10 Early Internet Wrestling Outrages
2. Bret Hart Or Shawn Michaels?
You must pick one.
If Vince McMahon had to pick one, so did you. This was the very early online pro wrestling fandom version of the old Beatles or the Stones debate, except neither Hart nor Michaels drew much money. Bret Hart was the hero you wanted to believe in, even if he had started whining and dating himself at the onset of the Attitude Era. He was having some Bret Hart days, if you will. In the other corner stood Shawn Michaels, a more spectacular wrestler and a far more spectacular d*ckhead.
The earnest technician or the a**hole showman: choose your fighter.
WhatCulture writer Benjamin Richardson chose Michaels, and shared with your writer a story of his first wrestling message board experience. He asked a simple question, at 12 years-old, in good faith: "I think Shawn Michaels is the best wrester in the WWF. What do you think?"
They "thought" Benjamin was an arrogant b*stard and probable homosexual who needed to get the f*ck out of there with his affront to the art of pure, scientific pro wrestling.
Of course, this all erupted on the night of November 9, 1997, when Vince McMahon chose his fighter, screwed the other, and precipitated a maelstrom of HTML fury. Many threatened to give up the WWF for good...
...and yet they remained, wrapping imaginary titles around the waist of Viscera nine years later.