Quote:
Originally Posted by CSL
to be quick, you left out:
-Bret had a certain level of creative control over the final 30 days of his contract, something Vince agreed to when they signed the 20 year deal
-Bret had a month left on his contract after Montreal, his final scheduled date was the following PPV or the RAW after, something they specifically negotiated with Bischoff/WCW to allow Bret to drop the belt
-Due to the ongoing lawsuits between WWE and WCW stemming from the likeness/copyright/intellectual property with Hall and co, there isn't a chance WCW would ever have had Bret show up with the belt on their TV show. They'd have been sued into oblivion
-Bret was willing to put anybody else over before or after Montreal/the Canada trip. He even was willing to put Shawn over at the following PPV despite the fact that...
-Shawn (then at the height of his "off the rails" period) point blank told Bret to his face he wasn't willing to ever put him over, which led to the initial hesitance on Bret's part (as well as admittedly taking the whole Canada schtick a bit too seriously) to drop the belt to Shawn at all
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Sorry I thought you were talking about the New Day convo.
Trust me my man, I know every painful detail about this story from everyone who was there (well at least what they said publically).
I understand that Bret had "reasonable creative control". To me its reasonable and professional to JOB to one guy of the company's choosing prior to leaving.
Bret to me last all credibility in his documentary when he said losing in Montreal would be like the character blowing his brains out in the middle of the ring. Theres no other way to describe that line of thinking than batshit crazy. Imagine if Nash had said the same about putting over Taker clean at 12.
The issue about showing up with the title was moot. It wouldn't matter if he showed up with the physical belt, he would have already announced he was leaving on TV (that was Bret's idea), so as a fan, and subsequent loss would have looked phony.
There's no doubt Vince created an issue by signing the deal he did, but if I were Vince, I would have thought asking Bret to put over ONE top talent was within reason. And it's impossible to argue it wasn't reasonable. If Vince would have asked Bret to drop the strap to Chyna in Montreal, I could see a beef with that. But this was Shawn, Bret should have been a pro and just put over Shawn and walked into the sunset. His ego got in the way of good business.