WWE In 1997 | Wrestling Timelines

Bret Hart gets his last chance to walk into WrestleMania 13 as WWF Champion in a Steel Cage rematch against Sycho Sid. 

The match, again, is not good - Sid’s punches are so talc-light that he can’t draw heat in the ultra-rare context of a televised Steel Cage World title match - but it doesn’t matter. The storytelling is as gripping and novel as the action is not. 

It’s a new narrative frontier. Austin this week wants Hart to win because their match at WrestleMania is set. He wants to face Bret for the belt. No longer are wrestlers magnetised to one another as a result of where they are situated on the babyface/heel spectrum. This is a re-imagining of how conflict works on WWF programming. In a second twist on a twist, in a story so fluid and new that the fans in the arena don’t know what to make of it, this time, it’s ‘Taker who screws Bret. Sid retains. This is absolutely fantastic, because it’s one thing for Hart to have a nemesis in Steve Austin. This is pro wrestling. You run into this sort of thing all the time. Bret can just about handle that. But the Undertaker? 

This is becoming a company-wide conspiracy. Hell, Bret is so bitter at this point that he will come to believe that the very psyche of the United States of America is out to get him. The deft, dovetailing booking of 1997 WWF is magnificent. This is a booking masterstroke - and the post-match is even better.

Vince McMahon had openly admitted that he owned the WWF in late 1996; by 1997, this information haunts the narrative in order to add a more realistic dimension to it. 

In another creative scene, a crestfallen Hart remains in the ring as the production crew takes the cage down. The walls of Bret’s heroic facade, literally, are coming down. Vince enters the ring and says that Bret must be frustrated over what has just transpired. Incredibly, he shoves Vince to the canvas and takes the microphone from him. Years from this moment, WWE wrestlers will use the word “sh*t” during WrestleMania season as a device to sell the idea that the emotional stakes are at their most intense - but in 1997, it feels like Bret Hart has legitimately lost the plot. “Frustrated isn’t the goddamn word for it!” Bret bellows. “This is bullsh*t!”

Hart launches into a conspiratorial rant, claiming that everybody knows he’s the best. ending it with “If you don’t like it, tough sh*t”. Setting the events of WrestleMania 13 in motion, Austin interrupts and calls Bret a whiner and a loser. Sid walks out, and, game to get in on the fun, says “I don’t know sh*t, crybaby!”