7 Exact Times Wrestlers Got Their Spot TAKEN

7. Shawn Michaels > Bret Hart (WWF Raw Is War, August 11, 1997)

SummerSlam 1997 was the peak of Bret Hart’s seminal run in the WWF. 

Emanating from the New Jersey Meadowlands on August 3, Bret won his fifth and final Winged Eagle at the expense of the Undertaker. At the finish, he had ducked a wild chair shot launched at him from on and offscreen nemesis Shawn Michaels. ‘Taker absorbed the full, gruesome impact, leading to his defeat. This sparked an incredible feud between Shawn and ‘Taker, and Shawn’s legendary character shift into full degenerate territory. Meanwhile, roster depth was shallow. Bret had to work the Patriot. 

The Patriot was an anachronistic, one-dimensional character defined entirely by his love of the U.S.A, and only existed, conveniently, because Bret Hart didn’t like the U.S.A. The Patriot had already defeated Bret on the July 28 Raw as a result of Shawn’s interference as a means of building him up for a pay-per-view loss to Bret Hart, but it was Bret who was defeated in this programme solely by it happening in the first place. 

On the August 11 Raw Is War, the build to In Your House: Ground Zero progressed when the Patriot, alongside Ken Shamrock, defeated Hart Foundation members Owen Hart and the British Bulldog. This seemed to rattle Bret, who, fearful of the Patriot’s growing “momentum”, attacked him later in the show. The Patriot wasn’t even a New Generation-coded act; when he was onscreen, with his yokel cornball ranting, 1997 felt like the desperate jingoism of 1991. Shawn, in contrast, was grabbing the zeitgeist. 

Fans gravitated towards his new proto-Attitude Era act because he felt like a real human being - and Shawn was in essence playing himself, a troubled, obnoxious, ultra-cocky tyrant. Shawn was mesmerising in his performance on the same edition of Raw. Slowly forming the group that would become known as D-Generation X, by hyping the “insurance policy” that later revealed himself to be Rick Rude, Shawn cut a promo to open the show. Cheered initially, he drew the desired response almost immediately with his smug aura, and when some fans chanted “Shawn is gay”, Michaels responded by saying: “Why don’t you ask your mama how gay Shawn Michaels is?”

Shawn was then interrupted by onscreen authority figure Sgt. Slaughter. Michaels was unbelievable here, laughing in the man’s face and, debuting a classic bit, wiping away what he sold as Vesuvius-levels of spittle firing out of Sarge’s mouth. Shawn was never better when playing off an earnest geek whom he could eat alive.

The problem for Bret is that, starting from this very episode of Raw, he was a geek, too.