Dave Meltzer with more to add to Motreal angle...

[Guest Slapnuts00]

--Speaking of Tom Prichard, I'm glad to see that everyone who talks about people moving on regarding Montreal are continuing to bring the subject up, and then distort what the story was, to make sure to keep the controversy going. Prichard brought out the original Vince McMahon excuse that he did it because he was afraid Bret Hart would show up on Nitro in Memphis with the belt the day after Montreal (remember what happened with Madusa argument) and that what choice did Vince have since Bret wasn't going to lose the title (there is documentation in the form of lawyer correspondence from that time period which specifically states Hart had agreed to lose the belt once out of Canada and his contract did give him equal creative control of his character as Vince so the boss-employee argument also doesn't fit as it was a 50-50 based on his unique contract that Vince agreed to to get him from going to WCW the previous year) . I hope to never read that again (although I'm sure I will) for the following reasons:

1. The Madusa incident occurred after WWF had fired Madusa. They didn't take possession of their belt before firing her. They simply didn't think about the situation and Eric Bischoff obviously did. Considering the lawsuit settlement, I'm guessing that WWF in the long run benefited far more from that than WCW did.

2. WWF had already filed a lawsuit regarding trademark infringement against WCW and WCW was treading very thinly on what it could and couldn't do. Since it was well established that companies title belts (in the case that WWF lost to the NWA and WCW in 1991 regarding Ric Flair's belt) were property of the company, for Hart to show up with the belt, it would have been the BEST thing possible for WWF because it would give them a slam dunk huge lawsuit settlement. It wasn't going to happen, but they should have begged that it did.

3. Bret Hart was under contract to WWF through November 30, 1997. His contract with WCW started on December 1. Hart would have been sued, and lost, had he showed up on Nitro while under WWF contract. It should be pointed out that AFTER Montreal happened, there actually could have been a case where he may have showed up in Montreal and claimed Montreal was a contract breach, but before Montreal, he had no such claim. Not only that, but Bischoff had given Hart permission to work an extra week while under a WCW contract for WWF, and also had agreed that Hart would lose the title to Shawn Michaels in a fatal four-way match in Springfield, MA, and the reason ultimately it didn't happen is because Michaels then refused to do a job for Hart in Montreal (as he was asked by McMahon on November 3, 1997 and turned down the next day) to set up Hart's loss to Michaels in Springfield.

4. Hart had a camera crew ("Wrestling with Shadows") following his every move for that weekend. They were also scheduled to go to Ottawa with Hart, the day after Montreal.

5. He didn't show up in Memphis for Nitro even after the incident in Montreal. If there was any chance he could have, after what happened in Montreal, he would have jumped at the chance to do so. With a contract breach, Bischoff would have loved to have had him the next day. But even then, they didn't risk it until the WWF deal was over.

I know Vince had to come up with a story to quell the locker room and the one he came up with was Hart was going to take the title to Nitro the next day and refused to drop it to anyone at any time, so he had no choice. Of course the wrestlers at that point that were mad at Vince, and then he gave the speech about taking the punch from Hart for them, did work with some in the locker room. It's been said so often that many take it as true, and based on if you believe that to be the case, McMahon would be justified. Ric Flair had done the same thing in reverse in 1991 and it did a major number on WCW. Others saw it as deceptive damage control, but as time went by, Hart became the "enemy of the state" to those in WWF, which made it easier to side with Vince even if they didn't believe Vince's story. Many to this day believe Hart had refused to drop the title to anyone at anytime, and it is true that the day of the show he suggested vacating the title and giving a goodbye speech rather than dropping it in the ring, which McMahon agreed to, although that was to let Hart's guard down. But the original story held no water. To use it nearly six years later is a bit much.

 

--The Calgary Sun today ran a Bret Hart column on the incident, which I was afraid would happen. I saw both the original version and the version the paper printed, and because of the detail, the original version was much better. Unlike the Prichard column, which was an attempt to use old stories long since discredited to defend the company, this unfortunately was Hart reacted to what was really just a scripted wrestling angle, even if it was bizarre by the standards of angles. While he is correct that Michaels saying he apologized to him wasn't true, this was a wrestling angle and the only reason to even take that seriously is because when Hart noted Michaels made that up, many were saying Michaels did apologize on OTR (and to be honest, having seen the show, I wasn't sure he hadn't, so I had to watch it again). Hart was correct to blame Vince as far as the decision to do the angle. However, the only problem I had with it was seeing the company insult the Montreal fan base, which killed the heat for the next half hour. But he got a rating out of it. He may very well, knowing him, have wanted to get back at Hart and this was the most dramatic and public way possible. I don't believe that, but with Vince these days, you can't rule it out and there will always be huge underlying problems between the two from that incident because of how it was perceived to have played into the Owen Hart wrongful death lawsuit, plus Vince got punched out, plus Hart's career never regained its stature again (although that was WCW's fault and not Vince's because inadvertently he made Hart into a bigger potential star than ever with the incident, but the ball was dropped in an almost mind-boggling manner). McMahon may have simply never even considered how Hart would take it, or thought it was just an angle to get a quarter hour rating and nothing more and it should be taken as entertainment. Maybe he did think of how Hart would take it, but didn't care. Or he may simply have wanted to think this was an idea to where they could go to Canada and Earl Hebner could ref again without it taking away from the match he was in because it would kill the subject. Fact was, in Toronto the next night, fans were far less vocal (Hebner wasn't there, but Vince was prominent and they didn't chant "You screwed Bret" at him with the vehemence they usually do). Maybe it will work in that way and maybe it won't. What Hart failed to realize is that in these kind of long-term arguments, 99% of the public doesn't look at the facts and people just see it as people who won't stop arguing. It usually benefits nobody (actually this does benefit McMahon because rehashing this is a proven ratings winner and he doesn't have a lot of them, even if I found the angle pathetic because it was too public an acknowledgement of who really won't let things pass. I guess I'll be writing about this for the next six years as well).

[Guest HartFan86]

Metzler states to the truth again.

 

And there's no denying that the "Bret would show up on Nitro" theory is officially bullshit.

[Guest JRE]

Bah, after Bret got screwed he should have just laughed it off and said "Good rib" to Vince. Then none of this crap would still be going on.