10 Wrestling Matches Booked Out Of Spite
3. Bret Hart Vs Shawn Michaels (WWE Survivor Series 1997)
Far be it for this to be yet another journey through perhaps the most journeyed-through match in wrestling history, but it's worth remembering that Vince McMahon didn't have to book the match that gave him and his two top performers so many headaches in November 1997.
Or, he didn't have to unless he wanted some of the grief that came with it anyway.
Speculated on in Dave Meltzer's excellent and exhaustive Wrestling Observer documentation of the events at the time and then in Bret Hart's own fastidiously detailed autobiography, McMahon's buyers remorse upon re-signing 'The Hitman' in 1997 may have been evident as early as Survivor Series the prior year.
Commentating on Hart's return as if six months off had turned him into a knackered old veteran rather than the ex-WWE Champion that had just comfortably gone an hour in a WrestleMania main event, McMahon seemed to be sidelining him from the off.
The intentional breaking of Bret's contract in October of '97 was seen as confirmation of this scepticism towards Hart, as was the stubbornness in the booking of the Montreal match in the first place alongside its infamous and unforgettable finish.