What if... Vince chose Bret over Shawn?

[El-P]

Without Shawn pushed as the main guy in DX and Nash & Hall in WCW, Trip never get passed the mid-card, it's as simple as this. The New Age Outlaws and Chyna were more over than he was months after he got the DX leader position. He only got there by SummerSlam working with Rocky in the ladder match. No main event push, no Stephy angle, no son-in-law, no 15 years of suck and boredom on top.

 

Doesn't matter if Mr. McMahon doesn't get the "Bret screwed Bret" stuff, the anti-authority nature of Austin was still there by mid 1997. Before Bret left, Austin had already stunned JR if I recall right. The seeds were there.

 

And Rocky still happens too, and working with Bret certainly beats the tepid HHH matches of the Summer of 98 (yeah, I know they were super heated despite being tepid, but that's neither here nor there, Rocky didn't need HHH to get over).

 

Oh, and of course, Russo doesn't get to do half the shit he did because Bret wasn't gonna allow it.

 

And Micheals doesn't get his "great" comeback stint as a living legend in the 00's with all those overrated self-consious epics and those DX revival shit.

Damn Vince, why didn't you pick Bret ?

[C.S.]

I don't think Foley's reigns get affected. If anything, I see a great Foley/Bret feud over disagreements in their differences in style. Didn't Undertaker and Kane have a couple of short reigns during the Attitude Era? I think those would be the casualties. Austin vs. Bret would've headlined WM14, Austin would've won, and it would've been a much better match. Triple H still ends up in the same place, more or less, because they were always grooming him. Remember, he was originally going to win KOTR the year Austin did.

 

Shawn in WCW ends up in the same kind of position that Jeff Jarrett eventually did - a few meaningless World Title reigns. It would be worse though, because unlike Jarrett, Shawn's best years would have been behind him due to a combination of drugs and injuries. In WCW surrounded by his enabling junkie drug buddies, Shawn may not have even made it to 2000 alive.

[Jmare007]

Wasn't Bret not a fan of the PG-13 content and fuckery the Attitude Era was bringing? How long does he stay with the company after putting Austin over?

[Grimmas]

Wasn't Bret not a fan of the PG-13 content and fuckery the Attitude Era was bringing? How long does he stay with the company after putting Austin over?

I don't think they would had gone in that direction.

[brockobama]

What was Bret's take on Angle? I could easily be wrong, but I can't imagine he had anything but glowing things to say about the guy. I wonder if Angle's trajectory changes at all with direct Bret influence.

[Grimmas]

What was Bret's take on Angle? I could easily be wrong, but I can't imagine he had anything but glowing things to say about the guy. I wonder if Angle's trajectory changes at all with direct Bret influence.

Bret said his dream match would be with Angle, years ago.

[The Chief]

If Shawn is around the 1997-1998 WCW locker room, there's a good chance he's not alive anymore. Not to be morbid but I don't see that ending well.

 

On the brighter side, do we get head coach of the performance center Leo Burke?

[Strummer]

Dave said on Lapsed Fan that they were always enamored with Hunter so no matter who was the top guy or still with the company he most certainly would have inevitably got pushed to the top. He might not have stayed there but he would have got chance after chance even if the Stephanie angle never happens in 99

[elliott]

A scenario where Bret is the one in charge of creative and Triple H fades into obscurity is a scenario I am ok with.

 

Trips was getting pushed, he won KOTR and was feuding with Foley on the under card. DX had just started, without the name, but without HBK I don't know.

 

Triple H maybe leaves for WCW as soon as he could?

 

I'm thinking he leaves for WCW as soon as he could. The MSG curtain call still would have happened. So he still would have been punished. Trips got the good soldier push the next year as a make up for losing his KOTR slot. But if Shawn leaves (and this is all kind of presuming Vince soured on Michaels) on bad terms, Trips doesn't have a political ally and I doubt Bret would want to put over Shawn's leftover buddy. I imagine HHH's career would look like Owen's. Hot babyface due to the residual heat from Vince screwing Shawn, but pretty quickly smacked back down until forming a team with Jeff Jarrett. HHH is a master politician, but that's a pretty tough landscape to navigate assuming Bret stays and wields influence. I imagine guys like Val Venis and Test faring as good or better than HHH in this universe. Shamrock also, but injuries always hurt him.

 

If they decide to keep US vs Canada going with Bret, I imagine American Hero Mark Henry and Bret have a feud at some point that we all surely would have hated at the time but would all love now in hindsight.

 

One thing we haven't really talked about is that when Bret signed the 20 year deal, he and Vince both agreed that after a few years, Bret would retire from the ring and move to a front office role. Assuming he stays relatively healthy since he doesn't have the Goldberg match that killed his brain, I think he would work probably through 2002 at the absolute latest. He definitely works with the Radicalz when they jump. And he definitely works the WWF vs WCW invasion as WWE's lead veteran. Basically the role Fred Blassie played but if Blassie could still work. If Shawn is still alive and presumably comes back with Hogan, Hall & Nash, I'd probably have Bret going over Shawn at Mania 19 or something.

 

I think if Vince chose Bret over Shawn, the biggest beneficiary (other than the WWE, Bret, all of us and literally every single person ever except for Vince Russo, HHH and Shawn) would have been Chris Jericho. I assume Bret would have gone to bat for him politically and personally groomed him as a WWE main eventer. Canadian Pride basically. Since the idea of Bret staying creates a really difficult world for HHH to gain political power, Jericho wouldn't have someone higher on the food chain cutting him off repeatedly.

 

I almost think a more interesting question is what if Shawn didn't get hurt and stuck around. Because really, WWE lost Bret and Shawn. Say what you will about Bret, but I think he is the type of guy that would have put over the next generation and been a real asset to the Attitude era. I can absolutely envision Bret Hart working with and putting over Rock, Foley, eventually Jericho, and Angle in a way that makes those guys look good. Bret would have been a real asset during this time period. Shawn had the potential to be a disaster.

[Parties]

FWIW Bret has said that he never would have allowed Owen to do that stunt, which is of course what you'd expect him to say given the circumstances, but it does seem unlikely that the gimmick/angle would have even been in place to ever happen. The Hart Foundation as a whole continues, perhaps turning face against the Nation and whatever DX ends up being under the leadership of Hunter or someone else. Overall it probably hurts WWE more than it helps. With the benefit of hindsight, Bret's departure created a tonal shift in the Creative, inspiring the TV dynamic of management vs. talent that continues 20 years later and leaving the door open for new main eventers to emerge.

 

Even if you argue that the wrestling on the show would be better or that Bret would somehow have a hand in booking/pushes vis a vis Jericho, the Radicalz, etc., there's an aspect of a Bret-driven 1998 in WWE that almost starts to feel like a 1992-94 WCW, where the wrestling is good and booking logical, but ultimately a static product due to a lack of fresh thinking. Bret wasn't a selfish ace, but even if he passes the torch to Austin and moves on to wrestling-minded feuds with guys like Shamrock, Severn, or Waltman, that still feels much emptier than what we got. If you look at WWE's '98 roster, there really aren't too many workers who were gonna suddenly break out the pack. Maybe Edge gets pushed sooner and Christian becomes Owen 2.0? Taker, Austin, HHH, Rock, and maybe Foley remain the guys who feel like main eventers, but the back-to-back departures of Bret and Shawn created a much wider opportunity, as the company was forced to go all in on Stone Cold and got lucky with some extremely clutch players around him.

 

The idea of Shawn and possibly even Hunter joining the NWO at the beginning of '98 completely changes the business. The NWO continues to feel like a true WWF raid and takeover of WCW, getting a needed jumpstart and new blood at a critical moment. God only knows what ego trips go on between Hogan and Michaels, with Nash and Bischoff in the middle of it all. HHH feels like he gets lost in some kind of upper midcard: in terms of status, the first guy who came to mind to compare him to was ironically Scott Steiner. I don't think WCW would have understood his character, and his promos would been even more self-indulgent and juvenile than they ended up being. As others have said, it seems almost likely that the chaos of WCW would cause Michaels' tantrums and other vices to continue.

 

I suspect you get Michaels as leader of the Wolfpac, still aligned in whatever fashion with his old pals Nash and Savage. You may even get Michaels doing a job for Goldberg at some point in 98/99.

[Loss]

How frustrated would Shawn get by the less intense style of pretty much every WCW headliner? I can see it getting to him if he can't have the types of matches that he has always been able to have. In that sense, outside of his close friends and Flair, he might have wanted to do matches with the Benoit-Jericho-Eddy-Rey-Kidman group just to give him someone to work with. Having a mid-sized heavyweight with more of a workrate style in main events would have been a net positive for the undercard, even if it meant they were just rising up the card to do jobs.

 

I think he'd put it aside for megastars like Hogan, Savage and Goldberg, but he'd probably want to murder Sting, Luger and DDP.

[sek69]

I think it gets forgotten how messed up Shawn was through most of the DX period, if he goes to WCW I don't see how he doesn't end up following the same path as Scott Hall.

[Matt D]

I think the most important thing is definitely Bret becoming the new Pat Patterson.

[BBscout]

Would have met his wife there

[flyonthewall2983]

I often wonder what would have happened if WCW had signed Bret in '92. Realistically he would have probably remained a dependable mid-card guy, but I further wonder what would have happened if WCW took a different tact than being "where the big boys play". If, for example, they managed to get not only Bret but Shawn as well. Essentially, leaving McMahon with Hogan and Savage, and depending more and more on the 80's guys.

[Loss]

As booker, Flair in the late 80s wanted to sign Bret, DiBiase, The Rockers, Savage and Hennig, which would have left the WWF still #1 but with a pretty pathetic roster while playing to WCW's strengths. Especially if they got Arn and Tully back as a team without those hold-ups, and Rude still jumped as he did later. Flair had already made contact with Bret specifically (at a WWF house show in Nashville the night before Wrestle War '89 where he suggested he could help him get a good deal), but Herd wouldn't spend money, so it didn't happen. Savage was interested in talking to Herd (When Savage said he felt loyalty to Vince, Liz famously responded, "We'll go where the money is") and Herd offered him less than he was already making, so he felt insulted and cut off any talk of jumping immediately. DiBiase and Hennig were strong possibilities a few years later, to the point that they had debut plans for them, but they never came to fruition.

[BrianB]

Creatively, for that era, it would have been difficult to turn Bret back face. The attitude era was basically underway by late 1997, and not going away maybe unless Russo gets axed. HHH might be kicked to the curb because he doesn't start hooking up with Steph until 1999. My hunch, unless Austin balks at working with Owen again, is that Owen would beat HHH in their program and eventually become part of Austin's title run in 1998.

 

I'd guessFoley probably takes longer to become a main eventer. Maybe by the 2nd half of 1998. Maybe that doesn't happen because Bret almost certainly would've worked some main events with Austin after WM, and it probably takes a little longer to get the ball rolling on the evil Vince McMahon character. Then they've got the Taker turn, which might be pushed back to Survivor Series, depending on the top picture. But Austin was friends with Foley so I do think that program would eventually happen, especially since they had a history together. Owen/Bret vs. Austin/Foley seems like a natural program. Then the Foley turning on Austin seems the logical thing to do, basically like how they did it in early 1998, with Vince buying Foley off.

WCW probably is an even bigger shit show backstage if you've got a pilled up Shawn throwing temper tantrums. He might go the Scott Hall route. Almost certainly he ends up getting his ass kicked in a backstage fight. Ultimately my suspicion is that aggressive boss Bischoff doesn't like Shawn's antics or non-PG tendencies, and starts to move him to the periphery of main events, since I think he'd view Shawn as one of those WWF top guys whose ass he was kicking every week. On the other hand, if he pays a lot for him, Shawn might get a better run than Bret because Shawn would've had allies in WCW when Bret didn't. But he's more likely to vocally clash with guys like Hogan.

 

 

 

Wasn't Bret not a fan of the PG-13 content and fuckery the Attitude Era was bringing? How long does he stay with the company after putting Austin over?

I don't think they would had gone in that direction.

 

 

They were already there pretty strong and Russo was heavily involved in creative.

[ohtani's jacket]

McMahon vs. Austin still happens but loses some of its edge if Vince doesn't screw Michaels at some point, and let's be honest "Shawn screwed Shawn" doesn't have the same impact as "Bret screwed Bret." Screwing over the favorite of the coal miners and the lumberjacks is like screwing over the blue collar, working class demographic that Austin fed off. Who's going to care that Michaels was screwed over? 12-year-old girls? Screwing over DX Michaels isn't as effective as screwing over Bret in Canada.

 

Bret drops the strap to Austin at WM 14. The match is possibly a classic but the Tyson involvement doesn't work as well without DX. People were surprised that Dude Love was Austin's first program after WM 14. I'm not so sure that program happens if Bret stays and if that program doesn't happen then the Mankind "socko" skits don't happen and Hell in the Cell doesn't happen and Foley probably doesn't become a main eventer. Or it's possible that Rock and the Nation of Domination feud with Bret and the Hart Foundation and Foley/Austin goes ahead. That would leave Hunter on the outer. pretty much trapped in the Owen situation.

WCW would have been a mess with or without Michaels. I'm sure he would have cut a few memorable promos and given us a copious amount of groin chops. And wrestled high as a kite. Jericho still jumps. The Big Show still jumps. The Radicalz still jump. Bret has better matches than in 1998 and 1999 working in his WWF comfort zone but his style becomes outdated as he continues to slow down. I'm sure we get Bret vs. Undertaker again and Bret definitely makes a play for another WWF Championship run at some point.

The big question is what happens when Austin has his surgery in '99. Does Vince fall back on Bret or pull the trigger on someone else? Is Bret really going to be happy working midcard feuds with the likes of Jericho? Was it Bret driving the car? Did he raise the briefcase? Was it Bret all along? Will Yokozuna be on RAW on Monday? Is Jake Roberts the Higher Power or Ted Dibiase? Will Flair jump to the WWF and become Vince's corporate champion?

I think things worked out for the best in the end for the WWE but obviously not for the Hart family.

[iamthedoctor]

Without Mr. McMahon, Austin doesn't become all that important so WWF never booms like it did. He's a different type of top guy to try compared to Bret and Shawn but it's the dynamic with Vince that got him over so much. Plus he got to make a fool out of Vince at every turn and in ways he wouldn't be able to do to another wrestler as opposed to the boss.

 

I think possibly we still would have had the Mr. McMahon character anyway because he was getting boo's way before Survivor Series 97 and verbally battling with Austin.

 

I suppose the Harts/Austin feud would have lasted till Mania and eventually Bret would have wrestled Angle.

 

As for Shawn I dunno, probably would have worked a few matches then retired.

[JRH]

Since this means Bulldog and Neidhart likely would have stayed too, what role would they play?

[flyonthewall2983]

Since this means Bulldog and Neidhart likely would have stayed too, what role would they play?

 

Mid-card guys until they get injured or fired.

[El-P]

 

Since this means Bulldog and Neidhart likely would have stayed too, what role would they play?

 

Mid-card guys until they get injured or fired.

 

Bulldog doesn't go to WCW, doesn't get injured on the Warrior trap door... maybe doesn't do that much drugs.

[flyonthewall2983]

Yeah, just the regular amount of what he was doing.

 

I was in attendance for his WCW return. The crowd, at least that surrounded me were pretty unimpressed with it. There was virtually no shock in it since it was pretty clear to everyone after Montreal he was headed south with Bret. To make it worse, he worked Mongo that night back and it sucked some of the momentum out of the show.

[El-P]

The only worthwhile stuff Davey did in WCW was a mini-feud against other european guys on Thunder, working against Finley, Regal (I believe he was still there) and Adams.