WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart made a surprise appearance during the recent “Inside The Ropes: An Evening with Jim Ross and Jim Cornette” event from London and revealed some interesting details regarding the WrestleMania 13 main event that never happened.
Following up on their Iron Man Match at WrestleMania 12 that saw the realization of Shawn Michaels’ boyhood dream, there were talks of a rematch taking place the following year. “I remember we talked about — my understanding was when I left that meeting that day was that I was gonna come back, and I was gonna have a bit of a chip on my shoulder towards Shawn, start ragging on him for not being a good role model, and then to — cause I remember watching him on TV and he’d pull his pants down and show his pubes and all that,” Hart said.
“Being the ‘so called’ hero- baby face of the company, that’s not a good way to present yourself. I just remember sort of making note in my head, and the more I saw Shawn doing stuff like that, pulling his pants down and getting the kids dancing and all that in the ring, it’d be easy for me as a babyface to take exception to what Shawn was doing. But I thought really what it was was a chance for me to make a storyline here with Shawn where I lost the title to him at Wrestlemania 12 and I got a bit of a chip on my shoulder that I lost, the way the whole thing was set up was perfect for me to come back with a bit of an attitude about Shawn. And what I had wanted to do was work a storyline with Shawn where I’d wrestle him at Wrestlemania, we woulda had a really good match.”
Bret put Shawn over as a great wrestle and one of the best he’s ever worked with – “maybe the best I ever worked with in a lot of ways.”
Bret wanted to have a great 35 minute match that would have resulted in him snapping – both figuratively and literally (Shawn’s foot). “Basically a duplicate of the ironman match all over again, but we wouldn’t go the full hour again. I wanted to do a thing where Shawn was stomping his foot, getting ready to give me the big kick, and I’m in trouble like I’m pulling myself up form the ropes on the other side of the ring and Shawn goes to give me that big kick as I stagger over to him, just like at the iron man match. Except this time I would take Shawn’s foot, catch it in the air and get him to the ground and put some kind of a shoot hold on his foot and break his foot right in the middle of the ring. I wanted Shawn to tap out like they do in UFC, where it’s like when they break somebody’s arm they tap out pretty fast and everyone jumps in and it’s a very serious kind of thing. I wanted to break Shawn’s foot and then they hand me the belt and I would’ve gone over and stand over the top of him and go ‘f*ck you.’
Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be for a variety of reasons. Bret still went heel and wrestled “Stone Cold” Steve Austin in the classic double-turn match that saw Austin passing out while in the sharpshooter. Shawn Michaels was involved in the main event – doing color commentary for The Undertaker’s WWE Championship victory over Sycho Sid.
Props to WrestleZone.com for the transcribed quotes.
