10 Great Wrestling Matches (That Ruined Everything)
1. Bret Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels - WWF Survivor Series 1997
Both ruined and saved.
The Survivor Series 1997 Bret Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels wasn't just an underrated match that was completely overshadowed by the infamous finish; it was the best match they ever worked together. The home video exclusive ladder match was a noble enough experimental effort; the 1992 Survivor Series main event, curiously, hasn't aged nearly as well as much of Bret's timeless library; the WrestleMania XII Iron Man match was so inert, such a tedious ground game indulgence, that almost half the crowd left the main event of WrestleMania before it got pretty electric by the last, all but pointless 14 minutes.
The infamous Montreal match was its total, intense antithesis; a frenzied hate-fuelled brawl that was a shared exercise in catharsis, the feeling overflowing from which was magnetic.
And then, yes, Bret got screwed, and in the absence of his influential moralising integrity, the WWF allowed itself to break free from tradition and enter a new boom period. This catalysed the change with which Vince McMahon turned his promotion into a household name again, but so many matches followed this finish template whenever he didn't want to do anything, which was rather often, since he didn't have to after 2001.
The Montreal Finish was a plague throughout the 2000s, and f*ck every last one of the rip-offs - with the exception of the Survivor Series 1998 version, which was a triumph.