Bret Hart Vs. Shawn Michaels Complete History | Wrestling Timelines
April 7, 1997 - Shoot Season
Shawn, when he’s meant to be recuperating from an injury so serious that it removed him from the biggest show of the year, instead cuts a shoot promo on Bret live on Raw.
We are rapidly embracing a new tenor, a new way of selling conflict, a new Attitude. Shawn is apoplectic. He accuses Bret of whining about and putting off putting Shawn over, where Shawn had played supporting cast member to Bret for years. Shawn says Bret is a money-desperate mercenary who only took time off, cynically, to deplete the company of star power and undermine Shawn’s top guy run. In the same breath, he buries Bret as a draw. Shawn’s ego is so out-of-control that he becomes delusional.
Even talking about the predetermined nature of the business is striking. For the WWF, it’s transgressive, borderline sacrilege.
From Bret’s perspective, this is an unsanctioned, uncalled-for shoot unrelated to anything involving his character. To get Shawn’s side of the story, it’s important to understand his own individual ambitions. He wants to be the tippy-top guy, but more than that, he wants wrestling to change and evolve with darker, edgier, cooler times. Why should he live, constantly, in Bret’s world? Why should everybody live in Bret’s world, for that matter?
It was Kevin Nash, who had an important programme of his own to deal with, who said to Bret in February 1996: “Motherf*cker, not everything is about you”.
If you’re Shawn Michaels, you don’t necessarily care that Bret Hart is a magician in the ring, or a good guy. If you’re Shawn, Bret is paid like Hulk Hogan compared to him, as entitled to the top spot as Hogan was, but never drew like Hogan. Shawn didn’t draw, either. There’s a toxic undercurrent of paranoia and low self-worth driving all of this from both sides.
It’s about to seep out and pollute everything - but not after…