20 Most Infamous Real Life Wrestling Fights Of All Time
4. Shawn Michaels Vs. Bret Hart (1997)
In Hartford the evening after King of the Ring 1997, long-standing tensions between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels finally came to a head. Both had been in difficult meetings with Vince McMahon that day and were in foul moods. They had not talked to each other in weeks, and Hart was still seething about Michaels' infamous Sunny days comment on Raw which implied Hart had been having an affair with Tammy 'Sunny' Sytch.
Hart found Michaels in the bathroom and tried to be friendly, hoping for a peaceful rather than physical resolution to their problems. Michaels cut him off before he could get the first sentence out. "F**k you! Dont f*****g talk to me. You haven't talked to me in three weeks. Now you've decided that its time for us to talk? Well, guess what? I dont wanna talk to you."
Hart decided to change his plan on the fly and beat the hell out of Michaels, but Shawn had already fled from the scene. Bret eventually caught up with him in one of the dressing rooms, where Shawn was bent over tying his boots. Hart shoved him from behind and asked angrily, "You got something to say to me? Whats your f*****g problem?" Though Michaels knew where the situation was heading, he was unable to resist provoking the irate Hitman further. "You! Youre my f*****g problem," he bellowed in response.
Hart screamed at Shawn for causing problems with his family and threw a shot which Michaels narrowly evaded. Shawn let out a chuckle, amused that Hart had failed to connect, so Hart - balancing precariously on one knee - threw another shot at Michaels that caught him square on the chin, rocking him backwards. Michaels tired to fire back with a weak punch that missed the mark, and Bret responded by grabbing him by the hair and swinging him around the room.
When Michaels desperately tried to escape Hart's clutches by going after his bad knee, Hart saw him coming and his old amateur wrestling instincts took over. He threw Shawn to the floor with a double leg take down which sent them crashing through a nearby partition, after which he started teeing off on Shawn's head with a flurry of punches. Jerry Lawler and Pat Patterson desperately tried to pull Hart off the hapless Michaels but were unable to do so. Patterson screamed at Hart's friends Davey Boy Smith and Crush for assistance, but neither were willing to intervene. They both understood that Bret needed to get it out of his system and they enjoyed seeing Shawn get what they felt had been coming to him for a long time.
Eventually, with help from Gerald Brisco, Hart was prised off the now bloody and bruised Michaels. As Hart was being dragged away, he kept hold of HBK's hair, ripping a large chunk from his scalp. Shawn's long golden locks fell from his hands and Hart warned him one final time, "Dont f**k with me or my family, you little f****r."
Immediately afterwards, Michaels burst into Vince McMahons office screaming, "!*$% this b******t," slamming a clump of his hair on McMahon's desk. "It's not safe to work here anymore. You've got a !*$% lunatic in there. You've obviously worked him into a frenzy, or somebody has. F**k this s**t, Vince, I'll never work for you again."
Michaels stormed off and grabbed a ride back to the hotel with Aldo Montoya, with his intention being that he would quit the WWF and go to be with his friends in WCW. Eventually, things were worked out and Michaels returned to work in July, but he would have the last laugh with the Montreal Screwjob five months later.
Winner: Bret Hart