WWE In 1997 | Wrestling Timelines

7. October 6 | It’s Getting Ugly

Shawn Michaels and Triple H are now aligned in storylines; Hunter has leveraged his real-life friendship and attendant chemistry with Shawn to rise up the card. 

The Bret Vs. Shawn feud has shifted in tone and direction. It’s an even nastier programme. It’s novel, and strangely compelling, but as will soon be revealed, there’s a reason why promoters tend not to exploit very real animosity between two wrestlers - particularly when, based on the model anyway, they do not need to interact. 

Both men are heels. There is no rooting interest in either man. They can only snipe at one another and deepen the toxicity of their untenable relationship. On Raw Is War, Shawn and Hunter basically treat Bret like a living, nerdy antique. Bret is flustered. He claims that he does not want to be portrayed as a homophobe, but his prior comments about Shawn posing for Playgirl, a “gay magazine”, cast doubt over that.  

Bret mangles his promo, saying “I know what the ‘HHH’ stands for in ‘HBK’...you’re nothing but a h*mo”. While Helmsley is too insecure to give Bret enough rope, immediately interjecting with “I’m no queer!”, Shawn is much more savvy. He allows Bret to meander and essentially cede the top heel spot to him. Bret is mean-spirited and boring; Shawn is worse, but by this point, vastly more entertaining. Shawn knows how to drive this home, too; when Bret stalls, unable to remember his next line, Shawn is shown falling asleep on Hunter’s shoulder after a brutal, hilarious camera cut. 

Bret can’t stop digging his own grave. He refers to Shawn as a “degenerate” multiple times. What Bret cannot recognise - because, sadly, he is in fact a relic - is that he’s making Shawn seem cool and disruptive. Bret was the hottest heel in the WWF in the spring; by the fall, with this monotonous lecturing, he’s closer to Dean Douglas.