Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
CC,
I thought we would continue our discussion about the screwjob here, instead of the entertainment thread. I read your rebuttal to my last point, and there are still a few things that don't ring true for me about the whole thing:
Bret's refusal to lose to Michaels. As you say, Bret was a traditionalist and he couldn't seriously have expected that he could leave the promotion by just handing the belt over without being beaten, or that he could choose the next champion? Yeah he hated Michaels but he lost to him before. You have to believe guys are losing to guys they hate every night of the year. And he was leaving the promotion. And not wanting to lose in Canada? Seems thin to me.
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By the time of the Montreal screwjob HHH and Shawn pretty much controlled the WWE dressing room. If you go back and look at it, both were pretty much universally hated by the locker room, but were protected by Vince because he believed that they were draws.
At one point Shawn and Bret actually had a really good relationship, but Shawn's personal demons made him impossible to work with.
It culminated with the Sunny Days promo, which Bret says almost wrecked his marriage (Now to be fair, Bret has admitted to cheating on his wife multiple times, just not with Sunny). This lead to a backstage confrontation where Bret basically beat the sh%t out of Shawn and pulled out a chunk of his hair and lead to Shawn storming out of the company.
Shawn drew a line in the sand with Bret and the other talent when he came back and basically said he wasn't going to lose especially to Bret.
At the same time, Bret has said that he didn't really like the attitude era wrestling. Though to be honest, his heel work at the end of his WWE contract was his best work period end of story.
Bret was willing to drop the title to anyone but Michael's because of the war between them. He was also willing to show up the next night on Raw and give up the title, even though his contract expired after the PPV. Vince having seen Medusa dumping the WWE Woman's title int he trash and badly losing the Monday Night Wars was terrified of Bret showing up on Nitro with the WWE title belt. Even though Bret I don't think was the type to do something like that. Up until the Screwjob he and Vince still had a good relationship.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
As you pointed out, the documentary had started filming months earlier. But IIRC they thought they it was done until Bret called them back, as he thought something might be going on in Montreal. Suddenly they are backstage and I don't recall that kind of access in other parts of the documentary during actual PPV's. And of course Bret punching out Vince happens off camera. At a minimum Vince knew #### was going on and he didn't have an issue with cameras backstage that night?
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Bret was paranoid of getting screwed over at that point, so he wanted to document his last days with WWE. That's also why he wore the wire, and also why he went to Hebner before the match to ask if something was going on. If anyone is to blame for Vince getting punched out, it was Undertaker who went to Vince and demanded that he go and apologize to Bret. Vince I think knew that there was going to be a physical altercation that's why he had Shane and some other guys with him. Remember that even earlier in the documentary we had lots of backstage moments filmed including discussions between Vince and Bret that concerned contracts and booking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
This certainly handed WCW a hot commodity. But if Bret was being difficult this was better than the champ not losing the belt. And who knew how big a deal this would become.
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Bret was willing to drop the belt to anyone, he was also willing to hand over the belt, so I don't think it was ever about Bret being difficult to deal with. He just refused to drop the belt to Shawn because he felt that Shawn had treated him with a complete lack of respect.
The biggest reason for me not to think this is a work, is Vince couldn't predict how WCW would do with Bret. At the time of the Screwjob, WCW was eating WWE alive. Vince was in real financial trouble at that point, and the discussion was about WWE survival. I mean after the fact Vince said that WCW wouldn't know what to do with Bret. But nobody could have ever predicted that the combination of Hall and Nash's influence back stage and WCW creatives idiotic booking would piss away a screwed over former WWE world champion and all of the potential dream matches that could have happened. I don't think that Vince would have intentionally taken that risk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
Lots of people have definitely come out and said how real this was. People in the wrestling business so I take it with a grain of salt. I mean I'm probably wrong but as I said, it has never really had the ring of truth for me. At the end of the day, Bret wasn't "screwed" out of anything.
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Bret's career came to a crashing halt in WCW, I think in his book he talked about how he didn't realize how bad the WCW locker room situation was until he got there. He also spent a long time blaming himself for Owen's death. He's even stated that if he would have stayed with WWE there was no way that he would have allowed Owen's stunt which was done because Owen was being punished by Vince for refusing to do the Debra, Jeff Jarrett Owen love triangle angle. Because Owen said no to that, he was put back into the Blue Blazer gimmick, pretty much jobbed out and made to look stupid.
You could argue that Bret gained immensely, money wise, but his legacy was tarnished in WCW.
Meanwhile, WWE found something where they didn't expect to find it, and that's the best heel the company has ever seen in the Mr McMahon character.