10 Exact Moments Wrestlers Died Inside
6. Bret Hart
At Survivor Series 1997, Bret Hart, screwed out of the WWF Title on his way out of the company his brilliance saved from financial damnation, wrote the letters 'WCW' in the air. Meant as a defiant gesture, he looked defeated. There was no real conviction behind his body language.
He visibly did not want to go, and the reason why revealed itself immediately.
He debuted at Starrcade '97 as a special guest referee. He had questioned whether WCW would know how to book a wrestler of his standing, and LOLWCW being LOLWCW answered that question quite literally. Contractually, he wasn't able to immediately wrestle for WCW, but there were a million different means of introducing him to the company. Precisely one million of those reasons benefitted from the anticipation, and it's not as if, as shown through Sting's year, they shouldn't have built it.
WCW booked WWF loyalist Bret Hart like a WCW fan, and not an incoming superstar, when the nWo was way cooler.
A multifarious relegation before he was even promoted, Hart's WCW run was doomed well before Eric Bischoff wasn't inaccurate in pointing out that Hart, in the ultimate irony, had lost his smile.