DavidB6937 Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 12 hours ago, SuperBacon said: Watching Bret Hart in WCW is so fucking depressing. I never bothered at the time but I've caught some of it recently and I can see why I didn't bother in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Your Fight Site Posted October 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 20, 2020 I’ve just got to December ‘97 and yeah, underwhelming to say the least. The whole month was. Bret makes his debut on Nitro in a throwaway segment, and Sting returns to the ring after 18 months of build-up in a lacklustre match where he hardly gets any offence in and gets pinned clean after a single leg drop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 20, 2020 13 minutes ago, Your Fight Site said: I’ve just got to December ‘97 and yeah, underwhelming to say the least. The whole month was. Bret makes his debut on Nitro in a throwaway segment, and Sting returns to the ring after 18 months of build-up in a lacklustre match where he hardly gets any offence in and gets pinned clean after a single leg drop. I actually just watched that show on Sunday, having finished reading the '97 Observer yearbook. Bret trots out with barely any fanfare, to be the third most important man in an Eric Bischoff match, and then is involved in the fuckiest botched finish going. Even without his involvement in the main event, it would be generous to call it a damp squib - he could have been any ex-WWF midcarder, not their former top star and champion. Out of curiosity, I scrolled through the next few PPVs, and it's ridiculous how quickly he's just mucking about with the TV Title or not making the card altogether. He'd just been part of the most talked about finish in wrestling history, walked into WCW with a very real claim of still being the uncrowned WWF Champion, was still a focal point of WWF programming even after he left thanks to how often they referred back to Montreal, and should have been the most significant signing since Hogan. Instead, outside of War Games, he doesn't main event a PPV until November 1998, a full year after the Montreal Screwjob, and then not again for another year. It took him until '99 to win the World Title. Three singles main events in his entire run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted October 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 20, 2020 @BomberPat as a quick thought, do you think Bret was held back due to the existing lockeroom politics/egos not allowing him a top spot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted October 20, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted October 20, 2020 As somebody who was never really too fussed on Hart anyway id have rather not seen him there at all. Rather have seen more Mean Mike Enos to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members I Bent My Wookie Posted October 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 20, 2020 10 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: @BomberPat as a quick thought, do you think Bret was held back due to the existing lockeroom politics/egos not allowing him a top spot? Counter point maybe, but do you think its possible he was held back due to the way he finished his tenure with WWE? Could WCW have been worried about pushing him substantially and with any real gusto out of fear he'd take his ball and walk as soon as he could due to the way he walked out on WWE in the end? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 20, 2020 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: @BomberPat as a quick thought, do you think Bret was held back due to the existing lockeroom politics/egos not allowing him a top spot? I think that must be an element of it - he had heat with Hogan for not putting him over (though apparently after Montreal he was willing to entertain the idea that it was Vince responsible, and that Hogan was a scapegoat), heat with Flair over criticisms he'd made of him in the past, and presumably heat with Nash and Hall as they were Shawn Michaels' buddies. Even if there wasn't actual heat between him and the guys at the top of the card, he didn't have a ton of political allies there that would be looking out for him, and didn't fall into the Hogan, Nash or Flair cliques. It may be that, as Vince McMahon allegedly said to him, "WCW wouldn't know what to do with a Bret Hart". From his first appearances there, it seemed pretty clear that they didn't perceive him as a marquee talent. I don't know what WCW's coverage was like in Canada, but it may be that there weren't the financial rewards for featuring him prominently that there were for the WWF. And, in fairness to WCW, taking Bret's WCW run in isolation, it's hard to argue that he ever put in a performance deserving of a more substantial run than he got. He gave the impression of being mentally checked out and not wanting to be there more often than not, and I suspect that was true. He was also 40 years old, and maybe they just didn't see him as much of a long-term prospect at that point - though the fact that they weren't even able to capitalise on him in the short-term, when he was coming in with as much buzz and fan sympathy as anyone conceivably ever could, while the WWF were able to turn the corner and make huge money off the back of him getting screwed over even without him there, is pretty damning. 2 minutes ago, Shy Dad said: Counter point maybe, but do you think its possible he was held back due to the way he finished his tenure with WWE? Could WCW have been worried about pushing him substantially and with any real gusto out of fear he'd take his ball and walk as soon as he could due to the way he walked out on WWE in the end? It's hard to argue that he "walked out" on WWE, though. He had a clause in his contract that allowed him to leave early if he was unhappy, and Vince McMahon allowed him to use that clause to negotiate with WCW, alleging that he couldn't afford to pay him his going rate. There wasn't really any sense of "taking his ball and going home" - Michaels was far more guilty of that throughout 1996 and 1997 than Bret. They also brought in Warrior for an immediate main event run, who's far more of a problem worker in that respect than Bret ever was, and likely never made either company as much money as Bret did either. Edited October 20, 2020 by BomberPat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Cutting Edge Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Bret in WCW is odd, no momentum capitalized on from Montreal and a damp debut. I can't remember all the details and maybe they did but I'd have have both NWO and WCW bid for him to join them leading to his debut/contract signing at Starcade and going from there. Working mid card against Booker etc was great to help them but he should never have been near T.V. title, U.S at a push since it was such a stacked roster at the time. But after Montreal I think he'd checked out and heart wasn't in it anymore so instead of fighting for more he took his pay and got on with it. As history has shown the boys club wasn't letting new faces get on top without there say so, hence seeing similar combos for years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Your Fight Site Posted October 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 20, 2020 4 minutes ago, The Cutting Edge said: Bret in WCW is odd, no momentum capitalized on from Montreal and a damp debut. I can't remember all the details and maybe they did but I'd have have both NWO and WCW bid for him to join them leading to his debut/contract signing at Starcade and going from there. There sort of was, but only for about 5 minutes. I think the Nitro after Survivor Series, the nWo did a promo celebrating Bret as the newest member of the nWo, but it was then a few weeks before he actually showed up. When he did, it was in a throwaway interview with Mean Gene where he’s chosen by J.J. Dillion to referee Bischoff’s match again Zbysko at Starrcade, Bischoff insinuates he’s getting paid $7.5 million to be an nWo guy, and Bret essentially shrugs his shoulders and goes, “Meh” ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamura Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 7 hours ago, BomberPat said: He was also 40 years old, and maybe they just didn't see him as much of a long-term prospect at that point Only 40? That's a spring chicken on the WCW roster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted October 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 20, 2020 7 hours ago, PowerButchi said: As somebody who was never really too fussed on Hart anyway id have rather not seen him there at all. Rather have seen more Mean Mike Enos to be honest. Someone report Butch's account being hacked. The real Butch would have said Barry Darsow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted October 20, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted October 20, 2020 Only if it was that period when Darsow had a concussion and started to think he was Krusher Kruschev again. WCW C-shows >>>>> anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted October 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 20, 2020 3 hours ago, Tamura said: Only 40? That's a spring chicken on the WCW roster. Yeah. DDP was 41, Flair and Hogan approaching 50. Even Nash was 38 at the time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gmoney Posted October 21, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted October 21, 2020 I've been watching a bit of USWA from 1990. It's in clip form as its part of a collection of stuff from all over the world, but there's quite a lot of excellent stuff from here. How did the USWA work? It seems like they still have separate Texas and Memphis TV shows, and the talent is across both of them. Did viewers in Memphis get the Texas show and vice versa? Jerry Lawler appears to be feuding with about 12 people at once. He's currently had angles/matches or promos with Junkyard Dog, Jeff Jarrett, Kerry Von Erich, some goon called Nate, Mike Awesome, Bill Dundee and Jimmy Valiant. I'm only up to April! They're not concurrent either. It's a hell of a lot of fun, but seems like it would have been pretty difficult to keep track of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted October 21, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted October 21, 2020 Texas is the old WCCW. They had an angle after Jerry Jarrett bought them where the WCCW was destroying the territory so the USWA came in to save it with an awesome winner takes all cage match between Eric Embry and Phil Hickerson pretending to be Japanese. They ran pretty much paraell to each other for a year or so before Jarrett fucked it off and stayed in Memphis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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