Bret Hart. A man who claimed to be the best there is, was, or ever would be. A man who held seven world championships for the two top wrestling organizations of his time, World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation. A man who, for better or worse, will be remembered for one thing: Montreal.
It’s inevitable. To talk about Bret Hart is to talk about the events of November 9, 1997. The WWF Title Match between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, which ended with one of the most controversial title changes in wrestling history. An event that so many people have discussed at such lengths that it makes it completely useless to even mention it here. You know what happened, from every possible angle, from every possible viewpoint. To examine Montreal is akin to examining the JFK assassination, and likely as fruitless. And while some people may enjoy endless talk of conspiracy theories, magic bullets, closed-door meetings, and contractual obligations, this column is not about Montreal. Not really. After all, Montreal was one night. Bret had more than one bad night in his career. In fact, Bret’s entire career consisted of bad nights.
Take, for instance, the night Bret had to go to bed knowing that WWE painted Bret to look like an old fart compared to the young, athletic Shawn Michaels, going into WrestleMania 12. While the WWF showed Shawn running up and down steps and participating in high-impact exercise routines in preparation for the WrestleMania Iron-Man Match, the WWF showed Bret cautiously jogging down icy paths, hoping to avoid serious injury to his already-weakened knees.
Or, perhaps the night Hart dropped the WWF Title to Yokozuna, just to see Hulk Hogan challenge Yoko to a title match moments later, and beat the 500-plus pound sumo in mere seconds. That surely couldn’t have been a good night for the Hitman.
Or, how about the period where Bret was champion, and all the WWF did was spend more and more time merchandising and pushing Shawn Michaels to the moon? Where the hell was the Bret Hart fan clubs, complete with glasses, t-shrits, posters, and Todd Pettengill shilling on Bret’s behalf? Does anyone know?
Or, we could always go back to the night that Bret Hart broke his sternum wrestling Dino Bravo. Actually, we could go to just about any night Bret Hart was forced to wrestle Dino Bravo.
Or, perhaps, the nights Bret wrestled Dr. Isaac Yankem and Jerry Lawler while Diesel (Kevin Nash, for you newer fans), one of if not the worst drawing champions in WWE’s compiled history, headlined shows along with his fellow Kliq members.
Or, there’s always the nights on end where Bret was buried and misused by WCW to the point where even Bret’s critics felt Bret was being mistreated. Bret Hart, nWo sympathizer? Bret Hart, US Champion? Bret Hart, midcard crybaby? Bret Hart, second fiddle to Hogan? Surely these weren’t Bret’s best days, were they?
Or, maybe we should mention the night Goldberg kicked Bret in the head at Starrcade 1999. You know the one. It was the kick that ended Bret’s career, and, in many ways, WCW’s last standing chance at ever having another successful run against the WWF, who had, by this time, pulled so far ahead of WCW in the Monday Night Wars that it seemed unlikely that WCW would ever fully recover.
It’s easy to go and talk about Montreal. Montreal has all these wonderful little “conspiracy” stories that wrestling fans like to talk about. Montreal is also one of the most divisive conversations wrestling fans can participate in. Montreal can take friends and turn them into bitter rivals. Montreal can end relationships. Montreal can even get you “fired” from TNA because you helped Jeff Jarrett regain the NWA Championship for the 47th time. So, why do people talk about Montreal?
Well, for people in my position (‘Net Columnists), Montreal is usually one of those “instant credibility” columns for the budding internet “journalist”. We examine the story from every end, replay it over and over, and try to explain how a single bullet was able to hit both President Kennedy and Governor Connally… I mean, how the negotiations between Vince, Bret, and Shawn over the impeding result of the Survivor Series Main Event led to the infamous Screw-Job in Montreal. Then, we determine who was right and who was wrong based on our limited knowledge of the situation, and, in most of these writers’ cases, their limited knowledge of what actually goes on behind the scenes in professional wrestling. The smart ones go with Meltzer’s column on the subject and the Wrestling With Shadows documentary as references, as both have proven to the most reliable, and tend to side with Bret. There are those who side with Shawn, though. They tend to argue that Bret had allegedly refused to uphold the long-held tradition of wrestlers “doing the job on the way out,” and Vince’s paranoia over WCW possibly desecrating the WWF Title thanks, in great part, due to a similar situation with former WWF Women’s Champion Alundra Blayze (Madusa) years earlier, was more than justified.
This is the point where you’re expecting me to take a side, right? Bret or Shawn? No thanks. If Shawn wants to settle on his version of the story any time soon, I’d love to hear it, but beyond that, I’ve had about enough of this Montreal bullsh*t. Bret’s moved on, at least enough to co-produce a career-retrospective DVD and accept a Hall of Fame award from Vince and company. Meanwhile, Shawn is still trying to vindicate himself and his role in the screw job in order to salvage what Christian witness he actually has with today’s wrestling fan.
We’re told, from all sides, that Bret is the one who has kept whining about Montreal all these years. Yet, it seems that the only people who ever talk about Montreal are Internet Fans, WWE and Shawn Michaels. Bret, for the most part, would rather talk about Owen. Frankly, so would I, but I’ll save that for another column.
The sad part of this was, this was originally intended to be “The Bret Hart Theorem”.
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