comment? "Oh well, did he mention that time at grade school when he was expelled for cheating during an English exam?" Anything that deviates from the 'Bret was perfect' line is subject to a personality inspection of the person who made the suggestion. Jake calling Bret stiff in the ring has nothing to do with if he cheated on his wife, smoked crack, didn't pay a train fare, faked an injury or incorrectly filed tax returns for the years 1990-1994. That's twice in one thread someone has replied with "Ah but did he also mention..." as if to say anything negative about Bret you need to be subject to a complete character review. Anything that pricks his "I was light as a feather and never hurt anyone" self-anointed opinion. The whole book seems devoid of any genuine introspection. Everything that went well he takes 100% credit for. Anything that went wrong was somehow someone else's fault. All interspersed with Hogan-esque delusions of grandeur. Frankly he comes across as an arrogant prick who doesn't seem to acknowledge his own flaws as a draw, performer or human being. It's like a book a therapist would advise someone suffering from low self-confidence to write. He says he wore glasses in the early years of his promos to stop people noticing his eyes darting around. But from memory that's as self-critical as he gets. All other wrestling books are filed with "I was a dick there" and "I screwed that up" and "Blame me for that" and "I felt I really let people down". Bret's? "I was great, it was those others that's to blame!"
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saintpat
El Dandy
Release the hounds!!!
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Post by saintpat on Nov 28, 2013 2:59:43 GMT -5
Does Jake also mention that little story where he was Stu Hart's North American Heavyweight Champion (you know the guy you count on to draw delicious money) and decided that for 6 or 7 weeks he was going to fake a knee injury that was bad enough that he did not wrestle, cost the company cash, would walk on crutches in front of the boys with pained expressions all because he wanted to relax? Jake was staying at Bret's house in '79 and when Hart left one morning to wrestle, he (Bret) had to turn back around to get something he forgot. He then of course sees Jake moving around the kitchen, with no crutches, making himself breakfast. That didn't stop Jake from meeting Bret at the door with the crutches and the stupid pained expressions. Bret did not confront him about it but Stu made subtle remarks to Jake to get him back in the ring. Could it be that Jake doesn't care for that little diddy being brought to light? If more and more wrestlers start talking about the "Bret Hart myth of being safe" then it will be what it will be but if Jake is the only one were going on here....well....yeah. Bless his recovered health and may he stay clean btw. DDP also said it. But what difference does it make. Why must anything anyone ever says negative about Bret get into a character assassination about the person making the comment? "Oh well, did he mention that time at grade school when he was expelled for cheating during an English exam?" Anything that deviates from the 'Bret was perfect' line is subject to a personality inspection of the person who made the suggestion. Jake calling Bret stiff in the ring has nothing to do with if he cheated on his wife, smoked crack, didn't pay a train fare, faked an injury or incorrectly filed tax returns for the years 1990-1994. That's twice in one thread someone has replied with "Ah but did he also mention..." as if to say anything negative about Bret you need to be subject to a complete character review. Anything that pricks his "I was light as a feather and never hurt anyone" self-anointed opinion. The whole book seems devoid of any genuine introspection. Everything that went well he takes 100% credit for. Anything that went wrong was somehow someone else's fault. All interspersed with Hogan-esque delusions of grandeur. Frankly he comes across as an arrogant prick who doesn't seem to acknowledge his own flaws as a draw, performer or human being. It's like a book a therapist would advise someone suffering from low self-confidence to write. He says he wore glasses in the early years of his promos to stop people noticing his eyes darting around. But from memory that's as self-critical as he gets. All other wrestling books are filed with "I was a dick there" and "I screwed that up" and "Blame me for that" and "I felt I really let people down". Bret's? "I was great, it was those others that's to blame!" The other recurring refrain was any time he's called upon to do the job, "it didn't make sense for me to lose" -- unless it was to someone in his family or close circle ... and half of those didn't make sense to him. How much of a self-mark do you have to be to write such trite crap as (and I paraphrase), "As I handed the little boy my glasses and looked into his eyes, me knowing that his lifelong hero was about to walk into that ring and LOSE right there as he watched, I knew his life would never be the same again, that his faith in humanity would be destroyed and he'd probably drop out of school before the week was over." I swear he even still carries around losses when he was a kid in Calgary around with him, like, "No wonder the promotion was starting to fail, my own brother deciding that I needed to put someone over when it made no sense ..." Again, a paraphrase, but that sentiment permeates the book. I have read a ton of books by wrestlers, and none of them come anywhere close to putting as much stock into whether they won or lost a match. It still comes back to him believing his "best ever" gimmick -- he was too good to lose, too good to drop the title, too good to not tell us how he was the one who was superior in the ring, that he was the one who carried and called every single spot in every single match (except for the times he didn't, which, of coures, meant the match wasn't any good).
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Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Nov 28, 2013 4:50:46 GMT -5
The Canadian pride thing has always puzzled me, a little. Like, I totally understand that he's proud to be a Canadian, and that he wanted to project himself as a Canadian hero. That's fine w/ me. I can understand not wanting to lose in your hometown. Maybe even your own Province... But, Bret is from Alberta. Not Quebec. Quebec (especially in the late 90s) is the "weird Province that sometimes doesn't even want to be a part of Canada," and they speak "french" not "english." It's like another country within the borders of Canada. Bret was a hero in Canada. Everywhere in Canada. And you have to remember, the entire feud was basically Canada and all of Europe vs The U.S., with the Americans not really realizing they were actually the moral heels in the angle. That's what made it so great and unique. I still think to this day that a lot of fans don't get the nuances of the angle, their role, and how Bret's character was actually right about the moral decline of society, and him being rejected in favor of rotten human beings despite not doing anything to merit it. That said, HBK represented the entire crux of the feud; everything Bret was fighting against. Disregarding the fact that HBK antagonized Bret for real backstage, had match results changed (HBK beating Davey Boy in Europe in a match dedicated to Davey's dying sister who sat at ringside for example) and said that he himself would never lose to Bret ever, Bret losing, after that build, and with everything HBK represented culturally at the time, would have been the U.S. equivalent in Canada of Sgt. Slaughter cleanly pinning Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 7. The trick to understanding the emotion of the time, is to remove Canada from the equation, and put your own country in place of it, in a moral, final battle of ideologies, where one side is proven superior and correct. I don't care who you are, or from where, it was an impossible scenario on all sides. And this is all discounting the fact that Bret had a creative control clause in his contract, was double crossed on a finish that Vince agreed to, was still legally under contract until December 9th so he had had ample time to drop it to anyone including HBK, and actually could not show up with the belt on Nitro legally. Thank-you!!! Thank-you for posting this saving me the time of pointing all this out to people, again.
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