Did Bret Hart bring the Screwjob situation on himself?

[sikkbones]

There were posters leaked advertising HOgan vs. Hart for Summerslam. Also I'm from Detroit(where Summerslam 93 took place) and it was advertised on the radio and TV as late as June to "come watch Hulk Hogan take on Bret the Hitman Hart". I'm sure Vince's plans were to have Hogan win but I don't doubt for a second that he told Hart that he was going over.

Also where does this not a draw come from? Bret's live gates always outdrew the other show that he wasn't on, PPV's headlined by Bret were always higher than the years without him, when Bret became a focal point of Raw regularly in 97(before that he would only be featured here and there) Raw put up their highest ratings ever to that point. Hell in 95 he was headlining house shows with Jean Pierre Lafit and they were outdrawing shows with the WWE title on them.

Even as bad as he was booked in WCW he was still drawing ratings for them. Meltzer breaks down quarter hour ratings and ratings for individual wrestlers. And in 98-99 Bret brought a plus 2.42 when he was on TV. Only Goldberg, Flair and Hogan were higher.

Also Meltzer breaks down all the gate receipts and merch sales and for the decade of the 90s the only wrestlers from WCW and WWE to draw more money than Hart were Flair and Hogan.

Detriot? What's directly across the river? There's a good chance that hart would have won the match because at that time you had detriot, Hamilton and Toronto being the official Southern Ontario stops for the Canadian fanbase here.

I think Hogan knew he'd be booked in a heavily Canadian influenced city at the time and this is why he chose not to lose to Bret.

I do think that Bret would have went over in Detriot

 

[redapple]

No, I don’t think Bret brought it on himself, the blame goes to WWE. According to Pritchard, Bret was shooting down the ideas but claims Bret wasn’t coming up with any ideas...which is completely untrue.

Bret told Vince he would drop the title to a number of different wrestlers such as Shamrock, Undertaker, even Lombardi! WWE wants to play it like Bret was not going to drop the title to anyone which is a lie. Bret understood the business, he grew up in it, and had no issues dropping the title he just didn’t want to drop it to an ungrateful POS like HBK.

In the end, Bret even conceded and said he wouldn’t drop it to HBK in Montreal but as a compromise he would drop it to HBK in Detroit. I 100% believe that Bret would have dropped it in Detroit if he had to. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t as long as Montreal was an NC or DQ finish.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

The weird thing about this situation is that it'S been talk about for so many years and yet, we still don'T know anything about why this happened or who's idea it was because everybody is telling a different version of the fact . So i would base my answer on something that Bret said on Off the record a few weeks after the screwjob happened. In the interview he talk about the scenario he propose to vince where he would win by DQ against Shawn in Montreal and the following day in Ottawa he would drop the belt to Shamrock so that shamrock could drop the belt to HBK at the next PPV. He was ready to do business and drop the title but just not to HBK who at the time was a prick and told him if the role were reverse he wouldn't put him over.

So in the end i don't think Bret brought the screwjob on himself. Yes i saw the business a lot more seriously then other guys in the locker room , and he still does to this day, but he would have done what's right for business if Vince wasn't paranoid about Bret not being a man of his word and going to WCW with the title like Madusa did a year earlier.

 

[pokotadisa]

The strange thing about this conversation is that the supposedly 20 mil deal Bret had had with McMahon/the WWF WAS the problem, so how could Bret expect McMahon to make a commitment towards him when he 192.168.100.1 192.168.1.1 jpg to pdf wasn't seemingly wanting to budge from that supposed deal? (unless that deal never existed)

 

[ElDuderino]

I don't think he brought it on himself at all... Bret agreed to tear up a contract that had already been signed. For this simple fact, the WWF should have been the one to compromise with him on his way out. Having said that, Bret thinking he could just handover the title on an episode of Monday Night Raw and then "walk off into the sunset" was a little foolhardy.

In recent years the added wrinkle to the story is Bruce Pritchard claiming that they gave Bret multiple options including Austin and Shamrock but he turned them all down. Bret on the other hand says he would have happily dropped the belt to either of those guys. It's too bad Wrestling With Shadows didn't show us more footage surrounding these negotiations, it might have given fans a little more clarity on what actually happened.

I think it would have been cool if Bret would have dropped the belt to Owen. There's no way the Hart Foundation would have continued after Bret left anyway and they knew Owen was staying so why not conclude the whole story with Bret turning on his brother, dropping the belt and then leaving for WCW?