Skip to main content

Some Jerk Bitches About Bret Hart In 1997

WOOOOOOW.  I was going through the Feedbag archive file and I found THIS gem.  Prepare to sit back and be amazed.  You might want to get some popcorn.

Edit:  I cleaned up the formatting and bolded the parts that were from other people. 

Keith Klassics: Whining About Bret Hart Circa-Montreal 1997


The Netcop Rant, Bret Hart edition.


Ever wake up one morning and find out your cat died that night?
That's what I felt like Monday. You're just cruising along in your life,
reasonably happy, and then, bam, it's like a gigantic slap in the face.
Of course, I'm referring to Bret Hart.
I just don't know what to think. I feel betrayed, saddened, hurt, and
mostly just shocked that he would do this to the fans who have supported
him the most vociferously throughout the past year: The Canadian fans.
I understand money concerns, I understand not liking the current direction
of the WWF, but this was a man who stood in the Edmonton Coliseum and
asked his fans to let him be their hero. And for once, I believed him.
For a moment, it transcended the financial aspect, the business aspect,
and the storyline, and he just reached out to his fans and asked for
belief.


And at that moment, I felt horribly guilty for losing faith in him from
Survior Series 96 until the heel turn on RAW, and I felt like personally
apologizing to him for not giving back all the love and devotion that he
gave to each and every Canadian fan who took the time to cheer for him.
I know given the kayfabe-breaking antics of the nWo and DX it probably
sounds dumb to believe in heroes anymore, but if ever there was a Canadian
athlete who had the conviction to do what was right and the principles to
back it up, it was Bret. Even if America didn't always appreciate him, we
always did. And now I doubt that I'll ever see him wrestle live again.
I won't even get into the whole WWF fan thing. They'll survive, they
always do. Maybe Vince needed the money to sign someone big. Maybe it'll
be a wakeup call that turns them around, who knows. I'm still a Bret Hart
fan, and as long as he doesn't join the nWo I'll always cheer him on.
Just not as loudly now, I guess. And I think most Canadian fans feel the
same way. I hope the money and ego contests are worth it, Bret. I hope
this is what truly makes you happy, because you've broken the hearts of 25
million other people today, and heroes aren't supposed to do that.
At least, not mine.
As always, I remain the net.cop.



Ken Smith (ksmith@mounet.com) wrote:
: Sounds to me like your anger is misplaced. Instead of being angry with
: Bret, you should be angry with Vince McMahon for transforming the WWF
: into a federation in which Bret Hart, and basically any respectable
: athlete, would be embarrassed to work - a federation in which an
: egomaniac prima-donna like Shawn Michaels, not Vince McMahon, calls the
: shots.


@#%$ that. Bret Hart has used his power to manipulate, veto, and overturn
many of the WWF's major booking decisions because it didn't fit into his
image of what wrestling should be. I can accept that, but when he throws
around his power behind the scenes as much as he does and then walks away,
claiming that it's not to his liking anymore, THAT'S where the hypocrisy
comes in.


Did Vince hold a gun to his head to make him turn heel? Doubtful. If he
can influence managerial changes (ie Cloudy) then something as major as a
total heel turn would have to be approved by him.


I love that Bret is trying to change the sport for what he feels is the
greater good. I also love that Shawn Michaels is pissing off America at
the rate he is, because it'll either a) Make him the biggest heel in
history or b) Cause him to self-destruct by Wrestlemania. I'd bet on b),
and if Bret wasn't so concerned about family values and short term change,
then maybe he'd have the patience to wait until he shot himself in the
foot (or groin, if we're lucky).


In short, bite me, Bret.
--


R. Brownstein (rbphilly@u.washington.edu) wrote:
: First, you don't know if Hart refused to job the title to anyone (i.e.
: Austin or Shamrock). As a professional, Hart would probably have lost to
: anyone but Michaels.


That last sentence is self-contradicting. As a professional, he should
job to whoever the @#%$ Vince tells him to job to. Bret Hart is paid to
follow the orders of the WWF, not decide who he jobs to like Hulk Hogan
does.


: Secondly, what ever happened to the good old phantom
: house show title change? They must have footage of Hart jobbing at an old
: show show to Austin or The Undertaker. Make the claim the match took
: place at an arena show, then show old footage of Hart jobbing to someone.


Sure, it was a phantom house show in between the Survivor Series and RAW
the next day. Right.


: When Vince lured Rick Rude from the NWA in 1986, Rude and Manny Fernandez
: were still NWA tag champs. On TBS footage of old match with the
: Rock'n'Roll Express beating Rude & Fernandez was shown... The WWF has
: already had either Money Inc. or the Natural Disasters "win" the WWF tag
: belts from the LOD.


Money Inc. actually did win the tag titles from the LOD. Ted Dibiase
pinned Hawk. The Rude title change was phantom, though, true.


It can be done quite easily, with so few people
: actually knowing the real truth. Hell, pro wrestling is all illusion
: anyway.


Not today. There's too much information floating around to make up a
title change anymore.


: Your point that Vince had no other choice is off base. Bret Hart,
: unlike Hulk Hogan or Shawn Michaels, has always done his job. If Hart,
: Michaels & McMahon settled on a DQ finish, McMaon should have kept his
: word.


But what if MacMahon didn't want a DQ finish to begin with? What if he
wanted to put the belt on Michaels? Why should Vince cater to the wishes
of a guy who he has essentially let go the week before? Is Bret Hart so
dumb that he thought Vince would let him keep his title until the day he
signed with WCW? That's suicide and Bret should know it. He's been in
the game for 20 years, his father is one of the most legendary promoters
ever, he knows how the game works and he knows what happens in those sorts
of situations. You either job *yesterday* or you give up the title
voluntarily. Since neither was looking to happen before Nitro went on the
air, Vince did the only thing he could.


: Now, Vince has a more unrealistic looking title change then if Hart
: fled with the belt and the WWF had to invent a title switch. Trust and
: respect is always a two way street, and Vince's lack of respect for Bret
: Hart is only going to make his other loyal employees question Vince's word
: in the future..... Few headliners have been as loyal to his company then
: Bret Hart. What are Steve Austin, Owen, Michaels, Ken Shamrock, etc. to
: think the next time Vince makes them promises?
:

Tough @#%$ for them. That's why Vince is the owner and they're just the
wrestlers. When they start doing the booking they'll have a say, but
until then I agree with Vince: Show 'em who's the boss.
--


RYAN (rberesh@caninet.com) wrote:
: If McMahon does not know Bret Harts loyaty after 15+ years in the WWF
: and turning down a higher paying job in WCW a year ago than McMahon must
: have a guilty conscience about something he did. McMahon does not trust
: others because he cannot be trusted himself


Who cares if he can be trusted? He's the owner. He pays the bills and
the paycheques, and loyalty means @#%$ in the wrestling business. Guys
have sworn up and down never to trust WCW again after one stint with
them, only to sign a year later when big contracts are waved in front of
their face.
Eric Bischoff pulled exactly the same power-tripping @#%$ with Marc Mero
last year, and it wasn't that big of a deal then for some reason.
Point being, Vince is the boss, and if he has to clean house on the whole
@#%$ WWF to get his @#%$ back in line enough to run things the way he
wants it with no meddling from his EMPLOYEES, then so be it. Fire the lot
of 'em and sign a bunch of indy wrestlers who can do twice the spots for
half the money. I love Owen Hart and hope he gets the push of a lifetime
out of this, but if signs with WCW over this then he's an idiot, because
he'd get buried after a token push to appease Bret.
I don't see why everyone is feeling so sorry for Bret over this. Awww,
poor guy only get 2.5 million dollars a year now, that's awful.
And lack of respect? Shawn Michaels got squashed for three years as part
of the Rockers, then spent another year as a preening idiot JTTS before
finally hitting paydirt with his big buddy Diesel. He spent months as
Bret's personal jobbing boy while waiting for his shot at the top.
Wrestling is not about respect, it's about money and finding the right
gimmick. I admire Bret for craving respect and having strong enough
principles to stand up for that ideal, but if he thinks he'll find it in
WCW he's nuts.
Rant over.
--
skeith@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca, but my friends call me skeith.
Best-selling author of "Our Penises, Our Selves" and other men's books.
"Scott-Land! (tm)" is www.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/~skeith
"Your brush with greatness is over." - Brian Pillman, 1962 - 1997.

Comments

  1. This is hard to follow. Can't tell when Keith is talking or when the emailer is. Either way, can we all just agree that Bret was a moron to let Shawn put him in the sharpshooter?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well this thread should be hilarious.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If it was actually a real thing, I would now be calling for a 2013 Scott sez on 'Our penises, ourselves'.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah, the formatting here makes it difficult to read.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I forget where that I stole that from, but I'm pretty sure it was from a TV show at the time.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks moonpie

    ReplyDelete
  7. Goodness was Scott angry or what?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I like the Beetle Bailey cursing.

    ReplyDelete
  9. To this day, I agree with Scott on this. Bret should of been staring at the lights without any hassle to Max Mini if Vince wanted him to.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I didn't have internet at the time this all went down, so I wasn't hip to the room. I was a 24 year old mark, and thought this was all scripted until the whole "Wrestling with Shadows" thing was unleashed. So to say that the impact of this whole scenario was not felt by me is an understatement. Today, knowing what we all know now.....well, who cares. Bret's retired.....Shawn's retired....Triple H is retired *ahem* .....Vince is dead.....wait, he's not?.....Earl Hebner is in TNA....perspective dictates that everyone came out OK in the end.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Scott, I thought you felt Bret was in the right regarding Montreal, but this reads like you're more on Vince's side. Is this the case? It also reads like this was before the Observer articles came out detailing Bret's side and his "reasonable creative control."

    ReplyDelete
  12. The question remains: Why did Vince put the belt on Bret at Summerslam to begin with? To have mid-card matches with the Patriot? Or to eventually screw him?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Scream09_HartKillerMay 19, 2013 at 11:13 AM

    So he wouldn't have to listen to "I should be the WWF Champion" every day until November.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Scream09_HartKillerMay 19, 2013 at 11:15 AM

    I think taking Bret Hart too seriously is a fitting tribute to the man himself.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I'll take that over homoerotic HBK/HHH promos.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Dude, you must have had an orgasm reading this post!

    ReplyDelete
  17. At the time, as a Bret Hart fan, I was outraged when he got screwed over. But as time has passed, I honestly just wish he did a clean job to spare him the heartbreak and depression he suffered.



    That being said, I fucking hate when a guy like Flair criticizes him for Montreal considering the jackass quit WCW AND took his title to the competition to avoid a job to Lex Luger. Or HHH who seemed to do whatever he could to avoid a clean job.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I thought she came by Bret's hotel room with tears in her eyes and confided in him that his diva act was nothing but a classic.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Except Bret was totally fine with Taker being WWF Champion. When he talks about the Hart Foundation feud with Austin, it sounds like Bret is having the time of his life.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Before or after he received the Rick Solomon treatment? Those might not have been tears.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Totally agree. If the conctract issue was looming, why put the belt on him at all? They could have done the HBK-Taker feud just the same, along with the Bret vs USA stuff. It might have even played into the angle better too, with Bret bitching about not getting a title shot and that the canadian guys were being held back in favor of DX

    ReplyDelete
  22. What's wrong with homoerotic HBK/HHH promos?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Triple H has been shy about jobbing? I mean, he's not Jericho, but Trips has lost to plenty of people, check out his Mania record.


    He's not Hogan dude. (Fuck, he did the job TO Hogan).

    ReplyDelete
  24. Flair didn't quit, he was fired. And he wasn't fired because he refused to job, he was fired because he didn't take a pay cut. And he essentially owned the belt (he paid a deposit on the belt as champion, if he did what he did -- leave with the title -- he forfeited the deposit) so he was well within his right to take the belt to the competition. In fact, when they refused to return his deposit, they essentially dared him to!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Jericho, Booker T, Kane, RVD, Goldberg, Angle, Randy Orton... Just off the top of my head.

    ReplyDelete
  26. How dare you not view the Monteal Screwjob as some seminal moment of your fandom! If you want to be a card-caring smark, you need to (1) have a sting opinion on exactly who was "right" and "wrong," and (2) attack violently and with vitriol anyone who expresses the dissenting opinion. Not having an opinion on this just is *NOT* acceptable. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  27. I cannot express how confusing all this was as a young mark who had never been on the internet. It wasn't until I saw Wrestling with Shadows in like late 99 I think that I understood what had really happened. If its true that Shawn told Bret he'd never put him over I understand his point of view. But taking the pride in the short term didn't pan out for him in the long term because it turned a lot of people against him.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Thank you, I came here to type this exact thing. Night couldn't be more misinformed.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Ah yes....I see what you did there. But I'm a casual smark. Basically, I know what's going on, but I don't get outraged. I once tried to rationalize with a fan of "Lost" that it's just a TV show and the ending is what it is, and there is no need to throw darts at JJ Abrams picture.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Same with me. I posted about it below. I was 24 at the time and no internet access. I was only one in my circle who watched, so I was blind to the whole scenario. That documentary made me wise to it, but I was still not terribly concerned about the matter. Plus, that movie made me think that Bret had it coming anyway. Wasn't it Shawn Michaels, on TV, that masically said "You got your little piece of tine, Bret. Happy now?" after Summerslam?

    ReplyDelete
  31. He's lost to a lot of those people...eventually.


    And clean job? He didn't lose to those guys by interference or a chair to the face. When he jobs he jobs clean.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I quit giving a shit about Montreal roughly 48 hours after it happened... wrestling went on.


    On the other hand. DIE ABRAMS DIE PIECE OF HORSESHIT! This opinion won't change, at least any time before one of us dies.

    ReplyDelete
  33. The only thing that makes sense is put the title on him *TO* screw him out of it. Or at least to have him Michaels over and send him away. Or send him down to the midcard. Vince knew Bret wasn't the standard bearer for the company going forward, but he needed Michaels to screw Undertaker out of the belt to set up their mega-feud.

    There were plenty of times in the run-up from when Vince first told Bret he was breaching the contract (9/22) and the screw-job that Vince could have given himself an out where he *didnt* have to screw Bret. And he didn't. It was almost as if he wanted to screw Bret.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Let's be fair. When has he ever lost to Jericho, Booker T, Angle, and RVD completely clean in a one-on-one match?

    ReplyDelete
  35. It was a routine spot in a lot of Bret's matches, and he *really trusted* Earl Hebner..... So yes, he was an idiot.

    ReplyDelete
  36. You're welcome. If Herd had known about the deposit (And if he didn't, booked Dusty Rhodes sure as shit did), by not giving Flair his deposit back, Herd and wcw got what they deserved when that belt shows up on WWF TV.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Christ he's been with the company for almost 20 years, of course he is going to have racked up loses

    ReplyDelete
  38. Do gingers have souls?

    ReplyDelete
  39. I don't want to beat a dead horse but if Bret would have just no sold the whole thing afterwards then 1) laughed about it and said "I was released and making twice the money now" and 2) said he was never really beaten by HBK on the way out and was still the WWF champion, he would have come out of it so much better

    ReplyDelete
  40. Scream09_HartKillerMay 19, 2013 at 3:13 PM

    Is taking the belt on WWF TV really necessary though? He could have held onto the belt without using it on tv.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Scream09_HartKillerMay 19, 2013 at 3:21 PM

    There's definitely a certain amount of Vince McMahon flexing his muscle here. Shawn Michaels proves again he's better than Bret by defeating him for the WWF Championship in Canada? Those are all Bret's fears rolled into one, Vince had to of known Bret wouldn't want to do that but went in that direction anyway. I'm of the opinion it's Vince's company and he was right to do what he did but there had to be part of him that knew and enjoyed that it would be a fight.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Scream09_HartKillerMay 19, 2013 at 3:38 PM

    What's the story about Austin being ranked higher than him?

    ReplyDelete
  43. only a ginger, can call another ginger, ginger.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Yeah, but Flair did say he refused to put Luger over on his way out.

    ReplyDelete
  45. The purpose of Flair giving the deposit to the office was solely to keep him from showing up in another promotion with the belt and claiming to be the champion. Herd to Flair Dillinger was coming over to get the belt, and Flair demanded the check with interest. Herd told Flair to forget it, basically saying, "I don't care if you take that belt to another promotion." So that's exactly what he did.


    I'm only going by Flair's side of things, but to a big company like WCW, giving him $25,000 to get a prop back (and I guarantee you that's what Herd saw) isn't that big a deal. And the idea that Herd treated Flair with tremedous disrespect when he was in charge of the company is backed up by others.


    Taking the World Title belt on WWF TV wasn't just necessary; Herd basically dared him to do it.

    ReplyDelete
  46. The "eventually" is key there. When it would have made a difference, he didn't do the job.


    Angle -- He should have lost to him at Unforgiven 2000 and didn't. Sure he did beat him at RR'01, but that was with help from Austin.
    Jericho -- I don't ever remember him doing a job to Jericho, and if he did it would be playing on a constant loop in my house.
    Kane -- I guess he did a job to him in like a chain match or something in '01, but when he was world champ Kane did a bunch of jobs to him.
    Booker T -- He never jobbed to Booker T and it took years for his career to recover.
    Randy Orton -- When? He killed him in '04 and again it took years for his career to recover.


    HHH has only ever really put over John Cena and Batista.

    ReplyDelete
  47. No. But they have plenty of IOU's.

    ReplyDelete
  48. If Vince is thinking long range, he's got Undertaker, Michaels and Bret, and he knows one of them is going to put over Austin at Maina in 1998 as a way to finally put Austin at the top of the promotion. Bret's not playing ball with the new direction, Undertaker's going to fight Kane, which leaves Michaels. So he has to build Michaels up, through the feud with Undertaker and then beating Bret for the title. Plus the stips for the Bret/UT basically forced Bret winning (Bret can never wrestle in US if he loses, Shawn can never wrestle in US if he screws Bret).



    If Undertaker keeps the belt, he's not going to have a reason to feud with Shawn, and they can't build Shawn up big enough for the mega-match with Austin.

    ReplyDelete
  49. It's refreshing to see someone who *doesnt* have a strong opinion about it.

    ReplyDelete
  50. I don't know... he was still in WCW and they still didn't know how to book him. The whole promotion was a mess and even if he would have come out there and said, "Shawn never beat me, I'm the real World Champion," Bischoff wasn't going to book Bret/Sting for the World title at Superbrawl to pop a bazillion buys.


    Bret still would have been lost in the shuffle, Owen still would have died (and that has more of a impact on Hart's frail psyche than anything else) and the dysfunction of WCW is ultimately what took his heart out of it.

    ReplyDelete
  51. When? I recall in his book he said he would do whatever they wanted once he was signed to a contract. And if you're dumb enough not to have the guy signed to a contract, you can't complain when he doesn't do what he wants.

    ReplyDelete
  52. In his DVD. He said they asked him to come to someplace to drop it to Luger, he refused and said he would only drop it to Sting or Windham.

    ReplyDelete
  53. I wonder how much different everything would be if Vince simply went to Bret with the screwjob ending. Bret may have agreed since it protects his character and it doesn't really give HBK a "win". Then again, HBK would probably veto it if Bret agreed to it.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Scott, what exactly is the context here? Did you post this somewhere in '97, and then people responded to it, and then you dug it out and posted the original plus responses (and your responses to the responses) for the Feedback in '01 or whenever?

    ReplyDelete
  55. I've wondered the same. He sits all involved parties down and lays out a screwjob angle.

    ReplyDelete
  56. If you want to be a card-caring smark, you need to (1) have a sting opinion on exactly who was "right" and "wrong,"

    What does the Stinger have to do with anything? Is it some weird "similar submission move fraternity" thing?

    ReplyDelete
  57. Most 'all-time best wrestler' rankings (for what they're worth) put Austin ahead of Bret with the logic being that Austin was both one of the very biggest draws in WWE history as well as being an excellent in-ring wrestler and great on the mic.

    While I think these rankings are true as they relate to Austin and Bret, who cares, they're just opinions. Bret should be proud of his career since it's one of the 99.999% in wrestling history. He shouldn't care if he's actually "the best there was..."

    ReplyDelete
  58. I don't have a strong opinion about it. I didn't get into wrestling until Rumble '99, so for me Montreal has always simply been nothing more than an interesting moment in the story that is the history of wrestling.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Very true, WCW would have had to book him correctly. I meant more on how he viewed it on the personal level

    ReplyDelete
  60. "I love Owen Hart and hope he gets the push of a lifetime out of this, but if signs with WCW over this then he's an idiot, because he'd get buried after a token push to appease Bret."


    Scott was right, Owen did get buried.


    ....too soon?

    ReplyDelete
  61. Looks like the whole thing was not too long after the screwjob... maybe right around New Year 1998ish?

    ReplyDelete
  62. You're stupid!

    ReplyDelete
  63. You can tell mar solo has seen this thread now. What a loser.

    ReplyDelete
  64. The funny thing is that JJ wasn't in charge of Lost in any way, at any time. He directed the pilot and had some story input in the first couple of seasons, maybe early in the third as well. I love Lost even though it fell apart in the last 5 minutes of the finale. That's hard to do, but the ride was great.

    ReplyDelete
  65. NOSTALGIA THREADJACK....asked Scott about this earlier but he didnt post and can't find anything definitive off good ol Google.

    What was the real scoop behind the stupid Russo/Jarret/Hogan "firing" from WCW summer 2000? I read that it was originally planned as a work with the ultimate payoff being Hogan and Bischff invading WCW after being off tv for 6 months ( and having a title vs title program.). However, I also read that the Hulkster filed a lawsuit against WCW after the speech by Russo? Was Hogan, double crossed? If so, how exactly? Was it all a work that just never got its proper payoff? Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  66. Scream09_HartKillerMay 19, 2013 at 5:02 PM

    I'm going to ignore whether or not it was appropriate and focus only on the joke - it made me laugh, I'm up-voting it.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Scream09_HartKillerMay 19, 2013 at 5:09 PM

    There's only two arguments to defend Bret. One being that Shawn Michaels was a dickhead, which is true, but it's not really a defense for not dropping the title to him. The other is the "reasonable creative control" Bret had, but I don't think having him drop the title to the remaining top guy is unreasonable. It's fine to use that to prevent them from doing humiliating things to devalue him but there's nothing wrong with losing the title to Shawn Michaels from a strictly business perspective. If Hulk Hogan used his creative control to take care of himself nobody applauded him for it because it was his right.

    ReplyDelete
  68. I think it was the Russo promo that was the double cross. Hogan was in on it up to that point, then something Russo said in the promo was over the line and that's when he decided he couldn't work with Russo or WCW anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Scream09_HartKillerMay 19, 2013 at 5:12 PM

    If Bret hadn't been so bitter and WCW knew what to do with him, it all works out perfectly for everyone involved.

    Vince gets the title off Bret before he goes to WCW and establishes himself as the evil owner character. Michaels is given the title he didn't actually win, making him the chickenshit heel champion, and Bret can say he never actually lost and was forced out of the WWF. Everyone's happy, although you're right, HBK's probably pissed off he can't just beat Bret straight up.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Seems like it's the night after if you read the first sentence.

    ReplyDelete
  71. FIND OUT ON NITRO TOMORROW NIGHT!!

    ReplyDelete
  72. Regardless of how Bret takes it, Owen still dies and a lot of his family still goes in the shitter so I imagine not much would've changed.

    ReplyDelete
  73. I've been bored by HHH since 2003, save for a run or two when he wasn't in the title picture. I'm not a fan. At all.
    I'm about to defend him.
    There is something to be said for having someone who is kept strong. Making a star is a ton easier when you have someone who is perceived as unbeatable. With a truly "top guy," you can elevate someone permanently with a single feud & match. (Graham did it with a win over Bruno, Warrior did it with a win over Hogan, Batista did it with a win over HHH.)
    When the perceived top guy isn't shy about jobbing, it can still work, but it takes significantly longer.
    Take The Rock for example. The Rock wasn't exactly shy about jobbing, but who did he ever really "make?" He put over HHH in a strap match to prepare him for Summerslam, but it took HHH 6 more months (and several main event appearances & wins) to really get there. He put over Jericho for the World title, but he still wasn't made as a true blue main event player.
    I would argue that these wins over The Rock definitely heightened the profile of each one of the players who got the win (without doubt), but none of them were made quite as quickly as the other three were.
    Heck, even Shelton's fluke win over HHH on Raw in 2004 took him from lost in the shuffle tag-teamer to mid-card threat.
    It doesn't have to be one way or another, of course, but I think our arguments would be stronger if we acknowledged that having a "true blue" top guy can be an effective way to make stars, and quite probably, the most effective way to make mega-stars.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Actually, I was talking about Scott:)

    ReplyDelete
  75. Orton beat him at WrestleMania and after WrestleMania.

    ReplyDelete
  76. There is zero excuse?

    Being the biggest star in the company?

    And look at this Mania Win-Loss record.

    ReplyDelete
  77. That's pretty much all there is to it. Bret once asked in an interview why someone like Austin is seen as a bigger wrestling star overall than him when he was booked to defeat Austin every time they wrestled. I like Bret, but it really just shows what a mark he could be for himself. Much like him calling the newspapers after Montreal just so they knew he was screwed and didn't actually lose for real.

    ReplyDelete
  78. And that one guy we don't like to talk about anymore. He jobbed to him a bunch of times. And also Sheamus that one time!

    ReplyDelete
  79. I was in a similar situation. I didn't pay much attention to wrestling from 1995 until I got in to the Monday night wars in 1998. I had no idea the Screwjob was how Bret wound up in WCW until I saw "Wrestling With Shadows" on cable.

    ReplyDelete
  80. I remember reading in Meltzer's thing about it that Vader (and maybe Undertaker?) came up to him backstage and told him not to let Shawn put him in a submission hold.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Batista threadjack: a not insignificant part of me read that last sentence as "Taking the World Title belt on WWF TV wasn't just necessary, it was allowed."

    ReplyDelete
  82. That's an awesome, awesome argument. I think my only big issue with Triple H during that period was that there were a few times where doing the job would've really made that top star and it just didn't happen. People point to RVD and Booker (although with Booker I think it's largely that the racial undertones of the feud made his loss pretty upsetting), but I think the real time to job would've been to Kane during his brief Kanenites/Freaks are Cool phase. He was insanely over, and moving the title to him would've been huge.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Well, fluids would be leaving the body.

    ReplyDelete
  84. I love destroying lives, it turns me on.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Flair's memory is uh...financially motivated.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Owen might not have died if Bret left under better conditions.

    ReplyDelete
  87. You mean...wrestlers remembering that its wrestling and that a babyface getting screwed gets the babyface over?


    Crazy talk man.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Yeah, you cover his tab at the end of the night and he'll tell anyone within earshot that Triple H is a flaming homosexual if you want him to.

    ReplyDelete
  89. Orton has never beaten Triple H at Wrestlemania. Yes, he won a Triple Threat involving him, but Cena took the pinfall.


    And the Backlash match was a six man, not a straight one on one match.

    ReplyDelete
  90. The "I can't pay your contract" thing didn't come up until after Bret won the title. Odds are they were going to have Austin beat Bret for the title at Mania.


    And come to think of it, imagine Tyson being the enforcer for that feud? THAT would have been money!

    ReplyDelete
  91. And yet you can't stop talking about me.

    ReplyDelete
  92. The thing is, the business was passing Bret by, and as much as I'd like to think Bret/Austin at 14 with Tyson would have been money, Bret wasn't going to be the edgy guy they needed. DX was much hotter in the fall than the Harts were because Shawn and HHH were willing to push the envelope. Bret wasn't.


    And when you look back, the screwjob was the catalyst for so much of the Attitudre Era it's almost hard to beleive that Vince didn't plan it that way.


    Whatever they paid Tyson would have probably covered Bret for nearly the entire contract, I recall hearing. Once Vince saw the reactions heel DX was getting, it wasn't a matter of "I can't pay him that contract," it was probably a matter of "I won't pay you that contract to be the guy 3rd from the top at best."

    ReplyDelete
  93. http://www.cagesideseats.com/2012/7/9/3138196/on-this-date-in-wcw-history-hulk-hogan-vince-russo-and-worked-shooting-bash-at-the-beach-2000



    Here's a link with the details I couldn't recall.


    Bottom line, Hogan deserved it.

    ReplyDelete
  94. I'm saying that it's possible somebody wanted to bury Luger, so Flair did the company thing and buried Luger.


    I mean, this guys memory isn't so hot, so a DVD interview released 15 years after what happened happened probably isn't going to tell you much.

    ReplyDelete
  95. Still victories.


    If you're asking for pinfalls...


    Well, there was that triple title change in a night that happened once.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment