What’s the deal with the Survivor Series 97 match which involved Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels and resulted in Bret Hart being fired? I keep hearing little snippets of the story.
Ooh, shoot, I do know part of this, but Bonzo’s already in bed. He’s the expert, but I don’t want to wake him up. I can ask him tomorrow morning before he goes to school. Is there money riding on this tonight? Can it wait till tomorrow?
Until then, “Bret Hart Shawn” on Google brings up a ton of stuff. Not sure which match you’re talking about.
And I’m not just being sarcastic, either. He knows EVERYTHING about this stuff.
Brett wasn’t fired. That was his farewell match. See there was a bidding war between Turner and McMahon over Brett that resulted in Hart getting one of the highest contracts in history and Brett stuck with WWF. But after a while there was a parting of the ways because Hart isn’t a fan of the new “WWF Atitude” deal with all the sex and stuff and he was very vocal about it (especially about Michaels gig in Playgirl magazine). Anyhow Vince told Brett that he could not afford to keep him at his contract price and asked him as a favor to reconsider the move to the WCW. This all leads up to the Survivor Series:
Brett had the belt going into Calgary and his contract stated he had creative control over his charachter and how his charachter would retire from WWF so he and Vince held a meeting where Vince stated that Brett could win in Calgary and then have one more match in the US where he would lose the strap (Brett did NOT want to lose in his home arena. The Stampede, papa Hart’s organization, was from Calgary and the Hart family are heroes there.). So anyhow Vince assured him a win but then when Brett was sinching his finishing move Vince made Earl Hebner<SP> call Brett out as though he had tapped out. It was so obviously not a tap out on Brett’s part that it is kinda’ funny.
Anyhow, Brett spit in Vince’s face right then and there and went back to his dressing room to shower. Vince came in and tried to talk to him and Brett told him that if he was stil in there when he got out of the show he was going to knock him out. Vince was still there when he got out of the shower and accorinf to Mick Foley in his book “Mankind” Brett knocked vince out with one solid punch to the head. If you see “Wrestling With Shadows” you can see Vince and he is concussed (look at his eyes. I would not want to get punched by The Hitman.).
Now for some of Vince’s story. The main reason he did this to someone who had been his friend for over ten years has to do with his war against Turner’s WCW. Less than a year earlier Sable the WWF women’s champion had left the WWf with her title intact, then she went on WCW and pretty much wiped her ass with her belt. Vince said he felt that if Brett left with his strap then Truner would convince him to do pretty much the same thing.
For all the details rent or buy “Wrestling With Shadows” The Brett Hart Story and read “Mankind; Have a Nice Day!” by Mick Foley.
Okay, as I’ve had it explained to me by my 8th-grade son:
Bret was the world champion, and this was going to be his last WWF match. He was going to “get” Shawn. Before the match, Vince said, “Let Shawn win–throw the match.” If Bret left with the title, they’d have to have a tournament.
So now, in Bonzo’s own words (I was writing too slowly and saying, “wait, wait”, so he grabbed the pen away from me and started scribbling–BTW, JBird, thank you for motivating him to actually write something; is there any way we can work championship wrestling into the school curriculum?):
“In the match Shawn Michaels was to put the sharp-shooter on Bret and Bret was supposed to tap out and lose. Bret decided he wanted to win so when the sharp-shooter happened Bret crawled to the ropes so Shawn had to let go. Vince then rang the bell and declared Shawn the winner.”
There was a great deal more explanation, mainly technical stuff, but he had to go down to the bus.
Bonzo says this is available on video, but he doesn’t know off-hand what the title is.
And I’ll leave it up to you to decide how much of all this was staged (my guess would be, “All of it.”)
More than you’ve EVER wanted to know about the whole subject can be found in perhaps the best article written on the match, what led up to it and what transpired after it, at http://www.wrestlenation.co.uk/media/97screwjob.html (written by one of the better wrestling writers, Dave Meltzer). It’s in-depth, unbiased, and seems to be as close to the truth as anything I’ve read on the subject (although I have not seen Wrestling With Shadows).
There are a couple of inaccuracies in each of the accounts listed so far here. For instance, it was Madusa rather than Sable that trashed the WWF’s womens belt – but that WAS a big reason McMahon felt he had to do what he did. It would be an extreme humiliation to have ANOTHER of his champs show up on the other show carrying the belt. Also, Bret wasn’t supposed to tap out as Bonzo said, but rather was supposed to reverse the move, and the match was to end two minutes later with a run-in by two of Bret’s allies, with him losing by DQ.
As to whether it’s “legit” or not, that’s still up for debate, but I tend to lean towards it being legit. Bret Hart writes a column for the Toronto Sun (he’s a big hero in Canada) and has had some very less-than-flattering things to say about McMahon even to this day. Add to that the death of Bret’s brother, Owen Hart, at a WWF pay-per-view, and the harsh feelings are VERY evident, and I don’t think they’re faked. Bret seems to still hold a lot of animosity towards the WWF, talks out about it regularly, and while he’s now retired due to an in-ring injury, kept insisting he would never return to the WWF under any circumstances. I think the majority of people proclaiming it a work are your standard conspiracy types who think that he was a “mole” sent it to ruin WCW from the inside out, then return triumphant to the WWF. Mole or not, his arrival in WCW actually did seem to turn the tide for the WWF – long trailing WCW in prestige and ratings (WCW had won the head-to-head ratings war for almost two years) WWF is now by far the best wrestling organization worldwide, and is enjoying unprecedented success and mainstream approval. But the ends, I think, is not simply because of the means (Bret Hart).
oh btw. Bret didnt just ‘DECIDE’ he wanted to win.
He THOUGHT he was going to win, thats why he followed through with what they had planned earlier, bret winning.
For a very good, in depth look at this, check out
http://www.thesmarks.com/home/rspwfaq/appendicies/d.asp
Its from the pro-wrestling FAQ at http://www.thesmarks.com.
There are also transcripts of a shoot (not in character) interview with Shawn Micheals floating around the net where he talks about SS97. I couldn’t find any, but they are out there on thesmarks or maybe slashwrestling.
It’s important to add here that substantially all of these things are fictional.
Sheesh! The chance to ask questions to the smartest collection of people in the world, and folks wanna know what happened on Raw Is War? What’s next, a question about what happened on Three’s Company.
“Well, see, Jack mis-heard Chrissy, and there was a big misunderstanding…”
No wonder ignorance is winning.
Manny, true, like any TV show, the action is scripted. That is why the whole Bret Hart thing is a big deal. Imagine in Three’s Company, on a live show, Jack turns to Chrissy and says “You fking dumb slut, what the fk is wrong with you” and beat the crap out of her. For real. I realize the Three’s Company thing is a strech, but, what happened at SS97 was real.
If you can’t get a good answer from the smartest collection of people on something like this, who can you get it from?
Besides, its probably the only thing I’ll ever be able to answer in GQ using cites and knowing what I’m talking about. Just for that, I think its a good question.
Damn it [b[blur**. You got in way ahead of me. 
watch the documentary “Wrestling With Shadows”