WWE In 1997 | Wrestling Timelines

28. February 17 | Screwed

In yet another first, the WWF title changes hands on Raw the very next night. Sid defeats Bret Hart. 

Bret tries against Sid, who isn’t particularly great when the bell sounds and almost lands on his head when attempting a sunset flip. Bret takes an awesome spill to the apron when Sid evades a charging attack. This is Bret creating the necessary movement for his limited and immobile opponent, but he is also conveying his increasing desperation to hold onto his title and fraying moral fibre. 

Austin screws Bret yet again after a perfectly-placed chair shot; he hits Bret between the shoulder blades, but on first viewing, it looks like a sick and transgressive shot to the back of the head as the WWF continues to delve into more violent territory. This is effective happenstance; the promotion is experimenting with hardcore wrestling to satiate the adult male audience for whom saying prayers and taking vitamins no longer works, but Bret, a technical purist longing to be hero in an antihero’s world, is the perfect character for this development. In fiction and in reality, he no longer has a place in this new landscape.  

You could argue that the result of Final Four is now totally irrelevant, and your money wasted, but this is all in service of developing Bret Hart’s incredible heel character.