WWE Legend and Hall of Famer Bret "The Hitman" Hart made an unscheduled and unadvertised appearance at the Inside the Ropes event in London, England. The event was originally just supposed to be An Evening with Jim Ross and Jim Cornette, but The Hitman decided to crash the party, sit down, and tell a story about the original plans for a potential match with The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 13.
You can watch the video above or read a transcript (courtesy of Wrestling Inc.) below.
"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.
"Shawn was a great wrestler, one of the best I ever worked with -- maybe the best I ever worked with in a lot of ways. I had an idea where I was gonna -- if you could visualize like it's like a thirty, thirty five minute match me and Shawn would've tore the house down with a really great match and the place is going crazy. 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.' "
Of course, none of this happened, since Michaels gave his famous "I've Lost My Smile" speech on Thursday Raw Thursday and "retired," vacating the WWF Championship and undergoing knee surgery, which kept him out until after Mania.
But–apparently–oh, what might have been.
