Triple H calls Bret Hart stupid

[The Thread Barbi]

mikebowski said:

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.

I entirely agree with all of this! Bravo, sir!

[gabou142]

Well, in this case, you can't say that the Holy One was stupid. He and Vince had agreed on an ending when He applied a clause that was in His contract.
The Holy One is not stupid, He was just naive and too trusting.
Bless Him!!

[HMARK Center]

gabou142 said:

Well, in this case, you can't say that the Holy One was stupid. He and Vince had agreed on an ending when He applied a clause that was in His contract.
The Holy One is not stupid, He was just naive and too trusting.
Bless Him!!

ALL HAIL THE HOLY HITMAN.

[Hiroshi Hase]

hitmanmark said:

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?

Exactly, some people seem to have forgotten that Shawn was notorious for not wanting to put people over at the time, nearly forfeiting every time he came into contact with.

[Max]

awesome.

DX owns Bret Hart!!!

[amsiraK]

How many Screwjob threads can we make today?!?

[normcoleman]

^
23

[gabou142]

hitmanmark said:

gabou142 said:

Well, in this case, you can't say that the Holy One was stupid. He and Vince had agreed on an ending when He applied a clause that was in His contract.
The Holy One is not stupid, He was just naive and too trusting.
Bless Him!!

ALL HAIL THE HOLY HITMAN.

Thou shalt not speak His Holiness' nickname!!

[HRH The KING]

Vince should have handled it in a better way possibly by having Bret lose the title before Survivor Series.

On the other hand, Bret took this whole "I'm a Canadian Hero" thing way to seriously.

I think he SHOULD have dropped the title at Survivor Series to HBK. Personal crap aside, it was simply a match between two characters, not two real guys.

[JMA]

I look at it this way. Vince offered Bret the twenty year contract and then tried to get out of it. It was a bad business decision on his part and he acted out of fear. His decision was irrational at best. If he hadn't offered Bret that contract, there would be no Montreal Screwjob. I view Vince as the one who "didn't do business right" in that situation. In this case, "business" is the literal sense.

[Bub (BLM)]

He makes a good point. How could Bret take Vince frigging McMahon on his word? Vince miraculously changed his mind and gave in to Bret's demands, and somehow Bret was shocked. Like Triple H or not, he makes a valid point.

[JMA]

theshow said:

He makes a good point. How could Bret take Vince frigging McMahon on his word? Vince miraculously changed his mind and gave in to Bret's demands, and somehow Bret was shocked. Like Triple H or not, he makes a valid point.

And yet, Triple H also had lots of sex with Chyna. You can't exactly call that smart, can you?

[Joekishi]

hrhtheking said:

Vince should have handled it in a better way possibly by having Bret lose the title before Survivor Series.

On the other hand, Bret took this whole "I'm a Canadian Hero" thing way to seriously.

I think he SHOULD have dropped the title at Survivor Series to HBK. Personal crap aside, it was simply a match between two characters, not two real guys.

yeah pretty much. I mean even Hogan jobbed to YOKO IN AMERICA! OMG HOGAN'S A HERO IN THE USA!

[Mrs. Potato Dick]

After reading this entire thread, I have something important to say. I might be patting myself on the back a little for this, but still, I feel it needs to be said. Damn near everyone's comments? And everyone complained about *BRET* not getting over the whole ordeal. Damn, people, grow up!

The fact of the matter is as follows:

1: Bret did indeed have reasonable creative control.

2: Bret didn't want to job in his 'backyard'.

First off, refusing to job in your home country is pure f***ing bullshit. Pure. Make no bones about about it. If, for instance, if Randy Orton refused to job in the United States, he'd get laughed at and would draw INCREDIBLE ire from the Internet Wrestling Community. You know it, don't try to lie about it.

Someone already said this, but if Bret was the businessman he claimed to be, he would have jobbed out like he should have. Who cares if it's against someone you have heat with? YOU'RE f***ING LEAVING! IT DON'T MATTER, STUPID!

Now, on to the contract. The operative word is 'reasonable'. Bret's demands were NOT reasonable. Argue it all you want, but it's the truth. Not wanting to be the father of an octogenarian's hand? THAT'S reasonable. Refusing to job in your home country is f***ing stupid and petty.

This is one of the biggest ppvs of the year. It's been hyped like crazy. The feud goes back a long time. At the time, they delivered on main event ppv matches with a FINISH. Not some bullshit DQ. Ending the match in a DQ then having Bret disappear would've been stupid. When people buy a major ppv(And I'm talking big 4 or 5--at the time), they expect a payoff.

And what's this shit with not jobbing in his 'backyard'? I use that term because that's the one I've seen used most often in this particular discussion. Montreal is NOT his damned backyard. In fact, Montreal is 2,496 miles from Calgary. That's a gigantic f***ing backyard. Based on that, seeing that I live in Kent, Ohio...my backyard would be somewhere around Seattle, Washington. I better not go there and job out. I deserve better. Even though I'm leaving. For the competition. And, after all...it *is* my backyard.

Bottom line..Bret did have reasonable creative control. What he wanted wasn't reasonable. So a course of action was taken. GET OVER IT!

HHH is still a poopiehead, though.

[HMARK Center]

"Reasonable" is subjective. If Vince told Bret that wanting to drop the title to someone besides Michaels was "reasonable", then that's exactly what it was. Vince decided to go back on that at the very last second, as we all know.

[TRUTH TELLER]

moppy27 said:

First off, refusing to job in your home country is pure smurfing bullcrap. Pure. Make no bones about about it. If, for instance, if Randy Orton refused to job in the United States, he'd get laughed at and would draw INCREDIBLE ire from the Internet Wrestling Community. You know it, don't try to lie about it.

Randy Orton jobbing in the U.S. is not even remotely comparable, as Orton has never been programmed as a patriotic hero placed in an angle where he’s fighting to defend his country and its values against its perceived enemy.

What so many people forget is that the entire Bret Hart angle was built around the entire country of Canada vs. The U.S. It wasn't that Bret could never do jobs in Canada, it's that this particular match was the climax of a feud based entirely on Bret hating American values. For that, Bret was the overwhelming hero in the entire country of Canada. You have to put it into perspective. Bret losing from a character standpoint would be, as I mentioned earlier, the equivalent of Hogan losing to Iraqi Sgt. Slaughter at Wrestlemania 7 after all that build-up of Freedom vs. Tyranny. Bret Hart was the overwhelming patriotic hero going into that match, and from a storytelling point of view, he HAD to triumph. The problem of course was that by the time it rolled around, real-life Bret Hart had to leave the company. The biggest irony of Survivor Series 1997 is that had it been held in the U.S., the roles would have been reversed, and Bret Hart wouldn’t have lost any face, as he’d have been in enemy territory, where people would be clamoring for his losing. Booking the blow-off in Canada was the thing that really threw the monkey wrench into the works. It’s hard to fathom it unless you were watching it at the time. It really was a different kind of rivalry. The Patriotic heroes inverted with the evil villains, depending on where in the world it was taking place. There’s really never been anything even remotely like it since.

As for the Creative Control thing, I’m sure, as in all contracts, that wasn’t just left completely vague. The stip was there so both parties could come to a mutually beneficial compromise. It’s not Bret’s fault Vince signed that contract and agreed to it. Vince was a scumbag for lying to Bret. I think I’d have respected WWF’s stance more had Vince just stubbornly said “no, f*** you, you’re jobbing”, then reacted to however Bret would have reacted to that, be it, stripping him of the belt, firing him right there, making up some BS that HBK pinned him Rio De janeiro , whatever. The fact is Vince said Okay to Bret’s demands, then f***ed him over. You can argue all you want about whether Bret not wanting to job to Michaels is justified or not, but it doesn’t change the fact that Vince was a two-faced cowardly weasel who rather then standing his ground, instead chose to backstab one of his most loyal employees ever just because he was too pussy to put his foot down or think of alternate avenues to get the belt off Bret.

[BxB]

basicboogeynomix said:

hrhtheking said:

Vince should have handled it in a better way possibly by having Bret lose the title before Survivor Series.

On the other hand, Bret took this whole "I'm a Canadian Hero" thing way to seriously.

I think he SHOULD have dropped the title at Survivor Series to HBK. Personal crap aside, it was simply a match between two characters, not two real guys.

yeah pretty much. I mean even Hogan jobbed to YOKO IN AMERICA! OMG HOGAN'S A HERO IN THE USA!

You might wanna do some reasearch, bro. Hogan actually refused to drop the belt to Bret, same thing Bret is being flaked for. How can I confirm this? Watch the Kevin Nash RF shoot. He says it himself that the locker room was unhappy that Hogan didn't want to lose to Bret and that he was hurting the business.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

sexualvanilla said:

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

No. Bret had Eric agree to hold off on the announcement, for the 10 people who didn't know Bret was done with WWF by that point.

[messiah]

mikebowski said:

moppy27 said:

First off, refusing to job in your home country is pure smurfing bullcrap. Pure. Make no bones about about it. If, for instance, if Randy Orton refused to job in the United States, he'd get laughed at and would draw INCREDIBLE ire from the Internet Wrestling Community. You know it, don't try to lie about it.

Randy Orton jobbing in the U.S. is not even remotely comparable, as Orton has never been programmed as a patriotic hero placed in an angle where he’s fighting to defend his country and its values against its perceived enemy.

What so many people forget is that the entire Bret Hart angle was built around the entire country of Canada vs. The U.S. It wasn't that Bret could never do jobs in Canada, it's that this particular match was the climax of a feud based entirely on Bret hating American values. For that, Bret was the overwhelming hero in the entire country of Canada. You have to put it into perspective. Bret losing from a character standpoint would be, as I mentioned earlier, the equivalent of Hogan losing to Iraqi Sgt. Slaughter at Wrestlemania 7 after all that build-up of Freedom vs. Tyranny. Bret Hart was the overwhelming patriotic hero going into that match, and from a storytelling point of view, he HAD to triumph. The problem of course was that by the time it rolled around, real-life Bret Hart had to leave the company. The biggest irony of Survivor Series 1997 is that had it been held in the U.S., the roles would have been reversed, and Bret Hart wouldn’t have lost any face, as he’d have been in enemy territory, where people would be clamoring for his losing. Booking the blow-off in Canada was the thing that really threw the monkey wrench into the works. It’s hard to fathom it unless you were watching it at the time. It really was a different kind of rivalry. The Patriotic heroes inverted with the evil villains, depending on where in the world it was taking place. There’s really never been anything even remotely like it since.

As for the Creative Control thing, I’m sure, as in all contracts, that wasn’t just left completely vague. The stip was there so both parties could come to a mutually beneficial compromise. It’s not Bret’s fault Vince signed that contract and agreed to it. Vince was a scumbag for lying to Bret. I think I’d have respected WWF’s stance more had Vince just stubbornly said “no, smurf you, you’re jobbing”, then reacted to however Bret would have reacted to that, be it, stripping him of the belt, firing him right there, making up some BS that HBK pinned him Rio De janeiro , whatever. The fact is Vince said Okay to Bret’s demands, then smurfed him over. You can argue all you want about whether Bret not wanting to job to Michaels is justified or not, but it doesn’t change the fact that Vince was a two-faced cowardly weasel who rather then standing his ground, instead chose to backstab one of his most loyal employees ever just because he was too pussy to put his foot down or think of alternate avenues to get the belt off Bret.

You, sir, win the thread.

Anyone who doesn't understand just how over Bret was in Canada running up to that PPV, and just how intense that whole feud was, needs to go back and watch some of those RAWs leading into the Survivor Series.

Hart, in Canada, was on the same level, if not bigger, than Austin or The Rock at the height of their popularity. There was no way he was a "heel" in Canada. That's what made the angle unique -- that depending on where the shows were, the reactions would be totally different.

So, in that sense, Hart losing to Michaels in Montreal truly would have been like Hogan losing to Slaughter. Which is why as soon as it happened, the live crowd immediately understood what had happened.

[HRH The KING]

You have to put it into perspective. Bret losing from a character standpoint would be, as I mentioned earlier, the equivalent of Hogan losing to Iraqi Sgt. Slaughter at Wrestlemania 7 after all that build-up of Freedom vs. Tyranny

EERACK NEMBER VON.....YOU HESH AYY HACK TOOOONG!!!!


The PPV before Survivor Series 1997 was "In Your House: Bad Blood" in Missouri.

Why didn't Vince just have Bret lose the title that night? All he did at that event was team with Bulldog against Vader and The Patriot in a flag match.

He could have lost it to the Patriot in front of an extremely pro-USA crowd. Patriot would have then been a transitional champion only holding the title briefly before someone else won it.