[1996-12-09-WWF-Raw] Interview: Bret Hart

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I didn't realize the word "Pillmanize" was ever used on WWF TV.

 

They do recaps of recent developments in the Bret/Austin feud -- Austin attacking him at the end of a match with Owen and Sid beating him up in London. (Sid has a tendency to do that to people, I guess.)

 

Bret promises Sid he will regain the title. Not much of an interview, but interesting to see the crowd reaction, as Bret is already getting a few scattered boos.

[Phil Austin]

Was really pleased to see this. I was actually at the London show and saw the Sid attack take place live, but as I didn't have cable at the time, I never got to see it on TV.

 

Amazed to see that you can actually see my camera flash as it takes place, as evidenced by this photo on my Facebook page...

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=4616...544&theater

[El-P]

Not a remarkable interview by any means.

[PeteF3]

Sort of a standard Bret interview, carried by his gravitas. The highlight of this segment are the recaps of past Raws and a London house show, as they begin to tease a Davey Boy Smith babyface turn and feud with Austin. That was the originally scheduled match for WM13, had the Bret-HBK match gone through.

[Exposer]

Good promo. I liked that Austin & Owen tried to "Pillmanize" Bret's ankle. Great callback to what Austin did to Pillman & it makes sense as Austin is angry Bret got the better of him at Survivor Series. The Davey Boy stuff is interesting. I don't know how good an Austin-Davey Boy feud would have been. What we got is seems definitely better in comparison. Bret's a pretty confident promo here so I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to It's Time & seeing how the big stories & feuds intertwine.

[soup23]

A decent promo but even though WWF has made strides in 96 coming from a really uninteresting promotion to one with potential, they do seem to sputter in December here like most every years. The feud with Sid feels like a placeholder in a way.

[dawho5]

Putting Bret with Sid makes sense due to Sid having the title.  That being said, it's much less of a personal issue for either of them as Sid still has Shawn angry with him and Bret has yet to really deal with Stone Cold.  I suppose you want to try and put Bret back into the title picture ASAP after Shawn's reign fizzled out.  The way they did it was less than ideal, but leads them to their comeback anyway.