Wrestling with Shadows

Yip Bret was told he'll be doing jobs for the foreseeable future, Vader 1998 style. Think this would of been the case even if Vince told him not to go to WCW. Two things at play here.

First off, Bret completely screwed himself when he started publicly saying he was unhappy with the direction of the company. This was a massive tactical error from him. He was in a political war with HBK that he was never going to win, and his leverage was gone due to the fact he just turned 40 and blew his knee out.

Secondly, beating up HBK backstage was a real bad idea because it then put Vince right into HBK's arms. He wanted Bret gone after that, and unlike Bret, he had all the leverage in the world.

My thoughts on the screw job and this is coming from someone who is a big fan of both Bret and Shawn the wrestlers.

Bret should have dropped the title. Bret was leaving he had to leave the company in its strongest state possible. Giving up the title doesn't do that.

I understand his issues with Shawn at the time and get that Bret had creative control but at the same time there was no better commupance for the 97 Bret Hart character than losing the title in Canada. Maybe HBK wasn't the right guy it probably should have been Austin but at that point It shouldn't have been Bret's decision to make.

Everything would have been forgotten about once Bret turned up at Starrcade anyway.

Yup good point.......the Mr McMahon character was a total accident. Vince wanted to be viewed with sympathy by the crowd BADLY. Cornette, Prichard, JR, NAO, they ALL say the character was an accident and Vince had to be pushed HARD to embrace it.

I've never heard anything about what role he wanted to take....

One thing that confirms he didn't want to be "Mr McMahon" was that he privately acknowledged that the reveal of Bischoff as nWo boss was genius. Cornette said one of the reasons he didn't want to embrace the heel character was that he would feel like he was copying Bischoff's heel owner gimmick in WCW.....but as Cornette said.....they don't have Austin.....its 100% different.

I could see like I said earlier where someone could argue in some ways it was a work.

I just feel like too much time and too many years went by for it to be a work. Regardless, I feel like this is one of those things like steroids or gambling. It reminds me of Pete Rose. He gambled, and regardless of how good of a player he was that asterisk next to his name always will be there. Same with Bret, we all sit here and think what could have been.....

I'm not sure if you actually watched it. But Bret wanted to drop the title. He offered to put Austin, Shamrock or anyone else over for the belt. Just not Shawn.

Bret didn't even have to turn up and compete at Survivor Series, he'd fulfilled all of the dates on his contract. If he was that desperate not to drop the belt he would have just sat at home with it.

He had creative control of his contract. It was part of his deal that he was able to pass on putting over someone if he didn't want to. Legally or morally, Bret did nothing wrong by refusing to put Shawn over.

Agreed.

Vince told Bret "whatever you want" during their conversation about finish. Bret said they would do a double DQ finish with the Harts and DX doing a run-in.

If Vince wanted the title off Bret so badly, as his BOSS he should've stood up to Bret and told him it needed to happen.

They could've done it a lot of different ways. The issue was never Bret dropping the belt. It was Bret dropping the belt to HBK who was disrespectful and told Bret he would never return the favor to him if asked.

Vince and Bret both agree...there was a huge lack of communication on their part and it's a shame. Bret never should've left.

^ Agreed with Joker and Bash.

The booking was out of hand at this point. I can't remember if Michaels was on the active roster at Summerslam, so I'm not sure if putting the belt on him was an option at that point. That leaves Bret and Undertaker.

Possible scenario options that could have made sense - Undertaker wins in a rematch against Bret at Ground Zero, which leads to Bret fighting Patriot at Badd Blood (rather than Ground Zero, and replacing the pointless flag match we got), and finally culminating with one final bout with Austin at Survivor Series, where Bret does the favor on the way out (which I suspect he would have been okay with, since it'd be non-title, and he respected Austin and recognized him as the next big name).

OR - Three-way match at Survivor Series. Undertaker, Hart, Michaels. Picture Undertaker tombstoning Bret, then getting superkicked by Michaels for the pin. Michaels wins the belt, pins Undertaker (so Bret doesn't "lose" per se). Or, just have Undertaker win and drop it on Raw the next night. A one-day title run seems ludicrous in theory, but they'd done it earlier that year with Bret, and would do it again the following year with Kane. Plus, three-ways had been done in ECW before, so they were already an established match that people knew.

The ultimate point is, it never should have gotten to the point where it got. Vince, for all his business sense, REALLY made a mess out of this whole thing.