15 Stages Of Shawn Michaels & Bret Hart's Infamous Heat

6. Thursday RAW! Thursday LIVE!

If the fire was becoming uncontrollable, what happened next was the gasoline. At some point on the house show loop during February of '97, Shawn claims to have injured his knee and would forfeit his WWF Championship on a special Thursday night episode of RAW. This killed Bret's original plan for WrestleMania 13 as the match between both men was now off. Bret was engaged and believed that Shawn was either exaggerating the injury, or faking it altogether, to avoid doing the job for Bret at WrestleMania. Prior to the injury, the heat between Shawn and Bret had reached a level in which Shawn was concerned for his wellbeing if he were to work a one-on-one match with Bret. Perhaps being worked by the boys and the office, Michaels has since stated that once he suffered the injury, there was no way he was going to get into the ring with Bret at WrestleMania 13 for fear of Bret taking liberties with him and a lack of trust (the most important thing between two wrestlers who are working in the ring). So instead of Shawn vs. Bret in a babyface rematch at WrestleMania, Shawn forfeited the title on Thursday RAW Thursday giving his famous speech in which he lost his smile.