Hilarious Note From This Week's Observer.....

[SuperJerk]

There were about a hundred ways Vince McMahon could've gotten the belt off of Bret Hart without having him lose a match to Shawn Michaels.

[Promoter]

On the flipside side to that Vince wanted his departing champion to lay down for the guy he wanted to lead the company, so I can see why Vince wanted it to be Shawn Michaels. There's argument to both sides.

[bob_barron]

He wanted Austin to lead the company, HBK was just a warm body in between.

[Dangerous A]

Bret had already said he had no issue dropping the title to Shawn at the Dec. ppv in the U.S., since Bret couldn't show up on WCW until sometime in mid December. He just didn't want to drop it in Canada.

[Promoter]

In terms of babyface stardom yes, but in terms of top heel which he wanted Bret to be with the anti-America stuff HBK was his guy. Hell, UT made it seem like HBK would have avoided jobbing to Austin(I know he said it as I've seen it, but I still find it hard to believe and I also did remember Russo saying he wanted HBK to win the match as well). Before the back injury, HBK was more of a sure thing than Austin who was still recovering from the neck injury from SummerSlam.

[nl5xsk1]

Bret had already said he had no issue dropping the title to Shawn at the Dec. ppv in the U.S., since Bret couldn't show up on WCW until sometime in mid December. He just didn't want to drop it in Canada.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I hopefully won't step on any toes with this, but the whole "I won't drop the belt in Canada" thing always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I know that he was 'defending' his country in a 'war' against the American wrestlers ... but in the grand scheme of things it was just an angle. It's not like people could really say, "America proved that they had better wrestlers when Hart lost to Michaels."

[Dangerous A]

Bret not wanting to drop the belt in Canada had nothing to do with his Canada v. the U.S. feud. It was a personal thing in that he didn't want to lose in his home country to Shawn. He felt that strongly about it. He was willing to job to ANYONE on the roster except Shawn in Canada.

[Promoter]

I think it had to do with Shawn Michaels more than the Canada thing too. However, that feud was definitely hitting some nerves. I remember being in a public washroom in a bar and it had HF(Canada) vs. America(DX/LOD) with America sucks written over it. I think people in the States forget how passionate fans in Canada are towards their wrestling.