McMahon rips off a superstar yet again
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First, a little history on that event before I tell you about the Music City version in which I was, indirectly as it may be, the victim of another Vince McMahon double-cross.
The Montreal incident happened on the last night Bret Hart was to be in a WWE ring, a match which was in front of his home crowd in Montreal. Declining revenues prompted by the WWE’s losing, at the time, of the Monday Night Wars WCW prompted McMahon to give Hart his release since he was under a rich contract. Hart, although wanting to stay with WWE, took the $3 million WCW offer.
However, with his leaving came a problem; that being, how to get the World Championship transferred before he left to work for Eric Bischoff at WCW. Hart flatly refused to lose to HBK in Canada. Meanwhile, McMahon did not trust the Hitman to return the night after the match and surrender the title belt. In the past, WWE title belts had shown up on WCW when wrestlers crossed companies, something which was humiliating to McMahon.
With that in mind, McMahon devised a plan. During meetings before the match, McMahon told Hart the match would end in a no-contest with Davey Boy Smith and Jim the Anvil Neidhart, Hart’s allies, jumping HBK to get a disqualification. However, McMahon secretly conspired with Hebner and HBK (and even Triple H at the time) to double-cross Hart during the match.
What happened, even as Hart’s buddies were waiting to charge the ring from the back, was that as HBK had Hart locked into a sharpshooter, Hebner called for the bell as if Hart had tapped out. What was supposed to happen was that the hold was supposed to be broken and then Hart’s buddies were to take to the ring. Hart immediately knew what happened as HBK hurriedly left the ring with the belt, prompting the Hitman to spit in the face of McMahon. Michaels would deny involvement but years later confess to being in on the conspiracy.
The incident would continue as the Canadian fans nearly rioted, realizing what had happened. Meanwhile Hart punched McMahon backstage, the altercation leaving McMahon with a black eye and a broken ankle from where Pat Patterson stepped on him during the fight.
In the end, the incident would usher in the Attitude Era on WWE as their ratings went up while Hart’s career spiraled downward at WCW. And, to this day, aside from accepting induction in the WWE Hall of Fame, Hart has little to nothing to do with WWE.
Okay, granted my double-cross this past Sunday at Opry Mills Mall was not nearly as career-threatening, but it was still irritating.
What happened is that I was with friends at the Wrestlemania Fan Axxess Tour at the mall, which is a free event put on by WWE where you get to meet wrestlers and take part in fun events. By the way, we got to meet Hillbilly Jim ‘ although he stopped short of doing his old country dance he used to do.
Anyway, during this event there was a contest where people would do their best impressions of a WWE Superstar. I chose to do ‘Missssstttter Kennnnnneddddy,’ and let me tell you something brother, I rocked. I even did the lowering of the microphone and the extra ‘Kennedy’ at the end.
The other contestants did weak versions, including a guy who tried to do the Rock. While bald with sunglasses, his version was horrible as I was smelling something at the time, but not what the Rock was cooking. Then, it came down to fan applause for the winner. My applause, and ask anyone who was with me, was much louder than anyone else’s. Yet, when the moderator came back to break it down to two, he did the Rock and then he went to this guy standing beside me who didn’t even get any applause for his horrible McMahon impression. How could this happen?
I’ll tell you how. Vince decided Montreal wasn’t enough. He decided to pull the old double-cross on Duane in Music City.