In Your House

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz said:

Mental when you think that they replace Warrior with a guy who, at the time had a reputation of his own for disappearing and no showing

They were in a hole. At the time he thought it was a few extra cheques short term and didn’t know he’d be getting a new deal out of it.

I just like the symmetry from 91-92. Warrior was supposed to be on the road with Taker transitioning into a Jake program, then held Vince up so got canned and Sid started working Taker and Jake instead. Then in 92 Warrior comes back and is supposed to work Sid, but Sid gets pissed off with him and leaves, necessitating moving Papa Shango(!) from Taker to Warrior, leaving Taker with Berzerker.

Also weird after all these years to recall that Warriors last match in the WWF wasn’t the televised one with Owen but dark vs Vader the night after.

[Supremo]

One can only imagine the sense of satisfaction Vince must have felt with the reaction Sid gets at International Incident. Only brought Sid in as a replacement for Warrior, but the lad is so fucking over that they throw all their plans out the window and start building to him winning the belt at Survivor Series. Tell Vader, “it’s time! It’s time! It’s time to kiss your push goodbye!”

On the subject of Sid returning from softball season and completely stealing Vader’s push, I watched In Your House Final Four last night. I think it’s safe to say it’s the highlight of Vader’s WWF career. Fantastic match.

As a self-confessed Fed Head who didn’t see much of his WCW career or when he was Good In Japan™, I assume this is the Vader people used to rave about. He looks great here, bleeding a gusher. One of the few magazines I wasn’t embarrassed to buy in WH Smiths! Bleeding is cool!

Honestly, it’s one of the few good things I remember from Vader’s run. Other than this, all that ever comes to mind is him calling himself a fat piece of shit and Shawn Michaels stamping on his head mid-tantrum.

Other quick thoughts;

- It’s forever fascinating watching early 1997 how early they started portraying Bret Hart as a bitter moaner, constantly crying about being, “screwed.” A cynic would wonder if they did it on purpose for when they’d eventually screw him for real, the lousy bastards.

- 1996 to 1997 is probably Bret’s true prime. Everything he touches turns to gold. It’s a shame HBK was definitely not asked about putting him over at Wrestlemania 13 and definitely had a very real knee injury, because given Bret’s form at the time, they could have finally had a match that actually met both’s potential.

- The entire pay per view done and dusted in one hour forty five minutes! Bliss. I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.

Edited November 29, 2025 by Supremo

[air_raid]

43 minutes ago, Supremo said:

- 1996 to 1997 is probably Bret’s true prime. Everything he touches turns to gold. It’s a shame HBK was definitely not asked about putting him over at Wrestlemania 13 and definitely had a very real knee injury, because given Bret’s form at the time, they could have finally had a match that actually met both’s potential.

There is a timeline where Bret beats Shawn in a certified banger in 20-25 minutes without Iron Bore rules at Mania 13 to level the score and then in a later match loses to HBK (both still babyfaces) in a decider to really and definitively put Shawn over and “pass the torch” to him as Bret professes to wanting to do and laid out to his face prior to Mania 12. Which does, of course, eliminate Bret vs Austin and Bret’s heel turn from history.

For me, the one that got away was their intended plan in late spring/summer 97, before Vince decided Bret and Shawn could no longer coexist in his company - that the natural and logical culmination of Steve Austin’s meteoric rise in popularity was for him to win the WWF title from Bret at Mania 14. Ideally not the pre-Montreal version where Vince pitched Bret “to talk him into staying” where he loses the belt in December and wins it back from Shawn Raw after the Rumble. I think real dorks like me would have Bret vs Austin up there with Musawa vs Kawada or Musawa vs Kobashi in the legacy stakes if their match at Mania 14 could live up to the standards of Survivors 96 and Mania 13 (not forgetting the minor hit at IYH 14 too). Would have bookended the feud excellently and given Bret a good way to bow out and settle into the ambassador role (potentially future agent) he’d have taken. In that scenario, assuming Taker vs Kane was going to remain the plan, I wonder if HBK would have wrestled Bulldog with a shady finish to lead into the planned Davey getting the Euro belt back at the Nynex in April. They could have still had Owen vs Hunter too, under a Harts vs DX banner. It’s mad typing this, what a “winds of change” PPV Survivors 97 ended up being. It’s the only PPV where you’ve got Shawn, Bret, Owen and Bulldog wrestling as well as Stone Cold, proto-Rock, Kane and The New Age Outlaws, even though oddly the man that bridged New Generation and Attitude, The Undertaker, didn’t wrestle.

My prevailing question about the plan Vince laid out to Bret, was what the main of the Feb 98 In Your House would have been (to keep it thread-relevant) which he didn’t bring up. In Vince’s timeline where it’s Shawn vs Bret (ladder match, IIRC) at the Rumble for the title and not Shawn vs Taker, and Taker hasn’t found his way into a burning casket to write him out for a bit, I do Bret vs Shawn vs Taker in February to put a bit of a lid on what started at SummerSlam, with Rumble winner Austin awaiting the winner (Bret). Of course, they could have held off entirely on Taker vs Kane by that point and done a proper Taker vs Shawn blow off at Mania - underneath Bret vs Austin IV, what a one-two that is! You get even get the Outlaws into DX properly ahead of time and Outlaws vs Owen & Smithers for a tag title match. Force Hunter into the ICT match, Cactus vs Vader… I dunno. Possibilities are endless.

[Supremo]

This thread was always going to become a, “Bret Hart was the fucking best,” thread, but there is no greater example of how incredible Bret was, and how monumental that Wrestlemania 13 match was, than watching the absolute non-pop Stone Cold’s entrance gets in the Final Four match I posted above.

Even if you don’t watch the match, just go and watch that Stone Cold entrance for historical purposes.

It’s positively haunting that Stone Cold had the glass smashing music, but when it hits, no-one reacts. The immediate crowd shot looks like people waiting for a bus. You’d never believe the pandemonium that this same music would generate a year or so later!

Bret Hart vs. this Stone Cold still produced the greatest WWE match of all time, eventually creating one of their biggest stars ever.

The idea of Bret vs. Steve in 1998 or 1999, in his final form, blows my fucking mind.

They didn’t just screw Bret. They screwed us all. The lousy bastards.

[The Gaffer]

Heh, Austin's Final Four anti-pop sticks out in my memory from time to time too. I do think it was just one of those odd nights/crowds though. Whilst he wasn't a made man yet, he was definitely getting a decent amount of heel heat across the country from around the time he challenged Bret in 1996 onwards. The Final Four is deafening silence though. Up there with "Where's the lie?" 

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, The Gaffer said:

I do think it was just one of those odd nights/crowds though. 

I don’t hold anything against them after they had to watch THAT long a Leif Cassidy match.

[BarryOVega]

He only gets a polite response at Cold Day in Hell as well considering he was full on babyface by then, as pointed out above it’s bizarre seeing those entrances compared to the babies in the air a year later

[Chili]

I wonder with Austin if the more hardcore heel loving cities took to Austin first before other parts of the country accepted him, especially as though Bret turned heel, he was still beloved for years so maybe it was a gradual thing in other areas, or because at Cold Day in Hell he's booked against a very popular Undertaker. Probably bollocks, but I'm trying to figure it out. Maybe just shit crowds.

[wandshogun09]

On 11/29/2025 at 8:32 AM, Supremo said:

As a self-confessed Fed Head who didn’t see much of his WCW career or when he was Good In Japan™, I assume this is the Vader people used to rave about. He looks great here, bleeding a gusher.

Honestly, it’s one of the few good things I remember from Vader’s run. Other than this, all that ever comes to mind is him calling himself a fat piece of shit and Shawn Michaels stamping on his head mid-tantrum.

I’d throw in just a few more things.

1) The stuff with Gorilla Monsoon just after Vader’s debut at the Royal Rumble was fantastic, I thought. You could argue that old Gorilla refusing to back down might’ve hurt Vader a bit but I don’t think it did. It made Gorilla look brave but he ultimately still got fucked up and the whole thing made Vader feel like a truly dangerous ‘loose cannon’ type. Maybe early 96 was too soon for it but he could’ve had that Mike Tyson aura where he’s this unpredictable liability. But the shoulder injury hampered him and then he got bogged down in the feud with last legs Yoko and it cooled his hype right off. 

2) The match with ‘babyface for the night because it’s in the UK’ Owen at One Night Only. Loved that match and it was probably the closest Vader came to replicating the dynamic he had with Sting in their incredible series in WCW. Unlikely as you’d have thought Owen would be in that underdog fighting from underneath role at that time in 97.

3) I really liked the Shamrock match at ‘Cold Day In Hell’ as well. Felt a bit like Japan Vader. 

But yeah, those aside, there really wasn’t much positive to take from Vader’s WWF stay. As a big early 90s WCW fan, I was buzzing when he came in at the Rumble in 96 and couldn’t wait to see those dream matches with Bret, Shawn, Undertaker, Razor and even Diesel. Sadly none of the first four were ever quite what they could/should have been and the Diesel one never even happened despite them teasing something before the Rumble. Probably for the best we never got that one though. But yeah, ‘Final Four’ was definitely Vader’s finest hour in the WWF. It’s kind of his version of Goldberg in the Elimination Chamber at SummerSlam 2003 (before Hx3 ruined it) in that it was the one time when they actually presented Vader as the monster we thought we were getting when he debuted.

On 11/29/2025 at 8:32 AM, Supremo said:

- 1996 to 1997 is probably Bret’s true prime. Everything he touches turns to gold. It’s a shame HBK was definitely not asked about putting him over at Wrestlemania 13 and definitely had a very real knee injury, because given Bret’s form at the time, they could have finally had a match that actually met both’s potential.

Yeah Bret’s talked a fair bit about wishing him and Shawn could’ve had more matches. I’ve always felt like the ‘screwjob’ match at Survivor Series was shaping up to be maybe their best match, certainly better than the ‘Ironman’ match, but the ending rendered what came before instantly forgettable. Obviously we’ve already mentioned the endless possibilities for more stuff with Austin through 98 and 99, which no doubt would’ve been amazing. Even Bret vs Undertaker, I feel like there was more meat left on that bone. They didn’t have great chemistry when they were wrestling each other in early 96 but by summer 97 when Bret was heading for the door, they had their matches down close to perfection. Loved both the SummerSlam and One Night Only matches before Bret left. And of course, who knows what Bret could’ve got out of The Rock, Mankind and even Shamrock in PPV headliners in 98/99. We missed out on all that for stuff like Bret vs Van Hammer on Nitro.

20 hours ago, air_raid said:

Of course, they could have held off entirely on Taker vs Kane by that point and done a proper Taker vs Shawn blow off at Mania - underneath Bret vs Austin IV, what a one-two that is! You get even get the Outlaws into DX properly ahead of time and Outlaws vs Owen & Smithers for a tag title match. Force Hunter into the ICT match, Cactus vs Vader… I dunno. Possibilities are endless.

Jesus Fuck.

Edited November 30, 2025 by wandshogun09

[air_raid]

I just realised, I’m holding off on Taker vs Kane (presumably Taker still refusing to fight his brother) then thinking what to do with Foley since I’ve displaced him from my tag title match and… Cactus Jack vs original version Kane is right there.

[Tennessee Moltisanti]

And would the build to Mania 14 not have made more sense with Vince bringing Tyson in to protect his clean cut, corporate champion, in Bret? Rather than Vince having a beef with Austin and HBK at the same time as two anti-authority figures?

Because Tyson's involvement in the finish didn't make any sense, he had no reason to count the pin and lay out HBK. At least if it was Bret, they could play off the fact that Tyson was a loose cannon and not a corporate puppet.

[The Gaffer]

It shows how powerful the screwjob altered the course of the business that I'm having trouble effectively imagining Bret as the corporate champ. 

It doesn't square, for me. Bret's anti Attitude Era but even as a heel there's still an intrinsic integrity to his character that'd be anti the bosses corporate champion as well. It doesn't help that he's already pretty much turned on Vince on screen in early 97 when he pushed him down in that cage. 

He could do WrestleMania sort of shadow-backed by Vince but anything beyond that would be watering down the character for me. Bret's either got to be standing alone or de-facto leading whatever faction he's in. 

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, The Gaffer said:

It doesn't square, for me. Bret's anti Attitude Era but even as a heel there's still an intrinsic integrity to his character that'd be anti the bosses corporate champion as well. It doesn't help that he's already pretty much turned on Vince on screen in early 97 when he pushed him down in that cage.

Plus in July when Bret was already a heel they had a tussle with Vince at the comms desk getting pulled around by the lapels. They were less than cordial on screen.

[tiger_rick]

2 hours ago, The Gaffer said:

It shows how powerful the screwjob altered the course of the business that I'm having trouble effectively imagining Bret as the corporate champ. 

Agree, however if Bret never goes, the whole "corporate" aspect possibly doesn't come about so you'd instead have Bret as the last bastion of traditional wrestling against the sweeping attitude of the WWF. Vince was very much the architect of the attitude era on screen, off the back of the screwjob but you could easily reframe that. I think the biggest problems would be a) Shawn - as always - the bloke was a coked up cockend. b) Bret had already been overshadowed massively since SummerSlam by the Taker/Shawn feud and formation of DX and having Vince/Austin become the obvious direction over him would have meant about 8 months of him feeling second rate. 

It all worked out perfectly for everyone but Bret so hard to rebook but I think the best scenario is the WCW move being a rumour, the screwjob being a work, Bret having a breather for 6 months and then coming back once Austin was established to give him some great title defences and eventually put him over. The Bret turning face to work with all the upcoming talent. It's a salivating prospect. He'd have got fired around 2003 for choking out Triple H in the lockerroom.

[BomberPat]

something Dave Meltzer wrote not long after the Screwjob was that so much of the fighting between Shawn and Bret over who was going to be the biggest star in the company was all rendered a bit ridiculous, as they were both so caught up in that argument that neither of them could see that Steve Austin was on the cusp of eclipsing both of them. 

I think you get to Vince as a heel character sooner or later even without the screwjob - he was clearly desperate to do it, and had done the heel run in Memphis in 1993 - but maybe it takes a little longer to get to the idea of Corporate Champions. I can definitely see how it would play out as more of an Attitude vs. Traditionalism thing, even if that's a bit of a retread of what Bret had already been doing.

I think, realistically, Bret would be on the wane as a top attraction anyway, and assuming that Bret sticking around after Survivor Series wouldn't have affected Shawn Michaels' creative direction all that much, Shawn would still go down to the back injury and be out of the picture. Maybe that means pivoting back to Austin vs. Bret, or maybe it means the Harts staying DX's natural opponents for a little while longer. But I can't really picture a WWF of 1998 into 1999 where Bret is being gradually transitioned down the card into midcard programmes, unless business got shaky enough to hotshot the belt back on to him - and with Austin on top, that seems unlikely.