Bret Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels Complete History | Wrestling Timelines
The best WWE feud there ever was - outside of the ring, anyway.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, WWE broke big as a cultural phenomenon.
The juiced-up, toyetic megastars were impossibly proportioned, cartoonishly charismatic. Mirroring in-vogue action cinema in the live arena, the likes of Hulk Hogan, ‘Hacksaw’ Jim Duggan, and ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage grabbed the zeitgeist of Reagan’s ‘80s, with its values of American superiority. Hogan, especially, was emblematic of this glossy new super-power era of Americana.
This Golden Age would not last. The stars of the World Wrestling Federation were not, in reality, upstanding tough guys who you could depend upon. Many, if not most, were using anabolic steroids to create the illusion of strength and power. All, of course, were workers in an illegitimate pseudo-sport.
This era was brought crashing down by two major factors.
The first was external. By the early ‘90s, in another echo of the political landscape, the American dream had receded. The party was over; bad vibes were “in”. Vince McMahon no-sold the atmosphere; his WWF felt charmless, ancient, even more fake.
Vince was then indicted for distributing steroids. He would escape imprisonment, but the family-friendly image of his promotion was in tatters. Goodwill, marketable stars, the novelty: all was lost. In its wake, a fearful McMahon implemented drug testing and abandoned, for a time, his policy of pushing giants. He was still size-obsessed. Where he couldn’t push wrestlers with inflated physiques, his workaround was height (Diesel) and mass (Yokozuna). He still needed a man with a pure, athletic look to symbolise the clean-up operation.
It was the technically immaculate Bret Hart who was chosen to spearhead this new era as WWE champion. There was another guy, though, who didn’t resemble a muscle monster. This man, Shawn Michaels, also wanted the spot.
They became intertwined forever, altering the fate and future of the business.