Triple H calls Bret Hart stupid

[wolfmoon103100]

Best thing to happen in pro wrestling, It would be a diffrent WWE right now.

[Haulk]

Its not backstabbing when your boss takes your laptop back on the way out the door.

[cernex]

basicboogeynomix said:

hulkamania85 said:

So the Medusa incident did a lot of damage to WWE? I don't know about that one...

Vince stabbed someone in the back. He should have trusted Bret not to take the title over. Vince was too damn paranoid.

Bret should have went out on his back willingly. Still don't get how it makes sense to let bret win on PPV, then he relinquishes the belt on RAW, then he goes to WCW the next month without ever losing the WWE title.

THat's always bugged me. If Bret was such a pro, and if he knew how the business worked. Why didn't he just let business be business and go out on his back putting HBK over? why would he fight about this?

If Bret was going to retire for good, yeah maybe, but even then it devalues the belt.

All in all I'm happy with the way things turned out.

D-X became the biggest heels in the company after ridding it of the biggest heel in Bret Hart, Mr. McMahon was born, and everything came up gold

Taking in account WWE right now is a joke, the wrestling ability of most of their performers (Bobby "Selling? What's that?" Lashley, Botchtista, and John "5 moves if lucky" Cena, for example), the craptastic storylines, all the mess the whole drug-thing in the buissness is causing, neo-ECW, and Trips' self-imposed "best performer EVA!" position in the buissnes, are you REALLY sure the McMahon and D-X things were GOOD for the buissness???

El Cernex

[rzombie1988]

basicboogeynomix said:

hulkamania85 said:

So the Medusa incident did a lot of damage to WWE? I don't know about that one...

Vince stabbed someone in the back. He should have trusted Bret not to take the title over. Vince was too damn paranoid.

Bret should have went out on his back willingly. Still don't get how it makes sense to let bret win on PPV, then he relinquishes the belt on RAW, then he goes to WCW the next month without ever losing the WWE title.

THat's always bugged me. If Bret was such a pro, and if he knew how the business worked. Why didn't he just let business be business and go out on his back putting HBK over? why would he fight about this?

Bret just didn't want to lose to Shawn. He actually offered to lose to anybody else, Vince just wanted it to be Shawn though.

[Joekishi]

who else could it be? Undertaker was injured, Austin was fueding with Owen, and HBK/Bret had the biggest fued up till that point

[cernex]

basicboogeynomix said:

who else could it be? Undertaker was injured, Austin was fueding with Owen, and HBK/Bret had the biggest fued up till that point

Also, ANYWERE but Montreal, may I add??? Actually, if memory serves me right, he actually wanted to DROP THE TITLE before Survivor Series so he could avoid... well, that whole "Screwjob" that later happened.

El Cernex

[Joekishi]

cernex said:

Taking in account WWE right now is a joke, the wrestling ability of most of their performers (Bobby "Selling? What's that?" Lashley, Botchtista, and John "5 moves if lucky" Cena, for example), the craptastic storylines, all the mess the whole drug-thing in the buissness is causing, neo-ECW, and Trips' self-imposed "best performer EVA!" position in the buissnes, are you REALLY sure the McMahon and D-X things were GOOD for the buissness???

El Cernex

Hell yes it was, the attitude era, the rise of Austin, the Rock, Triple H, and Mick Foley. The blustering midcard full of entertaining personalities.

You're talking the screw job caused WWE to become stagnant in 2007 when it took place in 1997 and was the push towards Attitude.

If you don't think the attitude era was good for wrestling you're a moron.

Oh and Cena and Batista are the most over wrestlers on the planet not called HHH and SHawn Michaels

things happen, and you just make no sense

[genteelmoe]

It was Bret who chose to act like a selfish prick. Shawn and Hunter would have never done something that stupid. I imagine this is what Hunter means.

[leemir]

He had creative control for the last 30 days of his contract so he didn't have to go out losing if he didn't want to. So they screwed him over. Screwing people over to me is wrong.

[Joekishi]

cernex said:

basicboogeynomix said:

who else could it be? Undertaker was injured, Austin was fueding with Owen, and HBK/Bret had the biggest fued up till that point

Also, ANYWERE but Montreal, may I add??? Actually, if memory serves me right, he actually wanted to DROP THE TITLE before Survivor Series so he could avoid... well, that whole "Screwjob" that later happened.

El Cernex

that still makes no sense

[Deleted]

What I don't get about the damn thing is that Bret makes such a big fuss over everything and, yet, he was the heel. The heel. Heels lose, even in their home town, even in their home country. He's about to leave, he's getting a ton of money, and, you know, he could've gone into WCW talking about how he got dicked over in WWE, how political it was, how that good for nothing HBK cheated, etc. So, why not put him over? Hell, Hardy put over Edge after getting fired, losing his gf, etc. People put over other people that they don't like and they move on. Why would Bret care if Shawn wouldn't return the favor, especially if Bret wasn't going to help Shawn on in the first place?

I want to know one thing: would Bret honestly have jobbed if asked to if he knew Michaels would've jobbed for him? Was he going to drop the belt the next night in a match or in a ceremony? If it was a match, that's one thing. If it was a ceremony, then forget it. No one gets over, Bret looks like a complete jerk for leaving a company on top for what is essentially more money, and Shawn doesn't get anything.

[cernex]

irontyger said:

I want to know one thing: would Bret honestly have jobbed if asked to if he knew Michaels would've jobbed for him? Was he going to drop the belt the next night in a match or in a ceremony? If it was a match, that's one thing. If it was a ceremony, then forget it. No one gets over, Bret looks like a complete jerk for leaving a company on top for what is essentially more money, and Shawn doesn't get anything.

I thought it was pretty clear Bret statement was "I'll lose to Shawn anywere BUT Montreal, or I lose to anybody BUT Shawn in Montreal".

So, yeah, Bret would've jobbed. Period.

El Cernex

[Cranjis McBasketball]

curryman said:

I like how he says that "WE" wouldn't have let that happen. Um, who's "WE"? You weren't even any major part of the company then, Trips. You were pretty much a nobody and would stay that way until after Bret and Shawn were both gone from the company. Should have stayed that way because by all accounts, you suck.

To be fair, the Screwjob was Triple H's idea.

[MCMGM]

mikeknox said:

Its not backstabbing when your boss takes your laptop back on the way out the door.

Ok that made me laugh.

[Mozenrath]

mrlancers said:

Backstabbing to cover one's own ass or to gain an advantage over others is the cornerstone of all successful businesses. It's as Americana as apple pie or bald eagles, which strangely enough have also have known to describe women's va-jay-jays.

Hell, it's as human as human gets, for that matter.

[T.J. "the Crippler" Stevens]

irontyger said:

What I don't get about the damn thing is that Bret makes such a big fuss over everything and, yet, he was the heel. The heel. Heels lose, even in their home town, even in their home country. He's about to leave, he's getting a ton of money, and, you know, he could've gone into WCW talking about how he got dicked over in WWE, how political it was, how that good for nothing HBK cheated, etc. So, why not put him over? Hell, Hardy put over Edge after getting fired, losing his gf, etc. People put over other people that they don't like and they move on. Why would Bret care if Shawn wouldn't return the favor, especially if Bret wasn't going to help Shawn on in the first place?

I want to know one thing: would Bret honestly have jobbed if asked to if he knew Michaels would've jobbed for him? Was he going to drop the belt the next night in a match or in a ceremony? If it was a match, that's one thing. If it was a ceremony, then forget it. No one gets over, Bret looks like a complete jerk for leaving a company on top for what is essentially more money, and Shawn doesn't get anything.

Shawn was a heel at this point too. In and out of Canada. Bret was a heel in America, and no where else in the world. Your logic is correct, but this was a unique situation. It just doesn't apply.

[Lancers]

I should also mention that went I saw the thread title, I was hoping that Bret's rebuttal would have been calling Triple H a "poopiehead". Just seemed like it would be only fair, ya know?

[TRUTH TELLER]

genteelmoe said:

It was Bret who chose to act like a selfish prick. Shawn and Hunter would have never done something that stupid. I imagine this is what Hunter means.

No, Bret chose to exercise a legal clause in his contract that Vince signed and agreed to. Hell, even verbally (see Wrestling with Shadows). The point has never been why Vince wanted the belt off, Bret, that's abundantly clear and justified, it's how he lied to Bret's face, and screwed him over. Vince had every right to ask Bret for the belt back. But there's so many factors that people ignore because they have this polarized view of Montreal that they won’t ever bend to.

First, Vince signed Bret to a 20 year contract for an obscene amount of money, then asked Bret to get out of the contract. Bret never asked Vince to go to WCW. Vince asked Bret. That's a fact. But it's one that has been manipulated over the years to being that Bret wanted to go to WCW and Vince had no choice but to screw him. Vince put the World Title on a guy he wanted out of a contract. That's just stupid.

Plus, there was almost about a month between getting out of the contract, and going into Survivor Series. Vince had ample time to figure out what to do about the WWF title in that time. I mean, they could have easily had a number of solutions. Look at how many times this year that the Title was in jeopardy due to injury. They had no problems coming up with Plan B's. Everyone acts like Vince had no other choice.

Bret Hart, character wise was a heel in the U.S., but the biggest babyface everywhere else. So, thus, his match vs. HBK was supposed to symbolize everything the character stood against. To have Bret lose to HBK, in Canada, would have been the equivalent politically of Iraqi Sgt. Slaughter pinning Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 7. Seriously. People who didn't watch back then have no idea how polarized U.S. and Canada were. From a storytelling standpoint, Bret would have looked like such a loser. I don't blame Bret, really. WWE was the ones who signed this match. They had the power to avoid the situation the whole time by say adding Taker in there and making it a 3 way. There's other ways to get to the same guaranteed result.

Also, another fact people don't realize is that Bret was not "free" to go to WCW the night after Survivor Series. It could have never happened. Bret's contract didn't expire until the first week of December. Almost a full month AFTER Montreal. The Medusa defense is flawed. She only did that because WWF was too stupid to renegotiate her contract while she was champion, and it expired, leaving her free to do whatever she wanted. Bret had no such luxury. Technically, he was an employee of Vince's still until December. Had he, or the belt shown up on TV, it would have been an easy lawsuit by WWF. Yet, the revisionist history has re-written it to say that Vince panicked and had to screw Bret to avoid the Medusa situation. Wrong. The smartest thing Vince could have done is held up the Title for some fake reason prior to Survivor Series, to guarantee that the belt was off Bret already. The result of that match at that point would become moot, Bischoff could have never claimed to have had the WWF Champion under contract, and Montreal match could have shmazzed out like originally planned.

So, ya, in closing I think that WWF was at fault for not immediately getting the belt off of Bret when he got out of his contract. Instead, they booked a match they knew could have political connotations, and one that had been cancelled twice that same year due to egos. It was dumb. But hey, what can you say, it's good that it did work out that way, because it created the Vince character and gave Austin his monster heel to work off of and draw ungodly amounts of money. But Bret was still legally in the right. He had a legal clause in his contract. You can spout "Doing the time honored thing in the business" all you want. Until you remember who his opponent was that night, and how he played a little fast and loose with that "tradition" himself his whole career.

Oh, and as for the HHH comment. I highly doubt HHH means that "he and Shawn wouldn't be selfish". Because HBK made a career being just that. I think he means he clearly wouldn't be so stupid to not see a screw job coming. Bret was too trusting. HHH is a political dynamo. Seriously. Look at how far he's come since the Curtain call incident. You don't rebound from doing jobs to the Stalker Barry Windham on WWF Superstars to being 11 time champion without knowing how to play the Game. Pun intended.

[HMARK Center]

genteelmoe said:

It was Bret who chose to act like a selfish prick. Shawn and Hunter would have never done something that stupid. I imagine this is what Hunter means.

So...where did that lost smile go?

[sexualvanilla]

I was always under the impression that one of the reasons for Vince's panicked reaction to needing the title at Survivor Series was because he had heard Bischoff was gonna announce Bret as joining WCW the next night, and didn't want his championship buried