[1997-05-19-WWF-Raw] "Sunny Days"

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Bret is no longer in the wheelchair. At least he's still on crutches. Bret is undeterred and wants to now share his surprise that he intended to share last week. Bret does some really awesome heeling on the crowd before finally getting around to his surprise -- he wants a match with Shawn Michaels at King of the Ring where if he can't beat him in 10 minutes, he'll never wrestle in the United States again.

 

Shawn responds and takes a shot at Bret for running over last week. He rightfully points out that if he can't beat Shawn in 60 minutes at Wrestlemania, what makes him think he can do it in 10 minutes? Shawn wants the entire Hart Foundation at ringside handcuffed to each post and says Bret couldn't go 10 minutes in any situation even though lately he has had some "Sunny days" … aaaannndddd shit just got real.

 

Bret immediately promised after they got to the back that he would go after Shawn as soon as his injured knee healed, and this apparently caused problems in the Hart household. Still fascinating watching all of this play out week-to-week.

[Gregor]

What was the original plan for how the KOTR match would go? I assume it was Michaels losing as a result of Hart Foundation interference, but I've never heard anything about it.

[Migs]

It's interesting how casually Shawn drops that line in - its easy to miss if you're not looking for it, but obviously they became quite the fighting words.

[Kevin Ridge]

Bret likes to keep pointing out Shawn’s bad knee. Hart is out of the wheelchair and on the full mend. He issues a challenge to Michaels at King of the Ring! If Bret can’t beat Michaels in less than 10 minutes, he would never wrestle in the US against. I know it doesn’t happen but it is interesting that they would book their long awaited rematch to be something that would only go 10 minutes. All of the Hart Foundation are to be handcuffed to the ringposts. I didn’t pick up the Sunny Days comment watching it back in the day. They should have kept the camera on Bret’s face longer as he didn’t look happy. Anvil were very noticeable in not liking the comment.

[ajtroma]

Shawn seemed to be inebriated. Since the rules of professional conduct NEVER applied to him, heaven forfend, I certainly wouldn't doubt it.

[soup23]

I was surprised by how good the back and forth was before we get the infamous Sunny Days line. Shawn especially bringing up past history like WM 12 was very smart given what Bret is proposing.

[PeteF3]

You know, take that line out and this is a hell of a segment from both guys. It was an incredibly needless digression because Shawn was actually on-point for the rest of this segment, keeping things mostly about the program and offering only one other generic personal shot. Bret's promo is fantastic and I have to actually credit him for holding it together and no-selling that line--anything else on-camera would have just drawn attention to it.

 

This is a very old-school set-up--heel issues stipulation challenge, babyface agrees with a caveat--and I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing was Cornette's idea (the other heels being handcuffed is an old southern wrasslin' staple as well). I too am fascinated as to how this would have been booked had the match gone off. There's no other possible result besides Shawn losing, but HBK losing in ten minutes regardless of whatever overbooked clusterfuck would lead up to it seems unthinkable.

[Exposer]

Great segment. Bret trolls the US fans which ends up having the HF get pelted with trash. Awesome. Bret's surprise is he's challenging Shawn Michaels at King of the Ring, with a bad knee & all, to a 10 min challenge. If Bret can't beat him in 10 minutes he'll agree to never work in the States again. Shawn agrees to the match, but only if the HF are individually handcuffed to each ring post. Bret obliges & the match that never was is agreed upon. Shawn makes his "Sunny days" comment here which infuriated Bret. Shawn is such a fucking asshole. Really great segment though & I'm pissed this match never happened.