Bret's arguably biggest problem in WCW is that he was going from a place where one of the biggest politicians in the business was in Shawn Michaels, to an a place with an ever BIGGER politician in Hulk Hogan, as well as where two of Shawn's best friends in Hall & Nash. There was no way he was going to get a decent shake in WCW.
@@shappah221 Bret, Sting, Booker T , Goldberg and DDT V NWO ( Hogan, Nash, Scott Hall, Scott Steiner , Syxx, The Giant and a 2-3 mid carders and lower mid carders)
@@EssexAggiegrad2011 Booker had been getting pushed as an individual wrestler as far back as 1997, he had great matches with Benoit in that Best Of 7 US Title Series which inspired the WWE to do the same thing again 8 years later. If WCW had pushed Booker far earlier than they did, even before Russo came in they could have had a very good chance at survival.
GigaWolf5 Yeah, that was definitely part of it. Also, I think their roster was so big that it ending up hurting the show. There were a bunch of "meaningless" matches that made the show boring because only the top guys were involved in storylines.
Poor Bret, seriously he was respected and well liked by all accounts backstage and in the ring, but he just couldn't adjust with the new era being promoted, that just wasn't him, he liked being the hero. Then Owen died, plus the concussion, plus the stroke, plus the overall pain of being a wrestler. I respect him.
Because he was finding the backstage politics tiresome and he was being disrespected a lot. You remember the promo where he exploded with a fit of rage, that wasn't just a work.
You answered your own question, WCW was killing WWF in ratings and income. WCW was handing out millions to almost everybody in the roster while WWF was having financial problems, also Bret hated the change to the Attitude era.
The wwf could not afford his contract, that's the explanation they give, but to be a conspiracy theorist, I think they liked Bret and knew that they weren't going to be using this guy as much for the attitude era (burying him), so they just let him go, WWF figured it would be less money, his heel work wasn't the best anyway, he was never a good talker.
You're wrong, he wasn't going to be the biggest name In the WWF anymore, especially with the rise of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bret WAS seen as a hot commodity to EVERYBODY except for the WWF because of what happened at Survivor Series, so he went over to WCW where he would get paid more, and because of what happened to him at Survivor Series he figured that he would be used a lot more anyway and for better, which would be fair to assume. WCW just mishandled him.
You'd be surprised, those were big names in WCW but fans were definitely getting tired of them, people were getting tired of Bret too, like I said a big part of why he was so relevant was due to the screw job, it made him fresh again and more relevant than ever. Most of those guys in WCW had something to do with the NWO, and that was definitely dying down, it wasn't seen as so edgy anymore and everyone knew it was a work, the Montreal screw job, either work or shoot, was PERCEIVED as being 100% real at the time, making it even more edgy, more to capitalize on.
Bret Hart should have been placed in a feud with Hogan right from the start over the WCW World title. WCW could have toured all over the world with this main event and grew the company
The NWO just had too many major players in it to make the storyline compelling... it’s like if the US, Russia, China, Great Britain, North Korea, and Germany all teamed up to fight a war against Australia
@@brandonpage7087 Hogan probably did that on purpose, as a way to keep Bret in line underneath him, one less guy who could steal his spotlight, plus from everything I've heard he never respected Bret whatsoever
TNA would have given Bret multiple world title runs, and against great competition (Kurt, AJ and Samoa Joe all in their mid-2000s primes, rather than their old asses today).
Lol. yeah Patrick took ref bumping to an art, had lots of practice in WCW. I remember seeing a slow mo shot of him taking turnbuckle bump and the look on his face going down like a sac of potatoes was hilarious. imagine him in TNA? The amount they throw refs around he could perform Shakespearean bump scenes.
How WCW should've booked Bret Hart: First make him come in as a hero and keep his momentum he had from the screwjob. His target is to destroy WWE by drawing ratings dor WCW wich is realistic. People understand that. So his first target is to save WCW from the NWO. Hogan just lost the title (CLEAN) to Sting at Starrcade. Bret confronts the NWO and gets into a the feud with them. Just before Souled Out he gets support by Sting and Randy Savage. They defeat the NWO in a 6 men tag match at Souled Out with Bret pinning Hall. At the next PPV Hart faces sting in a fair face vs face match for the title but loses. On a Nitro episode Nash wins the title and drops him to Hogan in a Fatal 4 Way (Sting, Hart, Nash, Hogan) at the next PPV. At the following PPVs Hart defeats Nash and Hall before facing Hogan at The American Bash for the title. But again he isn't able to win the big gold in WCW beacause od NWO shennanigans. On the next Nitro he goes on a rampage on every NWO member backstage so Bischhoff has a reason to fire him. Bret takes time off to heel from injuries at this place beacause its fits better to the Story. Just before Starrcade 98 he comes back to face the Champion Goldberg for the title he won on Halloween Havoc (CLEAN) from Hogan. In the build up to the Starrcade match Bret shows a very aggressiv side beacause he isn't able to win gold in WCW. In the match with Goldberg it looks like Bret is just to weak to do it but then Hall and Nash interfere and help Hart defeating Goldberg (and the streak). On Nitro they kick Hogan out of the NWO. He is the new leader! In following year Hart can have great matches with babyface challengers like DDP, Booker T, Chris Benoit, Savage and Sting. until he vacates the title beacause of the Owen Hart tragody. The returning yellow-orange Hulkster wins a tournament for the title in a tournament. Just before Starrcade 99 Bret returns. He gets the role of a 'justified heel'. He got mistreated in the past by the WWF and by Hulk Hogan (do you remember?). They build a very personal feud up between Hulk and Bret ending with Bret tapping out Hogan in the Main Evenr of Starrcad in the Sharpshooter and winning the title.
I'll be fair and say that bringing Bret into the fold of what they were doing was really difficult, but mostly because Hogan didn't want to feud with him (even after Bret's run as the top guy in the whole business). It's not like Bret signed and showed up unexpectedly the very next day. They knew he was coming, and they still didn't have anything planned. WCW ran their show like that, though. They'd bring in tons of talent without a plan for how to use them. Bret should have showed up, done his anti-WWE ranting, then turned his full attention to Hogan. They never should have gotten along on-screen at all. Not even as a heel. The steel plate was the only great thing Bret did in WCW. It was masteful.
I started watching wrestling in 1999. I remember hearing so much about Bret Hart, how he was the greatest in ring wrestler ever and all this other stuff. But I had never actually seen him wrestle. I even had an action figure of him. Watching these old shows now, I see how much I missed out. Bret was truly amazing, it’s a shame his career was cut short.
Wrestling With Wregret I've been rewatching the channel as I go to sleep recently so I've caught a couple things I didn't see the first time. Keep up the great work man!
Your channel is so underrated. 155k subscribers is a crime. This is such a good and detailed channel and got me back into wrestling in 2016!! Keep up the good work Brian!
Facts, he could have been a top main eventer in WCW but nope they kept him as either a supporting person, a person who was there or a filler mid-carder.
I don't entirely understand how you can drop the ball on Bret Hart. You have your chief rival's top guy who is not only one of the most reliable and best technicians of all time, but is just coming off arguably, the single most controversial incident ("The Montreal Screwjob") in years if not in the entire history of the business, and you treat him like an upper midcard talent at best instead of an immediate main eventer for most of his run.
I wonder what would happen if he actually took time to heal after the kick from Goldberg instead of continuing to wrestle heavily concussed. Yeah, we can blame a botchy move for ending his career but he wrestled in 3-4 matches after that didn't he?
According to the Death of WCW book WCW management cut the pay of injured wrestlers in half basically forcing wrestlers to come back before they were ready usually leading to them being injured again.
i wonder if bret never had stroke would he have heeled and made a comeback a few years later. edge and daniel bryane made comeback few years later and they concussions too
I'd like to see more WCW stuff, as a kid I was a WWF fan but here in Australia wrestling was sometimes hard to come by until around 1998, so I often watched WCW out of pure thirst for wrestling, but I always asserted that WWF was better, these days however I look at what they were doing and I can respect it and I'm having lots of fun rediscovering WCW and seeing it with mature eyes, especially around the time WWF was going through their ridiculous "New Generation" Phase which saw some of the worst gimmicks tried out (Repo Man anyone?) When WCW were hitting their stride with supposed washed up wrestlers like Hogan and Savage.
The Repo Man was hilariously awesome and the skits he did were good. Even if all he ever was is a low low card heel I'll never not like him. Now Mantaur on the other hand.
notyoursavior78 To be fair WCW had some pretty stupid gimmicks (That silver Stormtrooper thing) but for the most part they were ahead of WWF right up until the attitude era.
PhatGirlLuva68-ThelastOG Oh yes I never said there were no bad gimmicks in WCW (Mrs Bagwell anyone?) but when WWF were full of bad gimmicks WCW were doing more reality based storylines.
Well they did, guys like DDP, Goldberg, Booker T, and even Chris Jericho made names for themselves in WCW, not to mention guys like Benoit and Eddie Guerrero first received national attention in WCW as well. The problem was that unlike in WWF, the old guard like Hogan never went away so that any of those other guys could have reached the top.
The Cat was a total botch bro. I respect his Martial Arts background, but he didn't pay his dues and his promos were cringy at best. WCW had a habit of pushing raw talent with minimal wrestling training and absolutely no experience.
Speaking of Chad Fortune, he's one of two people who switched from wrestling to driving monster trucks when WCW started running trucks with the USHRA Monster Jam tour, the other one was Madusa... Madusa obviously drove her own truck, but I'm not sure if Fortune drove the nWo truck or the Nitro Machine truck (the other trucks being the Sting truck and the Goldberg truck which is actually still racing as Maximum Destruction, and by still racing I mean it still uses the "futuristic suv" body and is driven by Tom Ments)
It's always great to see a new video on your channel. Always seems like you come up with something new to these videos and feels so fresh. Keep up the good work!
Bret in the WWF=The best there is, was, and ever will be! Bret in WCW=The kick from Goldberg said it all! Wasted! I think Bret Hart became extremely depressed after he went to WCW. Vince, Shawn, and Triple H should have handled the situation better. Although Bret was in WCW during Owen's death, I think that also played a role in his depression when he was there. Bret Hart got the same treatment as Steve Austin, Vader, Marc Mero, and Syxx (X-Pac), just to name a few wrestlers that got fired from WCW via FedEx. If only Bret and Shawn had gotten along, the Montreal Screwjob wouldn't have taken place. #loyalwregretter #Z-A-N-E #fellowaspies P.S. 13 year old Zane definitely had a bone to pick with both the WWF and WCW! LOL! To think I was 16 when the Screwjob took place!
i think if it weren't for the screwjob, there wouldn't be an attitude era. bret should have done the honors & drop the title to hbk & putting over austin at wm14. he would still be in the wwf as a part timer or having small run as champion (just like the rock in 2013) in the attitude era which would be great.
His heel run in 1998-1999 was awesome though. Yeah, maybe he should have been in the world title picture, but he did have some great moments with guys like DDP and Booker T. He was booked well as someone who should be feared and wanted to force people into retirement.
Clue references never get old. Quality video as always Zane.Also, MAD TV cast mates turning heel on each other. Until you brought that up, my brain had purged that from it's memory.
Me too, I gotta stop smoking that much tho. And WCW was a clusterfuck, nobody and nothing alone was at fault, there was critical failure in so many areas.
Great vid! Huge Bret Hart fan, and I have to agree with most of what Brian said. I believe he had one more appearance that wasn't mentioned, a WCW PPV in Kitchener Ontario. Too lazy to wiki it. And technically his last match was in WWE, the awful WM27 match vs Vince McMahon Also mention or a clip of Bret's "El Dandy Promo" would have made this a 10/10 And I kinda marked out when the Mayhem PPV was brought up. Was a great PPV for WCW, and Bret also had a great match with Sting that night. Can finally prouldy say "I was there"! Me and a few buds stole our folks truck and drove the 8hours to see the WWE Houseshow at SkyDome the night before and the WCW PPV the sunday. Also met of all people Chris Benoit at a Pizza Pizza that day, even made he and Nancy laugh. Thanks for the great content Brian, excellent as usual!
Dude I love how you just have random topics like this. Such a great topic that doesn't get touched on enough, and you do a great job educating those (like myself) who might not know everything about it. Huge fan, Brian! Please keep doing these!
Good commentary Brian. That "shell of himself" statement from Bishoff is blullshit. Bret didn't look like a shell when he was tearing the house down w Benoit, Booker T, & even DDP. I was wondering where did that piece of footage of HBK having BRET in the Sharpshooter come from? Looks like it was shot from the aisle where the entrance would be. Is it from WWShawdows? TY
You should do more of this type of series. So many wrestlers during the monday night wars that went back and forth with two different companies that were misused. I think the next one you should do is with Goldust when he went back to WCW.
Always enjoyed your missed opportunities videos, and this one was the most interesting as I have very little viewing experience of WCW. I thought the metal plate angle was badass, but can't believe how much they botched the rest of his run. Shame he got hurt before he could really flourish.
Fun Fact: Will Sasso would also parody and 'face off' with Stone Cold Steve Austin. I'm pretty sure the Bret Hart/Sasso 'feud' actually started with Bret still in the WWF and then floated over to WCW later on. I'm pretty sure Sasso did a skit about Bret when he was WWF champion or something.
As an avid fan of WCW during the Monday Night War, I still remember that the 4/20/98 edition of Nitro was the night when Goldberg's streak went to 75-0 after he defeated Raven for the U.S. Title. Of course, this was also the night when Nash set the gears in motion for the formation of NWO Wolfpack.
For those of you who weren't around at the time or just didn't watch WCW, imagine seeing The Undertaker or John Cena in TNA. Weird, right? Well Bret Hart in WCW wasn't quite as bizarre as that but it was up there. I compare it to Eric Bischoff's Raw debut for the fans who watched in that era. It was just not something we thought we'd see. Bret seemed like a WWF guy through and through. If anything we expected Michaels to jump ship but not Bret. Never Bret.
Personal tragedies aside, you have to remember too that Bret went to WCW just as their downward spiral began. It was a serious case of "wrong place, wrong time".
When it cut to 1997 Brian, I couldn't stop laughing at how perfect his specs were for this time period, as if he kept them in a safe just for this moment
I know someone mentioned this in the Mayhem review, but the finish of Bret's match with Benoit made the intro of Malcolm in the Middle, making that the third Fox show Hart was involved with (and the second in 1999 (though Malcolm in the Middle didn't start until 2000, the clip of Bret is from '99)
enjoyed seeing Bret wrestle many wrestlers I would have never seen him fight against in the WWF like Booker T, DDP, Luger, sting, Macho Man, and as some of the other up-and-coming wrestlers
I would have to respectfully disagree that Bret Hart could have been used well in WCW. Better? Maybe. But well? No. He just didn't fit in with what WCW had become. What made Bret Hart good in WWF was his built up rivalries with WWF original characters like Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Stone Cold etc. His character in WWF just jived better with the characters in WWF. It's like if Sting joined the WWF in 1997 and tried to all of the sudden have some beef and match with Stone Cold. Would that have been a cool match to watch? Probably. But what would really be behind it? Most fans don't realize it's not so much the matches themselves that make a good match, it's what happened prior to the matches, the build up, the messing with your emotions and all that jazz. He just didn't fit in with the aesthetics of WCW.
Bret's arguably biggest problem in WCW is that he was going from a place where one of the biggest politicians in the business was in Shawn Michaels, to an a place with an ever BIGGER politician in Hulk Hogan, as well as where two of Shawn's best friends in Hall & Nash.
There was no way he was going to get a decent shake in WCW.
At least in WWF VInce got the ultimate word... sadly that word was "I am going with Shawn, Bret... good luck!"
Exactly
Bret & Sting should've been the combo that tipped the scale against the NWO.
Bret, Sting, and Booker T vs the NWO
@@shappah221 Bret, Sting, Booker T , Goldberg and DDT V NWO ( Hogan, Nash, Scott Hall, Scott Steiner , Syxx, The Giant and a 2-3 mid carders and lower mid carders)
@@shappah221 Booker T didn't become a main eventer until 2000
@@EssexAggiegrad2011 Booker had been getting pushed as an individual wrestler as far back as 1997, he had great matches with Benoit in that Best Of 7 US Title Series which inspired the WWE to do the same thing again 8 years later. If WCW had pushed Booker far earlier than they did, even before Russo came in they could have had a very good chance at survival.
To he fair Bret has Said his mind wasn't right. He lost a lot of love for wrestling and then Owen dying. Bret was a shadow of him former self
I think the main problem of WCW was that everyone was turning on each other to the point that the shock factor was all but gone.
GigaWolf5 ya. It seemed like everyone had more turns than Big Show in WWE. Kinda got to the point I only watched in hopes of seeing Daffney.
GigaWolf5 Yeah, that was definitely part of it. Also, I think their roster was so big that it ending up hurting the show. There were a bunch of "meaningless" matches that made the show boring because only the top guys were involved in storylines.
its John a clock
Darkness Induced Audience Apathy.
SteamyLinguini because hogan, nash and scott are retards that got lucky.
Poor Bret, seriously he was respected and well liked by all accounts backstage and in the ring, but he just couldn't adjust with the new era being promoted, that just wasn't him, he liked being the hero. Then Owen died, plus the concussion, plus the stroke, plus the overall pain of being a wrestler. I respect him.
Because he was finding the backstage politics tiresome and he was being disrespected a lot. You remember the promo where he exploded with a fit of rage, that wasn't just a work.
You answered your own question, WCW was killing WWF in ratings and income. WCW was handing out millions to almost everybody in the roster while WWF was having financial problems, also Bret hated the change to the Attitude era.
The wwf could not afford his contract, that's the explanation they give, but to be a conspiracy theorist, I think they liked Bret and knew that they weren't going to be using this guy as much for the attitude era (burying him), so they just let him go, WWF figured it would be less money, his heel work wasn't the best anyway, he was never a good talker.
You're wrong, he wasn't going to be the biggest name In the WWF anymore, especially with the rise of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bret WAS seen as a hot commodity to EVERYBODY except for the WWF because of what happened at Survivor Series, so he went over to WCW where he would get paid more, and because of what happened to him at Survivor Series he figured that he would be used a lot more anyway and for better, which would be fair to assume. WCW just mishandled him.
You'd be surprised, those were big names in WCW but fans were definitely getting tired of them, people were getting tired of Bret too, like I said a big part of why he was so relevant was due to the screw job, it made him fresh again and more relevant than ever. Most of those guys in WCW had something to do with the NWO, and that was definitely dying down, it wasn't seen as so edgy anymore and everyone knew it was a work, the Montreal screw job, either work or shoot, was PERCEIVED as being 100% real at the time, making it even more edgy, more to capitalize on.
Bret Hart should have been placed in a feud with Hogan right from the start over the WCW World title. WCW could have toured all over the world with this main event and grew the company
Agreed! Him being Hogan's buddy made no sense whatsoever.
@@brandonpage7087 Yeah. Especially since he didn't like Hogan all that much in real life at that point.
The NWO just had too many major players in it to make the storyline compelling... it’s like if the US, Russia, China, Great Britain, North Korea, and Germany all teamed up to fight a war against Australia
@@brandonpage7087 Hogan probably did that on purpose, as a way to keep Bret in line underneath him, one less guy who could steal his spotlight, plus from everything I've heard he never respected Bret whatsoever
Could have made huge money given Brets popularity abroad as well
God, even present day TNA would have booked Bret better than WCW did back then.
But..... but Tna is wcw 2.0
TNA would have given Bret multiple world title runs, and against great competition (Kurt, AJ and Samoa Joe all in their mid-2000s primes, rather than their old asses today).
They definitely booked sting pretty well
13 years-old Brian looks older than present-day Brian.
I know! He looked really old at 13. The guy has really taken care of himself in recent years.
Maybe he started whacking off into his hand and moisturizing
He looks older in this video, like he aged a few years in the past months 😕
He uses DDP Yoga.
you are right. mabey he has that reverse aging thing.
Nick Patrick selling Bret Hart's punch is my favorite thing ever.
Lol. yeah Patrick took ref bumping to an art, had lots of practice in WCW. I remember seeing a slow mo shot of him taking turnbuckle bump and the look on his face going down like a sac of potatoes was hilarious.
imagine him in TNA? The amount they throw refs around he could perform Shakespearean bump scenes.
Looked like an mma knockout
When I first watched the Starrcade match I kept rewinding that part over and over and laughing my ass off!
He looked like a Whacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man
Bret Hart: *punches Nick Patrick*
Nick Patrick: "TOUCHDOWN CALGARY!"
How WCW should've booked Bret Hart:
First make him come in as a hero and keep his momentum he had from the screwjob. His target is to destroy WWE by drawing ratings dor WCW wich is realistic. People understand that. So his first target is to save WCW from the NWO. Hogan just lost the title (CLEAN) to Sting at Starrcade. Bret confronts the NWO and gets into a the feud with them. Just before Souled Out he gets support by Sting and Randy Savage. They defeat the NWO in a 6 men tag match at Souled Out with Bret pinning Hall. At the next PPV Hart faces sting in a fair face vs face match for the title but loses. On a Nitro episode Nash wins the title and drops him to Hogan in a Fatal 4 Way (Sting, Hart, Nash, Hogan) at the next PPV. At the following PPVs Hart defeats Nash and Hall before facing Hogan at The American Bash for the title. But again he isn't able to win the big gold in WCW beacause od NWO shennanigans. On the next Nitro he goes on a rampage on every NWO member backstage so Bischhoff has a reason to fire him. Bret takes time off to heel from injuries at this place beacause its fits better to the Story. Just before Starrcade 98 he comes back to face the Champion Goldberg for the title he won on Halloween Havoc (CLEAN) from Hogan. In the build up to the Starrcade match Bret shows a very aggressiv side beacause he isn't able to win gold in WCW. In the match with Goldberg it looks like Bret is just to weak to do it but then Hall and Nash interfere and help Hart defeating Goldberg (and the streak). On Nitro they kick Hogan out of the NWO. He is the new leader! In following year Hart can have great matches with babyface challengers like DDP, Booker T, Chris Benoit, Savage and Sting. until he vacates the title beacause of the Owen Hart tragody. The returning yellow-orange Hulkster wins a tournament for the title in a tournament. Just before Starrcade 99 Bret returns. He gets the role of a 'justified heel'. He got mistreated in the past by the WWF and by Hulk Hogan (do you remember?). They build a very personal feud up between Hulk and Bret ending with Bret tapping out Hogan in the Main Evenr of Starrcad in the Sharpshooter and winning the title.
*to the Sharpshooter
thx Adam blampied!
Jo Hann omg dude you are a HORRIBLE BOOKER
I'll be fair and say that bringing Bret into the fold of what they were doing was really difficult, but mostly because Hogan didn't want to feud with him (even after Bret's run as the top guy in the whole business). It's not like Bret signed and showed up unexpectedly the very next day. They knew he was coming, and they still didn't have anything planned. WCW ran their show like that, though. They'd bring in tons of talent without a plan for how to use them.
Bret should have showed up, done his anti-WWE ranting, then turned his full attention to Hogan. They never should have gotten along on-screen at all. Not even as a heel. The steel plate was the only great thing Bret did in WCW. It was masteful.
Adam from WhatCulture watching this: I have an idea for how wcw should have booked.
dont put him in a match with bloody fuccing goldberg for starters
*wink*
great comment buddy
Will there ever be a www video without some smark commenting about what culture ? Go watch wcpw
+Breen Machine nothin
I started watching wrestling in 1999. I remember hearing so much about Bret Hart, how he was the greatest in ring wrestler ever and all this other stuff. But I had never actually seen him wrestle. I even had an action figure of him. Watching these old shows now, I see how much I missed out. Bret was truly amazing, it’s a shame his career was cut short.
Those Benoit and Bret matches we're 5 stars all the way.
*Stevie Richards
I love the switch to 4:3 for younger Brian.
+Matt Snyder Glad you caught that!
Wrestling With Wregret I've been rewatching the channel as I go to sleep recently so I've caught a couple things I didn't see the first time. Keep up the great work man!
Your channel is so underrated. 155k subscribers is a crime. This is such a good and detailed channel and got me back into wrestling in 2016!! Keep up the good work Brian!
I can describe Bret Hart's WCW run in 2 words: *WASTED. POTENTIAL.*
hello soldier
Facts, he could have been a top main eventer in WCW but nope they kept him as either a supporting person, a person who was there or a filler mid-carder.
I don't entirely understand how you can drop the ball on Bret Hart. You have your chief rival's top guy who is not only one of the most reliable and best technicians of all time, but is just coming off arguably, the single most controversial incident ("The Montreal Screwjob") in years if not in the entire history of the business, and you treat him like an upper midcard talent at best instead of an immediate main eventer for most of his run.
I wonder what would happen if he actually took time to heal after the kick from Goldberg instead of continuing to wrestle heavily concussed. Yeah, we can blame a botchy move for ending his career but he wrestled in 3-4 matches after that didn't he?
I thought it was more then that. I thought Bret said in his book, that he wanted time off but the bosses kept asking him to wrestle.
According to the Death of WCW book WCW management cut the pay of injured wrestlers in half basically forcing wrestlers to come back before they were ready usually leading to them being injured again.
I think I remember him saying that he didn't understand how serious the injury was at first.
Wow, that's evil...
i wonder if bret never had stroke would he have heeled and made a comeback a few years later. edge and daniel bryane made comeback few years later and they concussions too
I'd like to see more WCW stuff, as a kid I was a WWF fan but here in Australia wrestling was sometimes hard to come by until around 1998, so I often watched WCW out of pure thirst for wrestling, but I always asserted that WWF was better, these days however I look at what they were doing and I can respect it and I'm having lots of fun rediscovering WCW and seeing it with mature eyes, especially around the time WWF was going through their ridiculous "New Generation" Phase which saw some of the worst gimmicks tried out (Repo Man anyone?) When WCW were hitting their stride with supposed washed up wrestlers like Hogan and Savage.
The Repo Man was hilariously awesome and the skits he did were good. Even if all he ever was is a low low card heel I'll never not like him. Now Mantaur on the other hand.
notyoursavior78 To be fair WCW had some pretty stupid gimmicks (That silver Stormtrooper thing) but for the most part they were ahead of WWF right up until the attitude era.
Bad WCW gimmicks: Robo Cop, Arquette or Russo as champion, The Tower of Doom Match, more than half the locker room being NWO.
PhatGirlLuva68-ThelastOG Oh yes I never said there were no bad gimmicks in WCW (Mrs Bagwell anyone?) but when WWF were full of bad gimmicks WCW were doing more reality based storylines.
ChaingunCassidy Can you just explain the profile pic to me, honey? Lmiao.
Wcw only pushed the old guys like Hogan savage and Nash. They should have created new stars like the Wwf did
No, they should have had a balance.
+Chang - agreed! Balance would have been awesome
Well they did, guys like DDP, Goldberg, Booker T, and even Chris Jericho made names for themselves in WCW, not to mention guys like Benoit and Eddie Guerrero first received national attention in WCW as well. The problem was that unlike in WWF, the old guard like Hogan never went away so that any of those other guys could have reached the top.
Goldberg, Sting,Booker T, and Scott Steiner were not WWE old guys.
***** How was Chris Benoit buried? WCW put him in the four horseman and gave him their world title.
Can someone make a gif of the little kid yelling "Bread!" and having Bret Hart's head replaced with a loaf of bread?
Bret Hart's time in WCW is almost as big a waste as Earnest The Cat Miller's time in WCW
Nearly everybody was wasted in WCW thanks to Bischoff's obsession with Hogan and The NWO.
Sadly I have more memories of the Kat in WCW than Bret
Or what about Ernest time in wwe
The Cat was a total botch bro. I respect his Martial Arts background, but he didn't pay his dues and his promos were cringy at best. WCW had a habit of pushing raw talent with minimal wrestling training and absolutely no experience.
But he's the Greatest
Speaking of Chad Fortune, he's one of two people who switched from wrestling to driving monster trucks when WCW started running trucks with the USHRA Monster Jam tour, the other one was Madusa... Madusa obviously drove her own truck, but I'm not sure if Fortune drove the nWo truck or the Nitro Machine truck (the other trucks being the Sting truck and the Goldberg truck which is actually still racing as Maximum Destruction, and by still racing I mean it still uses the "futuristic suv" body and is driven by Tom Ments)
Switching to a 4:3 ratio for 13 year old Zane is a nice touch.
Bret Hart is proof that Eric bischoff had no idea what he was doing
It's always great to see a new video on your channel. Always seems like you come up with something new to these videos and feels so fresh.
Keep up the good work!
Ok, that shoutout to the movie "Clue" had me in stitches. Well played.
Bret in the WWF=The best there is, was, and ever will be!
Bret in WCW=The kick from Goldberg said it all! Wasted!
I think Bret Hart became extremely depressed after he went to WCW. Vince, Shawn, and Triple H should have handled the situation better. Although Bret was in WCW during Owen's death, I think that also played a role in his depression when he was there. Bret Hart got the same treatment as Steve Austin, Vader, Marc Mero, and Syxx (X-Pac), just to name a few wrestlers that got fired from WCW via FedEx. If only Bret and Shawn had gotten along, the Montreal Screwjob wouldn't have taken place.
#loyalwregretter
#Z-A-N-E
#fellowaspies
P.S. 13 year old Zane definitely had a bone to pick with both the WWF and WCW! LOL! To think I was 16 when the Screwjob took place!
Was Marc mero really the Apple of anyone's eye?
i think if it weren't for the screwjob, there wouldn't be an attitude era. bret should have done the honors & drop the title to hbk & putting over austin at wm14. he would still be in the wwf as a part timer or having small run as champion (just like the rock in 2013) in the attitude era which would be great.
taaj howell he would be if he hadn't did the marvelous marc mero boxing gimmick that went absolutely nowhere
Zane, thank you for providing great content such as this. It cheers me up after enduring a long and tiring day. Thank you once again
Bret Hart in WCW at least did better than DDP in WWF....
Legend has it that if you're early Brian will reply.
+Tracy Parton Balderdash.
Oh shit it's dat Brian whaddup
So, um... the moral of the story here is that Bret didn't actually screw Bret? #TheHitman
***** #MindBlown whoa, dude...
***** I knew you'd come! ~ #BrokenMattHardy
4:23 i think he actually just killed that ref lol. Ragdoll physics engaged!
His heel run in 1998-1999 was awesome though. Yeah, maybe he should have been in the world title picture, but he did have some great moments with guys like DDP and Booker T. He was booked well as someone who should be feared and wanted to force people into retirement.
Clue references never get old. Quality video as always Zane.Also, MAD TV cast mates turning heel on each other. Until you brought that up, my brain had purged that from it's memory.
hey hey hey, don't blame the weed. I'm constantly baked and even I know Bret in the nWo was a horrible idea
It was the worst thing that they did to Bret, along with the feud with Will Sasso.
Damn Fred I wish I could smoke with you in real life
Eric and Kevin were probably on something else.
Me too, I gotta stop smoking that much tho.
And WCW was a clusterfuck, nobody and nothing alone was at fault, there was critical failure in so many areas.
I've got to say Brain, you've not changed at all since 13, congrats on not aging
Great vid! Huge Bret Hart fan, and I have to agree with most of what Brian said. I believe he had one more appearance that wasn't mentioned, a WCW PPV in Kitchener Ontario. Too lazy to wiki it. And technically his last match was in WWE, the awful WM27 match vs Vince McMahon
Also mention or a clip of Bret's "El Dandy Promo" would have made this a 10/10
And I kinda marked out when the Mayhem PPV was brought up. Was a great PPV for WCW, and Bret also had a great match with Sting that night. Can finally prouldy say "I was there"! Me and a few buds stole our folks truck and drove the 8hours to see the WWE Houseshow at SkyDome the night before and the WCW PPV the sunday. Also met of all people Chris Benoit at a Pizza Pizza that day, even made he and Nancy laugh. Thanks for the great content Brian, excellent as usual!
Dude I love how you just have random topics like this. Such a great topic that doesn't get touched on enough, and you do a great job educating those (like myself) who might not know everything about it. Huge fan, Brian! Please keep doing these!
lmfao the Clue movie reference made me laugh so hard
Who are you to doubt El Dandy?
He's a heck of a wrestler and a jam up guy.
The only good thing about Bret's run in WCW was seeing him and Mr Perfect having one more match on PPV. ✌
Still, it wasn't in the same level as their Summerslam match in 1991
owen hart tribut match , nitro vs booker t, matches with ddp and mayhem vs beniot
this are the best kind of videos...bring more of these...
Bret Hart as a wrestler = pure class. Seems like a nice guy as well who sticks to his principles. Never saw him have a bad match in WWF.
Good commentary Brian. That "shell of himself" statement from Bishoff is blullshit.
Bret didn't look like a shell when he was tearing the house down w Benoit, Booker T, & even DDP.
I was wondering where did that piece of footage of HBK having BRET in the Sharpshooter come from?
Looks like it was shot from the aisle where the entrance would be. Is it from WWShawdows? TY
facing terry funk in a hardcorre match is one of the most dangerous things you can do to your body
You should do more of this type of series. So many wrestlers during the monday night wars that went back and forth with two different companies that were misused. I think the next one you should do is with Goldust when he went back to WCW.
I love the 4:3 ratio for past Brian.
Always enjoyed your missed opportunities videos, and this one was the most interesting as I have very little viewing experience of WCW. I thought the metal plate angle was badass, but can't believe how much they botched the rest of his run. Shame he got hurt before he could really flourish.
Good stuff, Brian. Pretty spot-on analysis as usual.
I would have booked Bret Hart against El Dandy, because he's a ring technician and a real jam-up guy 🤔
Fun Fact: Will Sasso would also parody and 'face off' with Stone Cold Steve Austin. I'm pretty sure the Bret Hart/Sasso 'feud' actually started with Bret still in the WWF and then floated over to WCW later on. I'm pretty sure Sasso did a skit about Bret when he was WWF champion or something.
I love Sasso's Steven Seagal skits.
MadTV was the No Holds Barred of WCW.
Brian Zane is my favorite TH-camr over all. Never stop plz
That got really dark near the end with that High-school joke.
I love the aspect ratio switch when it goes to Young Brian
As an avid fan of WCW during the Monday Night War, I still remember that the 4/20/98 edition of Nitro was the night when Goldberg's streak went to 75-0 after he defeated Raven for the U.S. Title. Of course, this was also the night when Nash set the gears in motion for the formation of NWO Wolfpack.
Undertaker Could've Ended Goldberg's Streak Imagine The Shock
Quality computer simulation there, Brian. You're working with some of the finest wrestling simulation software available!
+Sour Cream The Unicorn I'm playing with power!
You're a great host, keep it up Brian.
You missed Bret Hart's El Dandy promo. That was possibly one of the greatest promos of all time!
For those of you who weren't around at the time or just didn't watch WCW, imagine seeing The Undertaker or John Cena in TNA. Weird, right? Well Bret Hart in WCW wasn't quite as bizarre as that but it was up there. I compare it to Eric Bischoff's Raw debut for the fans who watched in that era. It was just not something we thought we'd see. Bret seemed like a WWF guy through and through. If anything we expected Michaels to jump ship but not Bret. Never Bret.
I am sure hogan going to wcw felt weird too. wcw was more about wrestling aspect not entertainment aspect.
Great video👍 It was a great time to watch Wrestling! the Monday night Wars was life
10/19/22
Personal tragedies aside, you have to remember too that Bret went to WCW just as their downward spiral began. It was a serious case of "wrong place, wrong time".
Great video Brian. Really hope this doesnt get blocked by the wwe. Video footage ads so much to these.
When it cut to 1997 Brian, I couldn't stop laughing at how perfect his specs were for this time period, as if he kept them in a safe just for this moment
I know someone mentioned this in the Mayhem review, but the finish of Bret's match with Benoit made the intro of Malcolm in the Middle, making that the third Fox show Hart was involved with (and the second in 1999 (though Malcolm in the Middle didn't start until 2000, the clip of Bret is from '99)
OMG how many times did he turn face and heel?
It was WCW. Everything was a swerve, bro.
In WCW everything was the ultimate swerve as Tony Schiavone used to say.
And you can blame a lot of folks for that. Russo, Bischoff...certain wrestlers with Creative Control clauses in their contracts.
@@Xehanort10 Did you ever see 'Pirates of the Caribbean 3'? The whole and-now-they're-a-bad-guy! thing doesn't really work out so well.
bret hart had my favourite wcw moment ever, when he had his leafs jersey on and under it the steel plate which goldberg speared.
That Leafs jersey/suit of armour thing was amazing. I think the angle was in Toronto so it got an even bigger pop
As a Toronto Maple Leafs fan I loved it
absolutely outstanding, please do more of these periodic reviews.
I love the Computer Simulation with Revenge lol.
His WCW run could have been EPIC....
enjoyed seeing Bret wrestle many wrestlers I would have never seen him fight against in the WWF like Booker T, DDP, Luger, sting, Macho Man, and as some of the other up-and-coming wrestlers
Future Raw GM Bret Hart vs Future Smackdown GM Booker T
I love your Clue reference with the title cards to describe the multiple endings.
Great movie
9:19 why is bret hart fighting himself ?
Because his steroid intake was double, traffic was murder, and if he didn't get to wrestle that night, it would be suicide.
The jokes about Chris Benoit not existing are getting as old as the jokes about Hulk Hogan not existing.
Well, good thing that was actually a two-in-one! A joke about Benoit, AND a reference about Hogan!
He wrestled Stevie Richards
just re-watched the brawl for all video. go back to the subscription page and BOOM! more Brian
Brian, will you be doing a review of WWE 2K17 when it comes out?
I do plan on streaming it live on launch day, then putting out smaller videos as the weeks go on!
How about a review for Bound for Glory 2016
JonJon2627 you're relevant
"You're half lizard and half troll..you don't got what it takes to beat me, you never did, and you never will" Bret promo on Randy Savage 1998.
Great vid brian i loved the gta 5 wasted spot lol.
WCW must have done something right with the steel plate in order for 2K to recreate it in a WWE 2K19 MyCareer Cutscene
To Will's credit, he was willing to take hard, believable bumps.
That Clue reference just blew my mind. Instant subscribe. 🤩😍🤩
I would have to respectfully disagree that Bret Hart could have been used well in WCW. Better? Maybe. But well? No. He just didn't fit in with what WCW had become. What made Bret Hart good in WWF was his built up rivalries with WWF original characters like Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Stone Cold etc. His character in WWF just jived better with the characters in WWF.
It's like if Sting joined the WWF in 1997 and tried to all of the sudden have some beef and match with Stone Cold. Would that have been a cool match to watch? Probably. But what would really be behind it? Most fans don't realize it's not so much the matches themselves that make a good match, it's what happened prior to the matches, the build up, the messing with your emotions and all that jazz. He just didn't fit in with the aesthetics of WCW.
sting vs stone cold did happen in 1994. bret headlined highest and 6 highest rated nitro episode in history.
Brian Zane kicks ass!! I hope they put him on the network someday!
i hope the Kayfabe Kitchen will comeback soon... i really like that format^^
Best video of the season so far!
That WWF hat is so insanely sweet.
Another classic! Thanks!
0:57 pretty much sums up your typical 90s kid playing with WWF toys
Cool episode man! Learned many things i didn't know! Keep it up
brian zane u should do wwe 2k17 my career and do a universe mode with how u would book things
Really good topic! And really good review as always Brian
This is just making me sad. I love you Bret ❤you are the true best 😍
Fave wrestler and fave TH-camr. Damn, its gonna be good!
4/20, aka the most tragic day in history: weed day, the day Columbine happened, Adolf Hitler's birthday, and this😐
4/20/1889
4/20/1998
4/20/1999
4/20/2018
The worst 4/20s in history
@@JulioHernandez-wy8nh what happened in 2018?
oh lord, i laughed way too hard at the ending.
never been the right time to say goodbye.
wcw missed out what could have been a huge hit man!
As long as Hogan was in the house, HE NEVER HAD A CHANCE AT SUCCESS!!
4:35 That "Clue" reference was GOLD!
How WCW should have booked...
Your videos are the best there is, best there are and the best there ever will be.
Please do hogan in WcW. They totally mess him up and shouldn't put him in wcw
But hey, with out hogan in wcw, no nwo. Just the later years in wcw
there still would have been an nwo, just with savage as the leader, like they originally planned.
+Jeffrey Upton actually they originally planned on having it be sting
Dylan Medrano
STING...No, i like savage leader though i prefer Scott Stiner or Bret Hart since he was getting screwed at WWE in the time
02:23, love the joy in Brian’s face.