Finished this up a few hours ago. It didn't disappoint at all and was actually better than I thought it would be. I figured after reading Bret's book and all the dvd's and after hearing everyone's opinions that wouldn't be much to add, but they did. Also a lot of good historical stuff. 2 DVD's of matches i haven't seen yet, but they have the Hart Foundation vs Rockers 2 out of 3 falls match from SNME when the Rockers won the straps, but it never aired since the top rope broke. I've never actually seen that so pretty excited. Only thing that bothered me was Shawn's thing the last few years of dressing like Larry the Cable Guy. Flannel shirt - no sleeves, hat, jeans (2 of 3 are usually camo). Come on, you might as well just go for the Ralphus look next time.
available here if you're into the torrent thing
http://xtremewrestlingtorrents.net/details.php?id=81731Below is Meltzer's review.
Spoilers obviously, so don't read it until you see it, but worth reading after.
Probably the most talked about WWE DVD release of this year is the Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels set that comes out at the end of the month.
The DVD is based on a long sit-down interview conducted over the summer in Stamford, CT, edited down to two hours, with Jim Ross asking the questions, facing Hart and Michaels, who are sitting together, dressed casually, talking about mostly their WWF careers. There is almost no talk except in passing on Michaels and Hart pre-WWF except for an early video feature on their childhoods and breaking in. There is no talk on Michaels since retirement, but obviously there is talk of Hart post-WWE in passing, a quick discussion of his two years in WCW down to a few sentences (“A painful experience. I was very disappointed to go there with the lack of brilliance everywhere.”), and his stroke and the deaths of many of his friends (his parents not mentioned, but Owen Hart, Rick Rude, Davey Boy Smith, Brian Pillman and Curt Hennig were referenced).
It’s about two wrestlers who will in many people’s mind be historically linked together, not the two biggest stars, but some would argue the two best U.S. workers in the 90s. They started out as friends, feuded both real and fake, and at times, they both lost sight of the differences and what the goal was when they started, and ended up with very bitter feelings for years. Both said a lot of bad things about the other over the years, but ended up having a reconciliation nearly two years ago and now are friends.
Usually when I watch a WWE historical DVD, I wind up with pages of notes because so much of it is historical revisionism and outright bullshit. This was as honest a WWE DVD release as I’ve ever seen, which was shocking because of the most compelling subject matter. That’s really what they are selling this on, is the two guys sitting next to each other discussing the background of the 1997 Survivor Series match.
Vince McMahon and WWE have a very specific side of what happened. It’s their viewpoint and it’s always had a backdrop of truth, but a lot of fiction, which has been exposed as time has gone on. This DVD did not give that side, and if anything, told the story how Hart has always said it was. Ross, who was directing traffic, was head of talent relations in WWE when this was going down, and one would have expected him to represent the company’s viewpoint that Hart was selfish and unreasonable and refused to lose the title on the way out, and could show up on Nitro with the belt. Instead, he was completely sympathetic to Hart’s side, as was Michaels, who for years justified his position by saying Hart was selfish and what happened had to happen, and instead, said, “I’m sorry I was such a piece of trash.”
Some things could have used more explanation, but given the time constraints, and not wanting to get bogged down in detail that would slow it down, the pacing was handled well by Ross. He asked the right questions, and got all the key answers. The emotion from Hart, and later from Michaels, was different from any release so far. With Hart, whether it was his stroke or his concussion issues, he’s had times where he gets emotional and can’t control it, but I didn’t sense this was it. Even with those issues, his memory was scary on point and detailed, where Michaels, when Hart would tell the stories, would concede they probably happened like he said, but he couldn’t remember.
While this is the first of what is expected to be a series of DVDs where both participants in a famous wrestling feud will tell their story, it is almost impossible to believe they can ever capture something quite like this. Sure, Rock and Steve Austin can sit together and talk about their feud, and they drew more money and were bigger stars, but it would be hard to believe they could follow this. And what other legendary feuds are there? Michaels vs. Chris Jericho was excellent at its time but is unlike to stand out historically in the morass of angles. Austin vs. Vince McMahon could work but I don’t know if people want to see Austin and Vince together joking about how they constructed the feud. Hogan vs. Savage can’t be done. Hogan vs. Orndorff did fantastic business, but it’s too long ago and besides, right now it also can’t be done.
But this was the one that fits perfectly for what they were trying to do. For one, this was a tale of more than 20 years. For another, most importantly, while it may have started out as a wrestling program, it wound up very real, with neither man fully comprehending where the line was drawn between working an angle and being real.
And then there was the subject of the final match between the two, the 1997 Survivor Series from Montreal, which is one of the most famous, and almost surely the most talked about match ever in North American wrestling history.
From the start, they make a point that this DVD is not about just that match, but said they would discuss it. But as it turned out, it was that discussion that is the key point of the DVD, and the most compelling part. By this point, pretty much everything from that event, the events leading to it, and what happened the week and day of, is known. There are no surprises, and no revelations, just three people who were all a significant part of it constructing the back story.
Ross, who announced the match has always maintained, and Michaels seemed to confirm, that he did not know what was going to happen before it did. Michaels claimed the number of people in on it was small. Obviously there was Michaels and Gerald Brisco (who had to have known the night before), Sgt. Slaughter, Earl and Dave Hebner (who were told late that day), and HHH. The two people who are talked about the most regarding if they did or didn’t know would be Ross, because of his position, and Pat Patterson. It has always been maintained that Patterson didn’t know.
But Patterson was the one who told Hart in constructing the match who came up with the spot of Michaels putting on the sharpshooter. That spot had to be there, because they had to come up with a finish giving plausible deniability to Michaels. It had to be a fake submission, because a fast count Michaels would be too much of a risk. Obviously, because of trust of the talent, it was important in trying to tell people that it was only Vince, and in particular to protect Patterson, but the spot that was come up with in creative of the Michaels sharpshooter was the spot Patterson brought to the match as the agent. That message had to be gotten from McMahon to Hart somehow, and since it wasn’t from Michaels (figuring Hart may be suspicious, while Hart greatly trusted Patterson) the other guy had to be in on it. Nothing else makes sense.
I you listen back to the commentary, it is painfully obvious Ross was aware this was not going to be a normal wrestling match, but I’ve never been able to find any evidence that connected Ross with knowledge beforehand. Vince Russo and Jim Cornette, who were the key guys in creative, were at Vince McMahon’s house when McMahon had the infamous phone call to Michaels, where HHH put this thing into works. Both have said that the idea of double-crossing Hart on the finish was discussed at McMahon’s house on the Wednesday night before the show, after Michaels told McMahon he would not do a job for Hart in Montreal. Both were aware that it could happen, but neither knew it was going to happen until it played out in front of them.
After the phone call with Michaels, McMahon was said to be furious at both Hart and Michaels, because he had come up with a dozen different ideas to make it work and couldn’t get both to agree to any. At that point, where Hart had it in his contract and Michaels didn’t was immaterial. Hart had already signed with WCW days earlier so he was leaving. Michaels was going to be world champion, at least until WrestleMania when Austin would get it.
To someone who wasn’t around and understanding what the business was, and the mentality of the business at the time, both guys getting emotional talking about a “fake wrestling match” for a “fake world title” would come across as hopelessly overdramatized and by today’s standards, outright silly. But the reality is, it was a very different world. Being the top guy was different. Being world champion was different. Winning and losing was different. While WWE was not doing well business wise during the mid 90s, they did start picking up in 1996.
If there was a surprise, it was after so many years of the mentality behind what happened being an issue debated to death, and WWE has always had its take, “Bret screwed Bret,” “Bret wouldn’t do business,” and how Bret was going to take the belt and go on Nitro. In this DVD, it was very clearly presented that Hart was the victim, not the selfish guy who thought he was more important than the business that made him as McMahon and WWE for years tried to portray him as.
While nobody directly went after Vince, to the point nobody even presented it as Vince had his back against the wall, which he did to an extent, but even with Michaels’ uncooperation, he still had another month of dates with Hart who had agreed to drop it.
Instead, on the DVD, the entire escapade was portrayed as cruel and unnecessary in hindsight, as both Ross and Hart noted that he was willing to lose the title, going against what has been portrayed by the company for more than a decade.
The issues as to why it happened, while not in painstaking detail because that would have taken a DVD of its own, but the key aspects were there. They didn’t mention the creative control clause in Hart’s contract, but even so, that clause was not so much the issue as the two key conversations which led to it. One was when Michaels said he would never put Hart over. The other was the conversation a few days before the match while Vince was in a booking meeting in his house and called Michaels, suggesting he lose in Montreal, and Bret would then lose the rematch back to him, where Shawn, saying he doesn’t want to throw Hunter under the bus, basically blamed him.
Both men let a lot of frustrations out. Both were guys who were stars at the territorial level, Hart one of the foundations of Stampede Wrestling where he was a multi-time North American champion. He also had success as a junior heavyweight in Japan in the Original Tiger Mask era, and as the tag team partner of Dynamite Kid. Michaels and Marty Jannetty, first as the Midnight Rockers, were obviously a copycat Rock & Roll Express team, but they overcame that by being excellent in the ring to become the hottest act in a dying AWA.
Then both were decried as too small, stuck in the middle, and there was frustration because if they stole the show, or got fan mail, or got big reactions, they were still labeled too small. It’s funny since Hart at the time was 6-1 and 235 pounds, comparable size to Randy Savage, Roddy Piper and Ricky Steamboat who were in the company, and to Ric Flair, who was the second biggest star in the industry. But it was a perception deal. Davey Boy Smith was a steroid monster, but since he had worked as a junior heavyweight star in Japan, he was small. Ricky Steamboat, smaller than both, was a superstar on top for a decade, so he wasn’t too small.
Michaels seemed more bitter about it, noting that he had wrestled in a number of places and size was never brought up. It was never a negative, and he was taught that his being smaller than average was a positive because it enabled him to get sympathy when selling. He admitted frustration and bitterness coming in.
This was also amazing to see on a WWE DVD, if only because it was always portrayed by McMahon, even though everyone saw through it, that size wasn’t an issue. He would push they did not have the size fetish, and it was all about the ability to get over with the crowd. But in that area, the 280 pounders had the mentality not to sell for smaller guys, which put them in position in fans’ eyes that they were not capable of hanging with the stars. This mentality stayed for years. Hulk Hogan in 1993 quit the company rather than put Bret Hart over, because he saw Hart as too small, and instead asked to put over Yokozuna and then leave. I can recall in the mid-90s, when Hart was champion, that a fairly decent named wrestler who was considerably bigger than Michaels, who was being asked to put Michaels over as Michaels was on the ascent, called me up loaded in the middle of the night, and kept going on about how he was bigger and had better body than Michaels. That mentality had been drummed into the talent for a decade by McMahon. And this was even during drug testing (the serious years in an era where with less beating test alternatives and stricter testing, where keeping the body was much harder than today) and the guys were still indoctrinated by a certain set of rules as to who should get pushed. And Michaels, who nobody denied was an incredible performer, should not headline.
The conversation largely started with the arrival of The Rockers in WWF, at the same time the Hart Foundation, Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart, were an established heel team. They pointed out how the tag team division in those days had far more depth, mentioning the Road Warriors, Demolition, Warlord & Barbarian, The British Bulldogs, The Rougeau Brothers and the Killer Bees (Jim Brunzell & Brian Blair--Hart went out of his way to say the Bees were a great tag team that people have forgotten about).
They acted like it took a while for the two teams to work together, and brought up their getting a chance to show their stuff on an NBC Saturday Night’s Main Event from Fort Wayne, IN where they were supposed to do a 2/3 fall match on network television, with Ross bringing up what a great showcase that would have been for both of them.
In actuality, the match, on September 30, 1990, with the Hart Foundation defending against The Rockers, where The Rockers were supposed to win the titles for the first time, was not taped for NBC. It’s the only historical mistake I could find.
The Hart Foundation and Rockers had a match that did air on NBC on April 28, 1990 (taped five days earlier in Austin), going to a no contest. That would not have been necessary the Rockers breakthrough, as on November 25, 1989 (taped on October 31, 1989 in Topeka), they were given a two of three fall match on NBC where they beat the leaving Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard, which was a rematch of a double count out on NBC between those two teams on the pre-WrestleMania special in 1989.
During the Fort Wayne match, which clips were shown, Neidhart was fooling around with the top turnbuckle and the top rope fell apart. Hart noted that they should have just stopped the match and fixed the ring, since it was a taped show. The referee was blamed, as Hart grabbed Michaels in a chinlock hoping they’d fix it. But the ref did nothing and really, they should have just stopped it from backstage. From the clips, they were guys out there trying to do their spots, Hart in particular, which required bouncing off the ropes, even though the rope was broken. The match completely fell apart, and never aired.
“I hated it,” said Hart. “It was one of the worst matches we ever had.”
The Rockers were scheduled and did win the title in that match. Neidhart was going to be released since the company was doing major talent cutting (the company had at the time given me an official list of 17 people being cut and Neidhart was on the list, this was days before the match was taped). Hart convinced the office to keep Neidhart and between the match being so bad and not worthy of airing, they just pretended it never happened. Then, since they were keeping Neidhart, they changed their minds regarding the Rockers getting the belts. None of this was ever acknowledged at the time outside of Fort Wayne television where they did a Jack Tunney inset saying he was overruling the title change due to the faulty ring. That aspect was not talked about on the DVD. If there was any bitterness from Michaels about the first scheduled title reign being taken away from him, he never brought it up.
The next item was Hart winning the IC title from Mr. Perfect in Madison Square Garden in 1991. Hart said that at the time he was very confident about his in-ring, but knew that he needed to improve his promos. He brought up Curt Hennig being one of his all-time favorite opponents and thought by winning the title that the had opened the door for smaller guys getting to the top. The funny thing is that perception. Hart was viewed as a small guy. Savage, Steamboat and Piper were not (although originally, to show how off things were, when Piper was brought into WWF in 1984, he was booked to be a heel manager who would occasionally wrestle and do a program with Jimmy Snuka, because he was thought to be too small to draw with Hogan).
Ross tried to push that Hart’s IC title win showed Michaels that there was hope for him in the future, despite the earlier talk about him being too small to headline. Michaels disagreed, saying the IC title was “the workhorse title,” noting that it wasn’t the belt that carried the promotion, but said that when they gave Hart the WWF title in 1992, that was the acknowledgment they would let people his size into the main events.
Michaels noted that in that era, there were many times when The Rockers would go on last at house shows (the same was true for The Hart Foundation). Cards in those days, particularly in the major monthly markets, were usually booked with the main event in the middle of the show. There were two key reasons, which were basically a holdover of how Vince McMahon Sr. ran his shows in his major arenas, different from almost everyone else (Sam Muchnick in St. Louis did the same thing, he’d often would put the main event on next to last and end the show with a 2/3 fall tag team match with four top veteran workers, in his case it was if there was going to be big heat in the main event finish, this calmed the people down before they left the arena).
There were two key reasons. One was when they booked monthly in the major arenas, they would book show-to-show angles. Before the last match, the ring announcer would run down the next month show, like had been done in the WWF strongholds dating back as long as everyone could remember. So Hulk Hogan, for instance, would do his match, and if there was an angle to build for the return, it was in the middle so before you left the arena, they would announce to you that Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage next month, stemming from the DQ finish you just saw, would meet in a no DQ match, and tickets were available right now at the box office. The other, particularly with Hogan, was so he could leave the arena and get out of town while the fans were still in the arena, so he’d be gone long before the autograph seekers after the show were waiting at the back door.
Michaels expressed frustration saying that he felt the company knew they were good enough to go on last, but not big enough to be portrayed as main eventers.
Hart described WWF main events scene as going from prehistoric dinosaurs like Hogan and Ultimate Warrior, evolving to mammals. He said the company was filled with muscle bound guys who couldn’t do a lot and having very boring matches. Nobody brought up the steroid scandal leading to testing in 1992, meaning guys with the kind of physiques that had been the norm among headliners, again, because the alternatives that couldn’t be traced in a test weren’t there like today, that they simply couldn’t have those people on top because nobody could look like that any longer. When you couldn’t have those physiques, you were left with either pushing guys who could deliver action, or push a different type of big guy, Diesel (Kevin Nash), who was super tall and had a good physique, or Yokozuna, who was 600 pounds. The exception was Lex Luger, who had that physique (Luger now claims he was using stuff all the way through but knew how to beat the tests, something most of the wrestlers of that era didn’t have the knowledge of how to do), but after the WWF dropped the ball on his push when he didn’t win the title at the right time, the air went out of his sails and he wasn’t clicking.
So they went back-and-forth between Hart and the monsters, trying to find a winning formula, but things weren’t doing well no matter which way they went. Hart said at the time, Michaels was one of the best wrestlers in the company and he felt he was a good wrestler as well. Hart said they didn’t just do predictable matches, but they did smarter, faster, more psychologically sound matches with guys who would put in better effort.
“Everything was about size, and that didn’t help my anger,” said Michaels.
Hart said he felt in that era, he and Michaels were pretty tight, saying he went to bat for Michaels because he wanted to work with him, and that he always had a lot of respect for his work. He said when he wanted to work with Michaels, McMahon was open to it, and then said Michaels was a phenomenal athlete, saying he was one of the best athletes ever that got into wrestling.
Michaels said he felt he and Hart had to prove that the business could run on their shoulders, that the business was changing for the better with people who had a different level of love, respect and commitment and the mentality that it didn’t matter if there were only 500 people there, they were going to work just as hard every night.
In a feature on the DVD, they admitted that Michaels’ leaving the company in 1993 was because of a failed drug test and a suspension. Michaels at first quit when being told he was suspended (he was IC champion at the time), but came back (which led to the dual IC champions angle).
Hart said that he liked Nash and got along with him, but when Nash was made WWE champion, he couldn’t carry the ball. He said that at the 1995 WrestleMania, where Nash as a babyface pinned Michaels as a heel, he watched the match and felt that was the end of Nash on top. He said that Michaels showed him up and the crowd recognized it and saw through Nash. Because Michaels was cheered so much in Hartford that night, WWF abandoned all its summer plans and turned Michaels babyface. When Michaels turned, Hart said he realized for the first time that he and Michaels were now in direct competition. Hart ended up beating Nash for the title, but knew it was going to Michaels.
Not brought up here was the politics behind the scene. Vince McMahon in 1995 hired Bill Watts to be his booker and to run the wrestling end. He gave Watts complete power. Watts said that he felt Hart was a better person to be world champion than Michaels. He felt Hart had a more believable style. He was hired under the guise he was in control of creative, and made his first decision, and McMahon told him Michaels was getting the title at WrestleMania. While Watts never said this was the reason he quit (within the company everyone else said it), Watts did quit and said he was told he was given full authority, then he made a decision and it was overruled.
Hart said during this period as champion, he felt frustrated. Business picked up noticeably, an immediate increase of 1,500 paid per show from the low 3,000s to nearly 5,000. He noted he was champion, but felt the title meant nothing. It didn’t matter how good he wrestled, the matches he had or what he drew, the decision was already made to go with Michaels as champion. It was the similar frustration Superstar Graham had in 1977 when he was champion, only meant to be for eight months, but business went through the roof and the WWF title was in demand even outside of the WWF territory, but no matter how hot the business was, Vince McMahon Sr. was sticking to his game plan and Graham was only a transitional champion to get the title to Bob Backlund.
Hart was especially frustrated after having an incredible PPV match with Davey Boy Smith (which ironically, one of the best matches up to that point in company history in Hershey, PA, coincided with being one of the least purchased PPVs in company history up to that point in time). Hart said, “I felt all the hard work didn’t matter for anything. They already decided their champion and star, and I was just carrying the belt, I wasn’t getting the respect.”
He noted telling Michaels in State College, PA, that they would be working together at WrestleMania and Michaels knew he was getting the title. Michaels talked about how when he won the title, he was going to do programs with HHH, Razor Ramon (Scott Hall) and Diesel, his three best friends. As it turned out, that didn’t happen, since Hall and Nash instead took a far better money offer when their respective contracts expired and left for WCW.
“A red flag went off,” said Hart. “He’s going to work with his friends. That didn’t sit well with me. He’d make money and he’d position himself and all his friends to make money. I didn’t think he had the right mindset to be champion.”
“I can easily believe that I’d have the arrogance that I would think I could dictate who I was going to work with,” said Michaels about that period.
“In my mind I can believe me at that time that I’m taking care of my buddies and not thinking the wiser about it.”
But Hart had already decided to take time off in 1996. He talked retirement to try acting that summer. His contract expired and he got the first WCW offer. While not talking about it in this piece, Hart was never much of a WCW fan. He didn’t really follow the product. When he was approached about coming and asked what it would take, he had no intention of going, so threw out that he wanted the same deal as Hogan. WCW said that simply wasn’t possible and to give a number. Hart threw out what he considered a ridiculous number, saying $3 million a year, and was shocked when they came back saying that could probably be arranged. At the top, the world champion in WWF was earning under $1 million because business wasn’t strong.
Still, he didn’t take the offer. The actual contract was for $2.8 million per year for three years; Vince countered with an offer of $1.5 million for three years and 17 more years at $500,000, which it took him barely a year to blame Hart for when Hart wouldn’t renegotiate it downward at a time the company was operating deeply in the red.
Meanwhile, Michaels, HHH, Nash, Sean Waltman and Scott Hall had led to unrest in the locker room, burying talent and trying to push things their way.
“I think that’s a fair statement,” Michaels said about the idea they were not thinking business as a whole. “We didn’t care. We didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought about us. We’re thinking the business needs to change, it needs to get edgier, needed to be edgier for me and also I agree with Bret, the tension was there. I also began to see him as wanting to keep things like traditional wrestling and me wanting to go in a different direction which began to feed his negative attitude.”
Hart noted that he and Michaels had the goal of working the locker room into the idea they didn’t like each other, thinking it would help business for the return title match at the 1997 WrestleMania. Michaels didn’t remember telling Hart to get out of the ring when he won the title in 1996, but Hart remembered it and noted the tape shows him saying it and Michaels conceded it may have happened. But the two not shaking hands in the dressing room and Hart storming out of the building was planned. But working the boys backfired because as Hart said, “We worked ourselves into a shoot.”
With business still down in early 1997, Vince McMahon made the call, because as he would often do when business was bad, and blame it on small guys on top. So he wanted Michaels to drop the title to Sid Vicious, who would then lose it to Undertaker in the main event at Mania. Michaels would then lose to Hart at Mania in the No. 2 match, to lead to Hart beating Undertaker down the road at SummerSlam, since at the time, Hart was considered the star of the promotion.
The night Michaels was supposed to lose to Vicious in Lowell, MA, he showed up, claimed he had a career ending knee injury, and was retiring from wrestling, and handed over the belt rather than go through with a match and lose it in the ring.
Hart outright said he believed, and still did, that Michaels was faking it.
“I didn’t buy this injury. It came out of nowhere. He’s quitting on the team and we needed everyone to pull together. That’s when I felt it was my job to be a little more forceful.”
If some of the wrestlers believed Michaels, they stopped a couple of months later, as after WrestleMania had come and went, he returned and the first thing he did was backflip off the top rope, something you’d never do on a bad knee. Then he went out in a tag match (Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Michaels & Steve Austin for the tag team titles) with three of the company’s best guys, and worked at a different level than the other three.
Michaels claimed he did the backflip on purpose to get people mad. His story was he went to a doctor who told him that his career was over, and essentially said the doctor didn’t know much about athletes. After he had retired, he went to Dr. James Andrews, who told him that the knee was bad, but it didn’t need surgery, and athletes play on knees like that. Hart noted that his own knee was bad, and he worked with Austin at Mania on a knee that needed surgery, but he waited until after WrestleMania to get it, allowing Austin to destroy the knee in a TV angle so there was a storyline in place that helped get a wrestler over in the process.
While Hart has never expressed any thoughts of guilt regarding Montreal, he does over what happened with he and Michaels in 1997. They had the hottest potential feud in the company, yet didn’t do one television or PPV match from Mania in 1996 to Survivor Series in 1997 because of injuries and mistrust.
“We’re both guilty,” said Hart. “I wanted to slam him in character, but by the end we got worked into a shoot. Things I was saying were offensive to him.”
He noted they talked it out, reached an agreement, and within a week, both thought the other double-crossed them. Hart forgot his lines and Raw went off the air before Michaels could superkick him out of his wheelchair one week. Hart was telling Michaels off and the show ended without Michaels getting his comeback on the air. Michaels felt double-crossed and the next week, made the comment that Bret was no role model and had been having “Sunny days,” in reference to Tammy Sytch. That led to a fight in the dressing room in Hartford which was not talked about except in passing. It led to Michaels again quitting the company, claiming an unsafe work environment (the letter from Michaels lawyer in 1997 was the catalyst for the current angle on Raw in 2011). Hart injured his just repaired knee again in the fight, and a Michaels vs. Hart match, where Hart was going to win in less than 15:00 or never be allowed to wrestle in the U.S. again (Hart was winning the match) had to be canceled. When Michaels came back, he refused to work with not only Hart, but any friends of Hart, although as time went on, he softened his stance and eventually agreed to work with Bret.
One of the two key things that caused the 1997 Survivor Series was an incident in Madison Square Garden before a show. Hart already knew he was dropping the title to Michaels in Montreal in November. He went to Michaels and said that he was going to lose the title to him, that he figured the two would work a rematch at WrestleMania and he’d have no problem putting him over despite all the problems the two had and was proud to give him the title. Michaels responded how much he appreciated it, but that he would not be willing to do the same. Ken Shamrock and Jim Neidhart were both there. A few days later, after a show in San Jose, I was out to dinner with one of the WWE wrestlers (not Hart nor Michaels) who was furious, recounting this conversation and saying Michaels had actually said in the conversation that he would not put over anyone in the company, not just Hart. The guy said he himself wanted to beat Shawn’s ass except it wasn’t worth getting fired over and how there was complete unrest in the locker room that night when the story got around, noting in particular the incident in Manchester, England, where Smith was scheduled to pin Michaels to retain the European title in the main event of a U.K. only PPV show. Smith had gone on television and dedicated this match to his sister, who at the time was dying from cancer (she died a few months later). An hour before the match, Smith was approached and told the finish was being changed and Michaels would win the title, pushing the idea it would build to a huge PPV rematch where he’d get it back. Smith lost, and his sister was crying uncontrollably when it was over. It, really more than the Survivor Series, although that was also part of it, were why Smith was so adamant about leaving the company, although he would later say it was the worst decision he ever made.
The wrestlers were also furious that Michaels was going to be getting the title after what he said. But at the time, neither of us had any idea how important this would end up being down the road.
Hart went to Vince and said that due to that conversation and the way Michaels reacted, he did not think Michaels deserved to get the title. Vince said that he would call a meeting and that Michaels would apologize. But Hart said that Vince double-crossed him at the meeting, just telling Michaels that he was getting the belt at Survivor Series and never brought anything else up.’
“Now I’m mad at Vince,” said Hart. “I haven’t agreed to anything. Shawn was saying all kinds of nice things but I didn’t buy any of this.”
What made this DVD fascinating is that for 14 years, the WWE storyline was that Vince had to do what he did for the good of the company, because Bret had refused to drop the title and was going to leave, and take the belt with him and appear on Nitro. The part about appearing on Nitro was always bogus. There was a lawsuit stemming from Madusa taking the women’s belt to Nitro and even if Bischoff would have wanted to have Hart show up as champion, and I’m sure he would have, it would have been impossible. Plus, Hart was under WWF contract for three weeks after Montreal, plus Bischoff had given him approval to stay an extra week in WWF to work a PPV in Springfield, MA since Hart had agreed to drop the title in a four-way match (with Undertaker and Ken Shamrock, which Michaels would end up winning). Then the explanation was that Bischoff was going to announce the signing of Hart on that Monday night, so Hart had to lose the title. But Bischoff already had a week earlier the chance to totally screw with the WWF’s PPV by announcing Hart’s signing, as the contract had been executed several days before that, and did not. There’s little question if Hart had asked, that Bischoff would have waited for him to lose the title to make the announcement, although the word had gotten out everywhere before the match in Montreal took place, and what Hart would do was a genuine news story that week in Canada. Hart would not give a straight answer to the question when pressed, but pretty much everyone figured it out. Rather than hurt business, it led to incredible, by the standards of a weak WWF at that time, late interest in the match.
Ross, instead, asked the questions to make it clear Hart had no problems dropping the title, actually asked to lose to Austin, and would have lost to Michaels, just not until after Montreal. They didn’t bring up the agreement for Springfield, and Hart did suggest on the day of the show to Vince just handing the belt over and vacating it on television the next day on Raw without losing in the ring, which was an idea at the time Vince should not have agreed to. But Vince did, but by then, the plan was in motion.’
Interestingly, before Michaels could even comment on that, Ross noted that Michaels really couldn’t complain about Hart vacating it without losing it, given that Michaels had done the same thing three times already (showing as part of the story his vacating the IC title when quitting, vacating the IC title when he was legitimately injured and the WWF title rather than losing to Sid).
In interviews for years, Michaels had denied the mid-week conversation, or never brought it up. But later he had acknowledged it. That was the one that directly led to Survivor Series. Vince kept telling Michaels he was supposed to get the title, but Hart wouldn’t agree. As part of Hart’s contract, which as trivia would have it, was not Hart’s idea but an idea of Carl DeMarco, at the time Hart’s manager, who later spent more than a decade as the head of WWF Canada, on the last 30 days if he was to leave, he would have creative control in writing. This was done to prevent him from being buried on the way out, which was standard operating procedure, and key because at the time there was a heated wrestling war.
What that meant is any booking decision from November 1 to November 30, 1997, would have to be mutually agreed on. McMahon could not legally order Hart to do anything. Hart also could not dictate to McMahon what he would do. Hart kept turning down every idea for Montreal, since they were all offshoots of a way to get him to lose to Michaels. Ross did note that they asked Hart to lose in Detroit (the house show the night before Montreal) to Michaels, and he said he would not lose to Michaels until after Montreal because of all the build-up that was in place. It was the WWE’s biggest match of the year, and Michaels walking in as champion in storyline would have taken away what fans were buying. 1997 was the only year in history that Survivor Series outdrew WrestleMania (which is not as impressive as it sounds since WrestleMania did 237,000 buys on PPV that year and Survivor Series did a little over 250,000), and it was because of the build to this match.
Finally McMahon suggested that Hart win in Montreal, and in return, he’d drop the title to Michaels in a rematch and then leave. Hart agreed. McMahon called Michaels. Michaels indicated on this tape, but never outright said it (“I don’t want to throw Hunter under the bus but...”) that he may have even agreed to it, but HHH, who was also on the phone, when McMahon made that suggestion, responded, “Fuck that.” There was a backdrop of that. At a TV several weeks earlier, Hart was booked to get pinned by HHH. That booking made no sense, as Hart asked if that mean he’s defending the title against HHH, and when he was told, “No,” Hart asked for a logical reason why the world champion should be pinned. When he didn’t get one, they switched it to HHH winning via count out when Michaels superkicked Hart, which at least built up Survivor Series.
It was the second time this had happened to HHH, so you have to understand where he was coming from.
In February, they did a tournament to create the European heavyweight title, a belt at first designed for Davey Boy Smith, who had become a gigantic draw in the U.K. The booked plan was for HHH to beat Bret Hart in the first round. At the time, HHH was not particularly over, but because of Michaels, and because he was tall and had a good physique and hair line, the company saw him as a future superstar. It was actually in this period, when they put him with Chyna, that after several failed attempts to get him over, they found the winning formula and he became a genuine top guy. But at this point, he was not. Hart, who was the company’s biggest star at the time, got it changed, and said it would make more sense for him to lose in the second round to Owen Hart, because it would be a great match (when they wanted to, Bret vs. Owen could do matches that would equal anyone in the business), and it would give Owen credibility in the championship match that he would lose to Smith in.
A third incident, in May, was also important historically. Dwayne Johnson had just started in late 1996 with the company on the road, and in particular Pat Patterson, Jim Cornette and Ross were strongly behind him. Patterson told McMahon before Johnson had his first match that Rocky Johnson’s son had more potential as a wrestler than any wrestler he had ever seen in his life. Cornette, after seeing Johnson’s first two matches of his career, dark matches with Chris Candido and Steve Lombardi, told me that by the year 2000, this guy would be the biggest star in the business. But the vote of confidence among key people turned out to be a curse. Johnson, then called Rocky Maivia, to honor his father (Rocky Johnson) and grandfather (Peter Maivia), was pushed so hard and so fast that it backfired. The key was on the same night that Michaels was supposed to lose the title to Sid, that Rocky Maivia was to win the IC title from HHH. He did, and the crowd felt he was not deserving at that point and turned on him. The title run, scheduled to be significant, was over in two months and Johnson was struggling. You have to also understand the political forces. Michaels and HHH were protecting each other, with the idea Michaels would be the top star for a while, and then HHH would follow him. Even though Austin was starting to get over as a heel, nobody saw what Austin was going to become happening. But everyone knew about the company’s plans for Rocky Maivia, who would have been the fly in the ointment. A Raw match with Hart vs. Maivia was scheduled, with Hart booked to win via sharpshooter. Hart showed up, saw the booking and asked why they would do this, to cut off the guy who was going to be carrying the company with a TV loss via submission. He changed the finish to where he would lose via DQ. It should have been something minor, just Hart doing someone he saw having potential a favor. But HHH and Michaels were furious about that finish being changed.
So that was where HHH’s head was in November,1997 when the phone call came from Vince that he wanted Michaels to lose to Hart in Montreal because Hart wasn’t willing to lose the first one. While Michaels didn’t say it, in other versions of the conversation, HHH’s explanation was that Hart was leaving the company and no way you can lose to a guy leaving the company (even though it was to lead to a clean win back).
Michaels said what happened was like a mob hit, noting Jerry Brisco coming to his hotel room the night before the match to teach him some defensive wrestling moves in case Hart lost his temper after the double-cross. The one thing the company was deathly afraid of was Michaels getting the win, and Hart losing his temper and legitimately beating Michaels up in the ring, and then leaving for WCW. That was the worst case scenario, and also why Vince, Slaughter and Brisco came to ringside, with big Sarge, who in his youth had the reputation as one bad customer, to jump in and stop anything.
The worst thing would be the new champion being beaten up as a shoot on a live PPV after stealing the title and Hart leaves as the real champion in everyone’s mind. In a sense, while that didn’t happen, in actuality, based on what happened, WCW did have something approximating that handed to them, but somehow dropped the ball on it anyway.
Vince McMahon’s idea was to use the “Moolah-Richter finish,” when in 1985, in a similar situation, Moolah cradled Richter and held her shoulders down and the ref counted quickly. The problem was, Hart would know Michaels was in on it. That would almost guarantee exactly what they feared most, Hart knowing and attacking Michaels, so they had to come up with a finish where they could lie and say Michaels didn’t know.
Ross brought up that Hart had been around wrestling his whole life and had to be suspicious going into Montreal. Hart said he was, but thought for the double-cross, the key guy is the ref in the ring. He was close with Earl Hebner, and then went to Hebner. Hebner, who at the time didn’t know what was going to happen (he wasn’t told until he got in the ring and this conversation was the day before), told Hart that he swore on the lives of his kid that he would not allow it to happen. Hebner in years since has tried to claim that he swore he would not fast count him, so technically since he didn’t fast count him, he didn’t besmirch the lives of his children. Hart said relying on Hebner was his Achilles heel, and noted that legally because he had already exceeded the maximum number of dates in 1997 on his contract, he could have legally just not come to Montreal and say his dates on his contract had run out.
Hart noted that right before the match, “We (he and Michaels) had the greatest conversation about how much we respected each other,” so he was comfortable with Michaels when he got into the ring.
Michaels said that he has always had a ton of guilt about his actions that day, but never any second thoughts.
“I had a ton of guilt but I honestly felt I was a soldier doing what I was told to do. It was by no means a moment in my life and career that I relished. I will tell people there was not one desirable thing about doing that.”
When Ross asked him if, in hindsight, that was the lowest point of his wrestling career, he responded, “Easy.”
Michaels said he expressed negativity with it, not over screwing Hart out of the title, but the reaction of everyone based on his participation. McMahon told him that he would take all the heat for everything. Michaels said that Vince could say what he wanted, but that people would still resent him for it.
Hart brought up Michaels then denying he knew anything about it in the dressing room after the match, even though Michaels since has said he did. Ross thought Hart believed it at the time, but Hart said he didn’t believe a word of it, but didn’t attack Michaels because he would have hated to have attacked Michaels and then found out he was wrong and Michaels wasn’t in on it. Hart’s skirmish with McMahon, which ended with Hart firing a right hand that knocked McMahon out, and in falling, McMahon also broke his ankle, was not brought up. While Vince was also into bodybuilding and based on testimony in his trial, was turned on to steroids by Hogan in the 80s, many people have said Vince’s going crazy with the bodybuilding look and his ridiculous physique and physical changes over the next year stemmed specifically from that incident. Indeed, it did something to McMahon’s psyche, given he went on Raw a few weeks later and claimed that he let Hart have a free punch (scratches under Hart’s eyes when he was flying home in the movie “Wrestling with Shadows” are evidence it was a skirmish), and that even at his age, if it was a real fight, the result would have been different. Many in the company were dumbfounded by McMahon insisting on saying that, noting that whatever happened, the last thing the public wants to hear is that the TV announcer on a wrestling show saying if it was a real fight, he could beat up the guy who had been the standard-bearer for the company for the previous five years. Of course, as irony would have it, from a business point of view, it more than worked out in McMahon’s favor in the long-run.
Hart said in hindsight, he understood the position Hebner was in. But he couldn’t to this day justify Michaels’ position, even with Michaels sitting next to him and conceding virtually every point to Hart.
“I’d have done (in the same position) what Earl did,” which may have been the one somewhat surprising statement in the documentary, given Hart was not happy with Hebner really until Hebner suffered a brain aneurism, at which point Hart let it go.
“If they had asked me to screw Shawn, there was nothing they could to do get me to do that because I was one of the boys and my loyalty was to the guys in the dressing room.”
When “Wrestling With Shadows” came out some time later, the telling scene was Julie Hart, then Bret’s wife, telling off HHH who denied having any knowledge of what happened, while she made it clear she didn’t believe it. She was letting him have it while he put his head down and couldn’t look her in the eyes, until Owen Hart pulled her away.
It was noted that it appeared Michaels’ career appeared to be over three months later when he broke his back taking a back body drop on a casket in a match with Undertaker in San Jose. Hart’s appeared over two years later when he couldn’t recover due to post-concussion syndrome when he was kicked in the head by Bill Goldberg, and likely suffered several mini-concussions over the next few weeks when he continued to wrestle while in a fog, since in those days, the idea of taking time off due to concussions wasn’t part of the game plan. Hart suffered a stroke a few years later, while Michaels returned and had a second career where he was a far bigger star then he was in the first.
Hart’s description of the reconciliation was that Harry Smith, Tyson Kidd and Natalie Neidhart had become friendly with Michaels in WWF and asked Bret if he would be open to work things out. Hart said for them to give Michaels his phone number and tell him to call. They did, and he never called.
“I was scared,” said Michaels. “I didn’t know, if I call and if he cusses me out, or hangs up, then it’s never gonna happen. I was thinking nowadays you can text, maybe you start with that.”
But ultimately he never made a move until just before Hart’s return on January 4, 2010, where they briefly talked backstage before doing the reunion in the ring.
Hart said he made his decision to come back watching the first Michaels vs. Undertaker match at WrestleMania, and was so proud of both of them and he called opening the door to do the angle with Vince McMahon after more than 12 years of it being constantly brought up.
A lot happened in 14 years. Vince McMahon’s company became bigger than ever, winning the wrestling war with WCW a few years later, going from the bottom to the top in just two years time, and then spending most of the next decade falling back down. Wrestling history is filled with double-crosses, usually far more physical, working out for the perpetrator including Rikidozan’s double-crossing Masahiko Kimura in a worked situation and becoming a Japanese cultural legend; and Akira Maeda sucker kicking Riki Choshu which largely set the table for the emergence of the entire martial arts industry in that culture. This one had ramifications perhaps bigger than any of them.
Disc 1 (Interviews)
San Antonio vs. Calgary
The Rockers vs. The Hart Foundation
Heartbreak Kid vs.The Hit Man
Intercontinental Champion vs. WWE Champion
Showstopper vs. Excellence of Execution
Progressive vs. Traditional
Fantasy vs. Reality
Respect vs. Trust
Redemption vs. Reconciliation
Hope vs. Peace
Disc 2
The Rockers vs. The Hart Foundation
Madison Square Garden - 25th November, 1989
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
Wrestling Challenge - 10th February, 1990
The Rockers vs. The Hart Foundation
Tokyo Dome - 30th March, 1991
Ladder Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
Portland, Oregon- 21st July, 1992
Intercontinental Championship Match
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
Syracuse, New York- 29th April, 1992
WWE Championship Match
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
Survivor Series - 25th November, 1992
Steel Cage Match
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
Utica, New York - 1st December, 1993
Disc 3
Iron Man Match for the WWE Championship
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
WrestleMania 12 - 31st March, 1996
WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Bret Hart's Induction
Chicago, Illinois - 1st April, 2006
Bret Hart Returns to Raw
Raw - 4th January, 2010
WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Shawn Michaels' Induction
Atlanta, Georgia - 2nd April, 2011
Blu-ray Exclusives
Vince McMahon Interviews Shawn Michaels & Bret Hart
Raw - 3rd February, 1997
Bret Hart Promo In Ring
Raw - 12th May, 1997
Hart Foundation Promo In Ring
Raw - 19th May, 1997
WWE Championship Match
Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels
Survivor Series - 9th November , 1997
Extra Interview Pieces:
The First WWE Ladder Match
SummerSlam 1992
Winning the WWE Championship for the First Time
Bret's WCW Regrets
Cameras Rolling Between Takes
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