2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

How is it ridiculous when he had creative control in his contract?

He said himself he was willing to lose to anyone, anywhere, even Brooklyn Brawler -- just not in Canada.

That seemed pretty reasonable to me.

 

NOT WHEN YOU HAVE CREATIVE CONTROL.

That's the bottom line. If he has no creative control, there is no argument.

It was a breach of contract by Vince, pure and simple. And even in the wacky world of pro wrestling, it would have stood up in court.

 

Pro wrestling relies on the cooperation of the wrestlers. Someone wins, someone loses.
Bret lost for years, especially early in his WWF tenure, and didn't raise a stink. All of a sudden, now he can't lose in his home country? As Bradley put it, it's a show.

Although Bret may have had some legitimate concerns about a Canadian loss in terms of his marketablility, it's still about the work. You don't hear of an actor and actress playing Romeo and Juliet going to the director and saying they refuse to kill themselves.

As HBK, for all his douchiness, pointed out in his book, if Canada was all Bret's, then could Michaels refuse to lose in the U.S.? Get enough stars who would pull that crap and you have ... late-90s WCW.

That's not to say that a creative control clause isn't necessary. It helped prevent the stars from getting buried at the end of their run. But it also could go too far.

 

Giving stars creative control in a contract is the worst thing a promoter can do.

Anyway, I'm under the impression that the issue of who handles title belts between shows is now a matter of the props department. The workers show up, get their respective belts for the show, then turn them back in at the end of the night. That would make a hell of a lot of sense to me. With the Punk/Cena situation of last year, we know there are multiple belts. I assume it's an issue of not scrambling to replace a damaged or lost belt. I do recall the WWE Championship (spinner) had a gold tip on one end not log ago. I've read the gold tips are to designate which belts are "TV" belts and which are back-ups.

Speaking of Punk, had he not-resigned the night of MiTB '11, do you really think VKM would have given him the title, only for him to sneak off in his hometown, disapear to who knows where ... then show up with the belt on RoH? I think not.

And just so we're clear, my attitude comes from a viewpoint of what's best for the long-term business (not that I have a vested interest). But workers come and go. No one is bigger than the business. Not Hogan, not Rock, not Stone Cold, not Triple H, not Cena, not Punk.

Regardless, I appreciate the stimulating debate. Sure beats talking about lame SmackDown shows.

 

I kind of agree with the side favoring Bret Hart here. He hadn't really given Vince any reason to doubt his loyalty over the years, except that he didn't like HBK, which was COMPLETELY justified at the time. You know, between him making shoot remarks that Bret cheated on his wife, no-showing because of his drug addiction and just generally losing his smile and refusing to work. Hart was doing the WWE a favor in the first place by going to the WCW - it let the WWE get out from his contract, which was something like 20 years and guaranteed, at least according to Wresting With Shadows.

The whole thing reeks to me more of McMahon being a control freak than anything else. In some ways, this is good - He is the vision behind the WWE, and it became dominant because of his force of personality. But it isn't all good, all the time, whether it's minor stuff (repeated usage of shit gimmicks like midgets and hillbillies throughout the year) or major stuff (the burying of the Invasion angle, how he handled the Bret Hart situation). His ego is why the WWE is the dominant company now, but he does legitimately screw some stuff up here and there as a result.

 

Bottom line is it was VKM's company, not Bret's. Hart was just a contractor. If I were in VKM's shoes, I don't give a damn about his personal problems with Michaels. I pay you to do a job, now go do it. I'm just never going to side with Hart on this. Just because I admire the guy as a performer doesn't mean I think he was right.

 

Regarding the "traveling with the belt" topic. I believe the wrestlers do transport their belt form one site to the next. Jericho mentioned it in pretty good detail in his latest book, CM Punk has tweeted about it and I remember reading about how the thinking behind giving the Miz the US title when he had (two) tag team titles a couple years ago was kind of a "paying your dues" exercise because wrestlers traveling with belts can be expected to go through a hell of a lot more when they fly, drive, travel, etc. Between airport security scanning the thing and posing with it to fans noticing you quicker and wanting autographs/pics/whatever, I can't imagine it's very fun.

 

Well, except that part of McMahon's ability to keep Bret Hart as an independent contractor was by giving him creative control in his contract in the first place. It wasn't absolute, like Hogan's deal, but saying, "I'll lose to anybody but this ONE guy!" strikes me as being pretty accommodating. If he didn't want to live up to the deal, he shouldn't have given it to one of his contractors in the first place. And then, when the guy basically decides to let you get out from under his onerous contract except for one condition, you decide to be a hard-ass about that one condition?

It just boggles my mind. I realize that McMahon doing all of this was the start of his evil character and a big catalyst for the Attitude era, but I think that's more of a happy accident based on a bad decision.

 

Yeah, this is true. Most of the time, the wrestlers keep the belts. Trips once told of a story where (before he was dating Steph), he'd lost the IC belt while traveling and had to face a pretty unhappy Vince about it.

 

That's one thing I never understood about Hart. He turned down a shitload of money with WCW over 3 years to basically make an extra $1.5 million over 20 years with a company that was having financial problems and may not have been around by that time.

And he felt this huge loyalty for an owner who, proved time and time again, had no loyalty when it came to his contractors and fired them at will. Me, I would have taken the WCW offer, given Vince a chance to match and/or raise it, and, if he failed to do so, told him "thanks, see ya".

 

One thing that everyone says is that Bret Hart is his own biggest mark. I have to assume he's one of the few that cared more about his character/image and "this business" more than the money. I'm guessing that he was worried about falling prey to the backstage politics in WCW. In Atlanta, Bret ended up just being another one of the guys. Sure, he was getting paid, but Bret seems like one of the guys that would rather be on top of the card making $1 mil than in some shit mid-card match making $2 mil.

 

I have no arguments whether creative control is right or wrong.

The fact remains, Hart had it, and Vince breached it. There really isn't anything else to the story.

All of the "He said, she said" stuff is out the window.

Vince not only breached Hart's contract, he breached the trust of every employee who works for him, especially the talent.