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I thought the doc was emotional and real. They really did a great job here. I don't know how you could possibly follow this up with another one that could reach the emotions. Still I think as a series this could be good.

Yeah, it's going to be tough to follow up this one.

 

They were thinking of doing Austin-Rock, but I don't know if it could be nearly as interesting.

 

I think it's very possible they could do Rock-HHH. There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that we've heard that they could bring up. It's not likely as deep as Bret-Shawn, but there's some similar stuff they could cover.

 

Hogan-Savage would've been a good one if Savage was still around.

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I'd love to see the Flair/Dusty one, except I wonder how long it will be before TNA and Flair cut ties. Both are desperate in their own ways.

 

Austin/Rock would certainly be a fun one to do. One could also think about "what might have been" with Hogan/Savage.

 

But I imagine it's going to be difficult to top the Bret/Shawn DVD. I watched it and loved it. Really good insight from both guys. I thought the part that was really telling was when Bret basically said that he and Shawn were trying to "work the boys" and ended up working themselves. There's a lesson to be learned.

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  • 2 months later...

Reading through this old thread, and honestly, I agree 100% with Vince wanting Bret to drop the belt to Shawn. Shawn was the ace of the company, the hottest heel, and had a long running on-screen rivalry with Bret. Bret was leaving, Shawn was the right guy to beat him on the way out. A transitional champion would have been a horrible mistake IMO, because there's nobody else who beating for the belt would have mattered as much as it did beating Bret.

 

Also, this doesn't always get brought up, but Vince was worried about losing Shawn too. Shawn had asked for his release on multiple occasions and let it be plainly known that he wanted to join Hall and Nash in WCW. Vince created that monster, but at that point he needed HBK and really, really couldn't afford to say no to him. Michaels would have faked an injury and bitched and moaned his way out of the company if he had to, it isn't like that kind of thing hadn't happened multiple times over the years, as far back as 93 when he was still a midcarder.

 

They should have been able to come to a compromise though, and I put that 100% on Michaels being the pilled up unprofessional douche that he was. It would have been incredibly simple to craft a legally binding agreement with Bret to show up to RAW the next night and drop the title, it was Michaels' refusal to play ball that really set everything in motion. Bret and Shawn were both huge marks for themselves, and Bret was absolutely trying to protect his heat on the way out, but Bret never had the problems putting people over that Shawn did.

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The only aspect of it that Bret can be blamed for is when Vince came to him and said "hey now that I've killed your negotiating power after you signed with me for far less money, I'm refusing to honor the contract, so go to WCW and see what you can get now lol" Bret could have gone the litigious route and sued the fuck out of Vince. Instead Bret was naive enough to trust that he could continue working for the WWE in the interim without getting the same treatment that Vince wanted to give his cousin back in North Carolina. Instead Bret got crushed leafs for dinner and Vince got the beginning of the biggest heel character in the history of his promotion (if not the history of wrestling).

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To clarify Bix's point:

 

Bret's contract terminated 11/30/97.

 

Montreal: 11/09/97

Raw The Next Night: 11/10/97

 

So this:

 

"It would have been incredibly simple to craft a legally binding agreement with Bret to show up to RAW the next night and drop the title..."

 

Is moot. Bret was under a legally binding contract. One that Vince breached.

 

John

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One that also stated that they must mutually agree on any creative decisions during the last 30 days of his contract.

REASONABLY so. Not sure it was really unreasonable to ask Bret to drop the belt to the top heel in the company. Bret knew it was in Canada, and that's all he needed to hear to veto the idea. I think Vince, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and whoever else was involved in the screwjob are huge scumbags but I can at the very least understand their reasoning, however wrong in legal sense it was.

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As stated many, many, many, many times, the definition of "reasonable" in the contract was that they mutually agree. That's how it was defined. Vince breached Bret's contract by executing a finish which Bret did not agree to.

Hey I'm not a Montreal contrarian here or anything. I've always been on Bret's side of things and I'm incredibly biased as a Bret mark. I also think that there were better ways to do things, and that Bret was legally screwed, but speaking strictly from a non-legal standpoint, which admittedly amounts to zilch, I think Bret could have been the "better man" there and just agree to putting over the top heel in the company on his final PPV, but I don't begrudge him for not wanting to do so.

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He had every intention of doing that. He was going to drop the title the following month at the December PPV. I know the forfeit idea was tossed around as well, but he was willing to put Shawn over on his way out.

If you were Vince McMahon, do you really trust the guy who was notable for giving away your taped results, NOT to reveal the Monday night after Survivor Series, that he had the WWF champion in his back pocket? Let's say he does (and it's likely he would), and WWF sues the shit out of him or whatever, it does not remove the information from the fans' brains who hears that news. The damage would be done, and WWF likely in a hole. Again, I don't think Vince was right to screw him over, but I can somewhat almost forgive him for not trusting Eric Bischoff's word.

 

Now as to the question posed- I guess he thought he could squeeze one last big buyrate out of Hart/Michaels before letting Bret out. I guess in hindsight, if he wanted to avoid the backlash (which ended up being a windfall creatively as it pushed his on-screen character over the top as a lead heel), he could have put the belt on Shawn instead and had Bret unsuccessfully challenge Shawn at the PPV instead, I guess.

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To clarify Bix's point:

 

Bret's contract terminated 11/30/97.

 

Montreal: 11/09/97

Raw The Next Night: 11/10/97

 

So this:

 

"It would have been incredibly simple to craft a legally binding agreement with Bret to show up to RAW the next night and drop the title..."

 

Is moot. Bret was under a legally binding contract. One that Vince breached.

 

John

Right, but if it's true that Bret didn't have any dates left on the contract like he says.....then he could have just sat out til the contract expired. My point with that statement was, if that is in fact true, then they would have had to work out an agreement beyond what they already had, because apparently he wasn't legally obligated to defend the belt again at that point. Which Bret was apparently willing to do. Which is what should have happened. I blame Michaels for things going down the way they did first and foremost, and I wasn't trying to defend the screwjob, merely pointing out that Vince was right to want Bret to drop the title to Michaels rather than Undertaker or Shamrock or anybody else who has been suggested, and to not let him leave without dropping the title in the ring.

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I never understood why they just didn't have Bret drop the strap to Michaels the night before at the house show in Detroit and then the next night in Montreal had Bret go over on DQ or Count Out. They could have taped the finish in Detroit and then run the video on pregame show and at the start of the PPV saying that Michaels won the title the night before and Bret was getting his Championship rematch.

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I never understood why they just didn't have Bret drop the strap to Michaels the night before at the house show in Detroit and then the next night in Montreal had Bret go over on DQ or Count Out. They could have taped the finish in Detroit and then run the video on pregame show and at the start of the PPV saying that Michaels won the title the night before and Bret was getting his Championship rematch.

Bret felt it was a bad idea to change the PPV match itself after the buildup.
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