What would you have done with Bret Hart?

[tristram]

Firstly, I don't believe Bret should have wrestled at Starrcade. That card was ripped, and frankly Hogan/Sting should have been big enough. That match though goes down in infamy as a rort of the highest proportions, Sting rorted himself. Why lie on the mat motionless like 10 seconds after a normal paced count off a leg drop, if supposedly the idea was for a fast count (IE wouldn't you be batting 1.000 to get your shoulder up pronto????)

 

Bret Hart's impact on that match is interesting. Not because of what he did, but because of what he did after it. You would assume following on from the screwjob that Bret's natural progression is to become a top line babyface. Instead they turn him heel and make him Hogan's lackie. WTF? Two seconds ago he was dusting off Hogan and giving Sting the title. Now he's his comrade?

 

I think you keep him face, you start him out perhaps with a couple of tweeners or faces who are like "who are you to step into my territory and try and take my limelight" type jealousy feud, then you progress him into Nash/Hall for their "screwing professional wrestling by creating the nWo" and to take Sting out of the World Heavyweight Championship picture when he is due to, you then have some kind of confusion causing a feud between Sting and Hart. That HAD to be one of the dream matches of the 90s that everyone wanted to see, Sting v Hart. And it never properly eventuated. You let that feud roll off to Starrcade '98, and then after Hart feels let down by Sting due to this miscommunication/confusion laiden feud Hart goes heel with Neidhart/DBS and perhaps someone like Jericho.

 

I just think three things were massively in Bret's favour when he joined;

 

• Firstly, he had an angle against the nWo. A natural angle that carried on his own character. The nWo screwjob angle and how it infuriates his traditional view of wrestling
  
• Sting v Hart - dream match up, much discussed
  
• Hart v Hogan - dream match up, the innuendo after the Yokozuna/Hogan rort of Hart at Wrestlemania etc etc. There's a lot of dynamics here, I've heard a lot issues of how Bret Hart really didn't get along with Hogan (at least some of the net sites suggested this) but if you read one of his columns he goes out of his way to praise Hogan as an absolute saint and a gentlemen, it just says to me the two characters already have natural heat to build off true or not.
  

 

And if you look at that, you haven't even discussed the World Title, or the US title yet. I know mostly people hate Bret's time in WCW, I think the man himself did too, the booking was comical at best... but it did still give us Goldberg's concussion (LOVED IT!), Hart v Benoit (great matches), Hart/DDP PPV ripper and a great match where he puts over Booker T. I wouldn't say epic failure if you look purely at the result because he probably still added value, but I would say epic failure as to what Bret Hart's impact in WCW should have been.

[justtxyank]

Actually I was a WCW fan at the time (kinda forced as was only one viewable in the Netherlands.) And I thought Sting rocked I couldn't see the ppvs unfortunatly or Thunder it was only Nitro. I thinkt the way I booked it wouldn't make Sting look weak at all just Bret overturning/preventing a screw not via "fast" count and then preventing further interference to make him look strong. And if WCW really wanted too they could have bought out Owen's and Pillman's contracts which might have prevented both their deaths. Simply by changing the timeline.

 

Pillman died in October (I think Oct?) so it was impossible to get him out of his contract after the fact. Vince was not willing to let Owen go and I think threatened Owen with legal action if he tried to quit. Owen wanted to follow Bret.

 

Such a shame that WCW messed up Bret Hart so badly for those first few years, but what people forget is that they messed up Davey Boy even worse.

[The Final Countdown]

Pillman died in October (I think Oct?) so it was impossible to get him out of his contract after the fact. Vince was not willing to let Owen go and I think threatened Owen with legal action if he tried to quit. Owen wanted to follow Bret.

 

Such a shame that WCW messed up Bret Hart so badly for those first few years, but what people forget is that they messed up Davey Boy even worse.

Pillman died in October, yes. He died the night before the "Bad Blood" PPV (sight of the first HIAC match), which I attended. Definitely October.

[jbergey_2005]

I would have had him come in as a surprise entrance and had him help Sting win the World Championship. It would have made him and instant fan favorite and set up a strong feud with the Hukster and his NWO cronies. Sting/Hitman could have been the WCW's balance to the NWO before everything got ridiculous.

[CQI13]

Pillman died in October (I think Oct?) so it was impossible to get him out of his contract after the fact. Vince was not willing to let Owen go and I think threatened Owen with legal action if he tried to quit. Owen wanted to follow Bret.

 

Such a shame that WCW messed up Bret Hart so badly for those first few years, but what people forget is that they messed up Davey Boy even worse.

 

What I had heard in a Bret interview some time early this year/late last year was that he had gone to Bischoff requesting that they bring Owen in as well. But as Hart mentioned, Bischoff wasn't interested in Owen. But he did bring in Bulldog & Neidhart pretty quick.

 

Ok, here's the actual quote:

 

ESPN: You mentioned Owen. I actually spent a day playing video games against him and Davey Boy Smith a long time ago. It was right as the nWo was getting hot, and I remember them actually sitting there whispering to each other about who was next to jump to WCW. Here they are, great friends, and they didn't even know if the other was about to jump. I found the secretive nature of it all so fascinating.

 

Bret Hart: Sounds like a fun day. And that's just how it was back then. There was a time right after WWE screwed me that both Owen and Davey Boy were looking for my help to get them in WCW. In a way, it was too bad that I didn't get Owen hired on, but he would've been miserable in WCW too. I remember they offered Owen less than what he was making, but Davey for some reason, they offered him quite a bit more. Eric Bischoff didn't think my brother Owen was good enough, which shows you how much Eric Bischoff knows about wrestling. He picked up Davey Boy and Jim Neidhart like that, but passed on Owen.

 

and the link to the original interview:

http://www.brethart.com/updates/brets-hour-long-phone-interview-espn-com

 

He also had some less than flattering comments about Hogan at the end of the interview.

[liontamer]

First of all Sting was built up for over a year and should have wiped the floor with Hogan, like what Goldberg did after his buildup. They botched that, and if I recall made things worse during a next day rematch on Nitro.

 

I'm not sure if I would have put Bret into the middle of that one because I'm not sure it needed or even benefited from him. But since he was there I think they should have maxmiized his value.

 

technically, per storyline I think he came in as a member of nWo but told them he wouldn't cheat to help hogan because "[don't look to me for any help, because] nobody knows better than I do what it's like to get screwed over by a referee".

 

First I would have had Sting open up a can on Hogan and have hogan keep trying to get Bret to to DQ him to save his title. After Bret refused a few times and got bullied by some of the nWo members, I'd have had one of them lay out sting with a chair and have them try to get Hart to do a fast count, which he'd refuse, may even refuse to count altogther if he saw the chair. Then the nWo attacks Bret (while Hogan takes control of a beaten down Sting) and Nick Patrick comes out and tries to fast count Sting (with the feeling having been created that he's going to succed), but sting keeps getting the shoulder up. Sting starts to turn things around, Hart starts to fend off the nWo members attacking him (possibly with help from some of the other baby faces), returns to the ring and takes out patrick.

 

Sting then goes for a three count to seemingly end the match when somebody (either an nWo member or someody with a past feud with bret) pulls bret out during the count and starts attacking him. nWo attcks sting, but he fends them off and either Bret makes it back and does the 3 count or another official runs out. You can either end there or if you want tension between sting and Bret you have sting ask Bret to raise his hand and after doing so bret nails him in the gut and puts him in the sharpshooter. Or you could opt for more of a low cooker approach and down the road have Bret claim he's the reason sting is champ and a feud starts there.

 

You have a rollercoaster match with sting coming out as strong as he was built up going in, heat between Hogan and Bret, and optional heat between Sting and Bret. In addition Bret actually had a role that both impact that match and his status.

 

Looking at what happened in TEW terms I would say that stings momentum went from A* going into the match to a c- afterwards which was stupid. I don't think brets changed at all, and hogan's may have gone up which they didn't really intend. Being that it was the main attraction that show probably went room a B+ or A to a B- just on that match alone. Going it the way I suggested or something similar keeps sting high, raiseshart, lowers Hogans and potentially keeps the show higher - all intended outcomes I would think.

[tristram]

Pillman died in October (I think Oct?) so it was impossible to get him out of his contract after the fact. Vince was not willing to let Owen go and I think threatened Owen with legal action if he tried to quit. Owen wanted to follow Bret.

 

Such a shame that WCW messed up Bret Hart so badly for those first few years, but what people forget is that they messed up Davey Boy even worse.

 

Davey Boy and Neidhart really didn't seem to me to be massively over in WCW. I think a lot of fans saw them as merely followers of Brets. The thing was though they weren't really linked into many storylines together so perhaps they could have had them physically involved more with Bret.

 

Also, remember in 1998 he suffered an injury that from memory set in place the series of calamities that caused his pain killer addiction riddled death. The injury came about the night Warrior debuted, and Davey Boy took a fall right on the trap door in the ring and caused him serious pain.

[justtxyank]

Davey Boy and Neidhart really didn't seem to me to be massively over in WCW. I think a lot of fans saw them as merely followers of Brets. The thing was though they weren't really linked into many storylines together so perhaps they could have had them physically involved more with Bret.

 

Also, remember in 1998 he suffered an injury that from memory set in place the series of calamities that caused his pain killer addiction riddled death. The injury came about the night Warrior debuted, and Davey Boy took a fall right on the trap door in the ring and caused him serious pain.

 

Yeah, but that was late in 98, like September. By that time Davey Boy was a nobody in WCW. The mistake began from the beginning. Pairing him with Neidhart? I personally am a fan of the Anvil, but his time was long gone. By 98 he was barely an active wrestler. Those two working as a jobber tag team was retarded. The only notable feud Davey Boy got was against Mongo. MONGO.

[tristram]

Yeah but I think right at the start, WCW fans just weren't buying Davey Boy. He'd been there before... and he was good then, but now it was a few more years on and I tihnk the mentality amongst the WCW brethren was that he was just a necessary evil-twin brother that needed to be brought along with Bret. I don't know, I really wasn't disappointed they hardly used him.