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Hart & Michaels: The feud that never was?

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Post by Bonesaw's ready Thu 13 Jun 2013, 3:35 pm

Are we guilty of using our prior knowledge of a personal rivalry between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels colour how we view their on screen rivalry?

Hello everyone. Often when we see lists of greatest rivalries in WWF history people are quick to cite the feud between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels in the mid 1990s. Now, although it is common knowledge that these two men had many differences with each other personally, was this ever captured fully on screen or did it even, perhaps stifle the storyline feud between the two?

Now, although these two competitors famously butted heads and on occasions came to blows backstage, I would argue that what we saw on screen can never be regarded as anything more than a cold war rather than a real feud. Let's look at (to my knowledge) their three WWF Championship matches.

Survivor Series 1992


Hart was the newly crowned WWF Champion after dethroning Ric Flair. In an exciting match Bret won by submission against and up and coming heel Shawn Michaels. Not much fanfare was given to the build up of this match, there was nothing particularly personal between the two men and although the match itself was good and both men clearly had great chemistry in the ring together we can't really view Michaels in this era as anything more than one from the factory line of heels that Hart was defeating at this stage.

Wrestlemania 12

Face vs. Face, the old warrior Hart standing in the way of Michaels winning his first WWF title and realising his boyhood dream. Although Hart was a necessary vehicle in putting over the angle of Michaels stepping up to be the man, this 'passing of the torch' angle didn't portray any great rivalry between the two men. This was of course in stark contrast of the situation backstage where neither men were willing to concede the first fall, culminating in a pretty drab match in my opinion. The fact Hart took a break after leaving Michaels as the main face of the WWF led to in my opinion on of the worst title runs of this era.

Survivor Series 97

Here we go then, Michaels bombed as a face and he's back in that self obsessed, egomaniac heel role he was so good at. Hart is back to set the record straight. The promos and commentary at this time reminded us of the genuine dislike between the two. Art imitating life. Although, did they really do enough on screen to promote this? Hart vs. Michaels was always on the back burner storywise, although we were reminded of these two they were both involved in other storylines, Hart vs. Canada, the birth of DX. Did the WWF ever really pull the trigger on a Hart Michaels feud and push that as the main storyline of the company?

For me the biggest let down is that there was too much mistrust and dislike between the two men to pull off a great rivalry. Let's assume the Montreal screwjob had never happened, the ending of that match was a proposed double DQ due to interference from DX and The Hart Foundation. What kind of pay off is that from a match '18 months in the making' as JR had described.

In my opinion people look back at this rivalry with rose tinted glasses. Yes we all know what it was really like behind the curtain, Yes we all felt super smart when Bret Hart knocked down the fourth wall in his promos, because we know what was really going on. But if we suspend disbelief, did we really get the payoff we deserve? 

In my eyes these two were the greatest wrestlers in their era and yet I think if we discard all the real life issues, what we saw on screen didn't really live up to the expectations. We could have had it so much better.

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Post by Mr H Thu 13 Jun 2013, 4:03 pm

I don't think many people do look at it through rose tinted glasses to be fair. I haven’t seen much praise for the fued over the years and think the general feeling agrees with you that their fued flopped. The best thing about their Iron Man match was Shawn Michael’s ring entrance, Bret probably rates it 3/10.   Dare I say they didn’t have the chemistry they should had and that in large has to be down to their real life relationship backstage. Chemistry goes a long way in making a great match. You don’t have to be the greatest wrestler in the world to put on a 5 star match if you have great chemistry with your opponent. See John Cena vs CM Punk MITB 2011. Unfortunately Hart and Michaels couldn’t put their differences aside for the sake of the business which is a shame because like you say it was a classic which never happened.

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Post by Dolphin Ziggler Thu 13 Jun 2013, 5:48 pm

It is usually reported as a feud of real life rather than wrestling. If you go by Bret's book then it was all down to Shawn who took unnecessary steps to protect himself but ruined the in-ring potential of the feud. How fair was Bret being in the book? Hard to tell, he claims he always ran ideas past Shawn for promos and was more than happy to put Shawn over in a long feud to make it a bigger deal. His version of events sees Shawn cast in an almost Hogan like role where he was too scared to lose to Bret and cut himself adrift from the rest of the dressing room, taking Bret's promos personally and "creating" an image of him that had him scared his crown was slipping and desperate to cut down Shawn.

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Post by Crimey Thu 13 Jun 2013, 6:21 pm

I think what has made it even more confusing is the slight break from kayfabe in WWE which has used their real life feud as the basis for television since the late 90s, but obviously hasn't distinguished it from their on-screen feud because in storyline terms there isn't that difference. This has put a new spin on how the history of those two in relation to each other is perceived.

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Post by crippledtart Thu 13 Jun 2013, 10:08 pm

Crimey's right - WWE has suggested over the last few years that they had a great kayfabe rivalry, which, as the OP points out, really isn't true.

I completely agree with the premise that, from a purely kayfabe point of view, the rivalry is massively overhyped.

It's true that a lot of informed fans are aware that the bigger feud was their backstage one, but I do think there are 'smart' fans out there who would rank it as a classic feud based on clouded judgment and WWE's rewriting of history.

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Post by theundisputedY2D2 Fri 14 Jun 2013, 9:34 am


From an on-screen point of view the Hart / Michaels feud is the feud that never was.
You had all the ingredients for an all-time classic between two of the greatest wrestlers ever but something just didn't click. The Iron Man match at Wrestlemania 12 was one of the biggest letdowns ever and I don't think it was strictly down to tension between the two (that came later).


Fast forward a few months and Shawn is struggling as WWF champion. Bret Hart makes his heroic return to the company and is scheduled to face HBK at Wrestlemania 13 but Shawn suffers a (disputed) knee injury and those plans are shelved. After that came the infamous backstage catfight in Hartford and there was little to no chance of them working a lengthy programme ever again. Then something happened in Montreal (can't remember what, but I'm sure it was significant Smile)


I think this feud would have been remembered differently if they'd just had a regular match at Wrestlemania 12 and if the rematch at Wrestlemania 13 as well as the planned rubber match at Summerslam 97 where Shawn would have regained the belt and been endorsed by the Hitman had taken place.


As it is, they were hamstrung by the fact they only had 1 fall to work with at WM12 and that the subsequent planned rematches never happened. As an aside, their match at Survivor Series 97 was building up nicely until the shenanigans took place, so it would have been interesting to see how it would have panned out. The proposed double DQ ending might have fallen a bit flat though!

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Post by Bonesaw's ready Fri 14 Jun 2013, 12:01 pm

My memory is a little hazy, could anyone tell me as to why they ended up making it an iron man match at WM12 (story line wise)?

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Post by theundisputedY2D2 Fri 14 Jun 2013, 1:18 pm

If I remember rightly Bonesaw it was simply a case of the acting WWF President Roddy Piper making the match an Iron Man match. I don't remember there being a specific series of events that lead him to making this announcement, I think it was just a case of "Let's really challenge these guys to see who's the best".

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Post by crippledtart Fri 14 Jun 2013, 1:51 pm

Yeah I think it was just because they were both great wrestlers and the WWF didn't have much depth so the card was pretty bare otherwise.

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Post by nasisillmatic Fri 14 Jun 2013, 1:59 pm

I must be in the minority, as I liked their Iron Man match.

I must agree though, this rivalry is bigged up due to the personal differences.

I think Bret Harts' best on-screen rivalry was Austin, by a long way.

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