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

4. The Backstage Fight

As the weeks following WrestleMania rolled on, Bret and Shawn were still required to work with one another in promos, backstage segments and the like. Bret was now working as a heel in the U.S., after executing the greatest double-turn in history with Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13. In another parallel between the two, Bret legitimately injured his knee in the spring and would be kept out of action for several months. Around this time, Shawn and Bret attempted to bury the hatchet and agreed to work together again. With his top two superstars sidelined with injury, Vince McMahon pushed hard for Bret to return early and promised him a victory over Shawn if he was able to make it back at the King of the Ring PPV in June of '97, according to Bret's book. On the same day of the supposed hatchet burial, RAW was scheduled to go off the air following Michaels superkicking Bret out of his wheelchair after the Hitman had verbally attacked Michaels for several minutes. If the promos were volatile before this episode, they would reach nuclear status soon after. As it turned out, Bret's knee wasn't quite healed by the King of the Ring and so the match with Shawn had to be cancelled yet again. In one of the more famous promos of their rivalry, Bret claimed to have not heard his cue due to the boisterous crowd and the live RAW went off the air in the middle of Bret's tirade, without seeing Shawn get his revenge. Believing it was done on purpose, Michaels dropped the infamous "Sunny days" comment, implying Bret's affair with Sunny, on the next episode of RAW. Hart refused to speak to Shawn for weeks until the day after the King of the Ring which lead to the infamous "backstage fight". In what was was really just a shoving match that resulted in Shawn losing a big chunk of his hair, Michaels and Bret had to be separated by several of the boys and agents. Citing an unsafe work environment, Shawn barged into Vince McMahon's office immediately after the fight and walked out of the arena and for all intents and purposes, the WWF. This feud was officially out-of-control.