Jim Cornette Reviews A&E's WWE Rivals: Bret vs. Shawn 

What I hated about the 2011 one though was how many times Shawn was acting like he did not remember stuff just to dodge accountability

100% absolutely

@@HunterofMonsters89 semi true but the format, deep dive, and full breakdown was well worth it.

@@benjaminubben4436 that’s for sure! Lol

@@HunterofMonsters89 He didn't. You seem to forget that he was popping pills and drinking alcohol like a mad man. If you actually understood how that stuff effects the brain, he wasn't acting like he did not remember, he absolutely did not remember.

I agree. Even tho my favorite thing is him going off on Olivia, the bucks, shit stain or the observer dude. Can’t think of his name.

@@letsssgooo4618 Dave Meltzer

@@letsssgooo4618 Speaking of that, can't wait for him to review Wardlow vs Orange cassidy

@@juangraciaofficial As soon as I walked in on my brother laughing and watching that match I couldn’t wait to hear Corny rip that BS match apart hahaha.

​@@letsssgooo4618The Bucks? The NBA team? Is he a fan of professional basketball? I'm honestly asking because that's pretty cool if he is.

Every match those two guys ever had with anyone felt exactly the same.

@@derpderpin1568 talking out of your ass.

The last time we had pretty much a steady Streak of great match styles was 2003-2005 smackdown. That was the last great promotion that was solid inside and outside the ring.

Yes like the wrestlemania 12 event that iron man fight was a 10/10 looked like a real technical wrestling match

I mean, it’s the single biggest moment to ever exist in wrestling

As long as Brett is alive. He can not let it go! I love Brett, but for god sakes let it go! It rules his life

@@robwilliamson9056 it's wwe not Bret

As much as Bret says he has, he will never truly get over Montreal. Neither he nor Vince will ever let it die.

It was a work.

Not better than Austin Vs McMahon

Cornette vs Omega clears

@@Fozzie420 Not as great as Cornette vs Vince Russo

@Joseph Kerr Cornette Vs Omega is slowly catching up though.

Cornette vs Young Bucks

I remember how terrible the NWO sang Oh Canada and when Eric called Bret a "knockout kind of guy" when he found out that Bret punched Vince. Hogan said "Well he passed the initiation!"

The Attitude Era still would have destroyed WCW. Nothing was going to stop the Stone Cold explosion.

Probably not. The war was on a real knife edge at the time, and WCW claiming that the WWF is so poor that even the champion was handing over his belt to come for some real competition may just have tipped the scales permanently.

@@TeddyKGB12 They sure weren't gonna win with Hogan.

@@TeddyKGB12 To this day, I don't get why so many people loved Stone Cold. I hated his schtick and groaned during his time on top.

I would love to see Bret as a trainer

Bret made every move/hit look excruciating. His selling was great but not over the top (the only thing negative i could say about hbk’s ring work). Montreal was just the culmination of what could go wrong, did go wrong imo.

@@bash8387 I see a interview once where he said Edge, Christian, Mark Henry, Giant Silva, Test and Ken Shamrock all trained at his house in his garden. He put a ring up by his pool.

Thought the same thing while watching. If you forgot how damn good, how crisp, how believable Bret was and how well these two could tell a story together, helluva reminder.

@@glasschin871 he definitely helped Ken Shamrock teaching him how not to work too stiff.

Really good assessment

Acting like these were the only athletic wrestlers is just so lame and disingenuous. So many of todays great workers didn't even watch WWE/F.

@@derpderpin1568 Well WWE and WCW were the biggest American wrestling company in the 80's and 90's. Flair, Steamboat, Dusty and Savage to name a few were big influences for the stars of the 90's. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see alot of Stone Cold, Rock or Taker type wrestlers running around. Were as the super kick is damn near everywhere and guys like Punk, FTR and Danielson talk alot about Brett's influences on them. Those are just a few examples without going through a whole history of wrestling in this comment post. So I think that was pretty genuous.

That's a fact!

Exactly!

I think that Bruce was right that it wasn't Brett's choice. He had reasonable creative control. Refusing to drop the title is not really reasonable

@@stevenbenson9976 he didn't refuse to drop the title. He refused to drop the title to Shawn Michaels because HBK wouldn't lose to him and countless others.

@@stevenbenson9976 I personally think that if they'd suggested that Bret drop it to Taker in Montreal, Bret would've done it.

@@dubiouscaesar3709 Hell, I think that if they had Shawn lose via shenanigans on the go home Raw before the Series, he would have done it.

not even jokes, if Bruce wasn't like that, Jim wouldn't say it lol

Brian and Jim should know. They like to bend the truth themselves.

Every time you hear him speak, the voice may be Pritchard’s, but the words are Vince McMahon’s.

Bruce Prichard the infamous WWF/E child molester. How the hell is he not in prison yet?

People call Montreal a work enough as it is. They’d really be screaming work if they had footage of Hartford.

@@MichaelSmith-fq6hz Let it be.. If it sells tickets let people think what's real and what's kayfabe.. That's the point..

He hates HBK lol

I would hope this doc would finally end all the clowns saying they still hate each other, but it won't.

We can all be real the screwjob is more of a case of bret being a supermark for himself. I get why he didnt want to drop the belt to shawn again, but i can understand vince couldnt trust that whole relinquish the belt the next night on raw stuff.

@@universe-ie2mk just stop.

@@universe-ie2mk Bret offered to drop the belt , he just wouldn’t drop it to Michaels. Bret dropped the belt to Yoko , Backlund , he put Sid over the day after winning the title on raw and put Michaels at wrestlemania. Bret had no problem dropping belts

@@glasschin871 He doesn't know the history.. Bret put over other wrestlers and drop the belt when Vince told him to..

It's kind of ironic when you consider how Shawn's unprofessionalism actually ended up helping in the long-run though out the '90s; if he'd just handed the IC Title back when he failed that drug test, he probably wouldn't have had that Ladder Match at WM10, if it wasn't for the Curtain Call HHH would have probably still won King of the Ring '96 and if he hadn't been a prick with Bret the Austin vs. Mr McMahon feud probably wouldn't have had much heat behind it (there was still stuff which could have set it up from when Austin got his neck injury but I'd say Vince objecting to him being on the show in kayfabe was perfectly reasonable so Montreal was an essential part of this in my opinion).

We got the two matches but if things worked out differently imagine a Bret vs Austin feud during the Attitude era

@@scottdecowski4913 And Bret Hart won BOTH of them. Not many men are undefeated against Steve Austin. Mikey Whipwreck may also be on that short list.

@@tempestfennac9687 Ive always said its strange to think how so many things happened in Austins career that turned out for the better

"Bret is such an amazing guy, he should be so much madder", jeez if Bret was anymore bitter he'd be an ice cube!

Waiting on the guy to come n say "its not art"

Its not art, it's a horrible middle school level doodle! Art.. smh

They did Rhodes and flair, Bret and Shawn and Hogan and Randy savage.

I can think of several more "Rivals" that they could have done such as Sgt. Slaughter vs. The Iron Sheik, Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat, Edge and Christian vs. The Hardys, Randy Orton vs. John Cena, The New Day vs. The Usos, Bruno Sammartino vs. Larry Zybysko for starters.

Are you sure they no showed? Wwf could've switched them to the B town loop.

Even better than the Mantaur?

He's no El Dandy

Best there was...

@@johnnykeane9633 Best there ever will be!

Love Bret.. Hated Shawn as a Character.. Bret Hart style of wrestling looked real, looked clean and tight and I love that he took the business seriously.. I don't care what people know about Pro Wrestling Today still take it seriously.. People knew what was going on back then but they kinda respected the business cause the wrestlers took it seriously..

I was watching WWE at the time it was all going on and it was definitely fascinating. It was common knowledge they hated each other and Raw was live-ish so you never knew what was going to happen.

Yeah. Today is better.

Cornette V Meltzer is the big blow-off, he has to go through Harpo to get to Uncle Dave though

Or Cornette vs Shit stain

@@GOOSE-ep1iq Corny vs. Russo has cooled off considerably as far as interest from the IWC is concerned. Nobody seems to care what Russo has to say anymore, _bro._ Especially not about current wrestling, _bro._ His channel has all of 38.5k subscribers after eight years and most of his uploads don't get anywhere near 2k views. I've had his livestreams show up in my recommendations a few times and the numbers were pathetic. Might as well just have been members of his family and their pets watching, _bro._ Does anybody think that if Jim and Brian did livestreams of the "Drive-Thru", they would only have five dozen or so people as their real-time audience and only ten or fifteen dozen people watch it after the fact? You would think the supposed "architect, creator, and mastermind of the Attitude Era" could get more people to give a toss about his opinions, _bro_ ? Apparently not! _Bro!_

Shawn did have some pretty good matches in 96 though he didnt draw well. Him vs mankind comes to mind. But my biggest peeve was not getting the belt off bret sooner. I do agree with your point too that bret could have did the job with hbk to be done with it but like you said, character mattered back then

Late 96 things picked up in WWF.

And people was giving the rock hella go home heat in 97

Jim is a biased POS. Kofi was a fan and Tamina grew up in the business. Both of them would give an unique viewpoint on it and do not carry the inherent bias Cornette had Cornette would spend the entire time crapping on Shawn and it would do nothing for the doc.

@Malcolm Williams Nah, he would render it meaningless with all his BS. Only the brain washed cult members would think it was anything.

That would just be stupid like solar cars in Arizona or New Mexico Americans are smarter than that they would see right though it

That's because Jim would tell the truth and not the WWE revised history.

@@NeilAlanBarker LOL Jim won't tell the truth. Jim will tell what HE thinks is the truth and his "truth" is just as much BS as anything WWE says.

Exactly. Wish Bret would teach and be more involved with one of the two major companies. I love that Punks recent matches have been Bret’s style. Bryan is close when singles. But yeah nobody comes close. It looked REAL and more akin to UFC. Not just spots.

Ya Bret career and matches age like fine wine. He is such a legend

Bret stated that the goal was originally for Bret to eventually lose one final time to Shawn in '98, turn face and become friends with Shawn. Sadly, they then became actual enemies and then Vince told him to go to WCW

I agree, only Nash was in WCW

100% but Nash wasn't there so he was probably advising Shawn from WCW ... or maybe it was HHH.

@@1stKindChris Right. Just because Nash was in WCW doesn’t mean they stopped talking via phone. I’m sure they talked to each other a bit during this time period. Nash was trying to get Shawn to come to WCW.

@@Beer_Baron_ maybe my timeline of events is wrong. I thought him and Bret fought and then he approached McMahon and company right after. But according to you all, he fought Bret then immediately called Nash and THEN spoke with McMahon with a clump of hair in his hand..... makes much more sense your way

agreed... so annoying

Facts 👍🏼👍🏼

Yes. For long time we all know it was more just a show not so much a real competition. I known that clear back in early 1970's. I saw now appear Nash trying make money on RU-vid The Klick or something he calling trying call it. Talking how great they was. That was the very same group I feel exposed the business a lot more than poor Duggan & Iron Sheik getting busted riding together drinking & caught with dope A heel & Baby Face working a angle. Plus Nash I think is the slowest moving laziest wrestler I ever seen in my life. 30 + years ago that group try pull that stunt. Cops would found them in some dirt road side ditch somewhere & none would known or remember what happened to them over That Curtain Call dumb *** stunt. That was A pretty stupid stunt. They had to been on bunch dumb pills or dope during that time period. What they did was just wrong. Rest them people was trying feed there families & they was too busy working together trying advance there own careers at cost of others. Pretty sad to think about there piss poor attitude at that time period.

I don't share your opinion, at least not about AEW

Modern WWE is a cringe fest and I feel bad for wrestling fans. Wrestlers used to be "the cool kids" Now they're dorks like Sammy Zane

Where is that posted?

@@bryankelloway6610 i dont remember he talked about in on a shoot like 7 years ago, may have breaking kayfabe

@@bryankelloway6610 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oxJiaxK-1q8.html

@@donmauro8123 It was on Keyfabe Commentaries.

I'll have to look for it

Bullshit

It obviously worked out and I agree a rematch between Bret/Austin probably wouldn't have drawn as well(of course with how hot Austin was and Tyson being there I don't think it would've mattered much who the champion was) but I think it was insane that Vince would've trusted Shawn to be the one to pass the torch to Austin at Mania considering Shawn's history up until that point. On top of him "losing his smile" the year prior to get out of a job he was notorious for never dropping any belts but instead taking his ball and going home and forfeiting them. The only time he did was to Sid and that was only cause they promised him he'd win it back in his hometown 2 months later. Also at that time Shawn openly said on TV and behind the scenes(if you're to believe was some wrestlers have said) that he is "Done doing jobs and he's not laying down for nobody." There's a reason Taker sat at gorilla with his hands taped for the Austin match cause even he wasn't sure if Shawn would actually do business. COnsidering how important it was to giveAustin the belt at Mania it seems like an unnecessary risk on WWE's part to trust Shawn to do it.

Remember though, Bruce's pants have a tendency to spontaneously combust a lot.

Probably something in said contract not allowing him to make the announcement

When his TV shows aired. He can't crow on TV to a live audience unless it is Monday.

Bret asked him not too. Eric agreed

@@chrischar9428 LOl Eric is a pathological liar. Eric's "agreement" means squat. Eric absolutely would have crowed about signing the WWF champion if Bret had kept the title, belt or not belt. LOL at people who think Eric would keep his word after all the stuff he did pull in his career.

@@chriskay1449 and he didn't want to piss off his new star. Therefore the star asks and Eric agrees. Why piss off your new star who is unsure in the 1st place

Has nothing to do with dropping belt in his home town...EGO!! PLAIN & SIMPLE.

@@jayc6395 It had more to do with dropping the belt on PPV to a guy that not only told him to his face he would never return the favor Bret did to him at Mania 12, but had repeatedly found a way out of losing to Bret throughout the year ("losing his smile", the whole backstage fight incident weeks before a scheduled match at King of the Ring...)

Although, that did lead to Hell in a Cell and the debut of Kane, so that bit worked out.

Bingo.

Gets belt then suddenly can't pay him. Bullshit

Not to mention he only had Sid, Vader and Bulldog to work with. There wasn’t much star power on the roster compared to WCW. They had NWO, Sting, Randy Savage, Ric Flair, Lex Luger and more.

@@magsxx9735 and Goldberg coming in and getting popular was a haymaker to WWF

Hahahaha

Exactly . i just rewatched that.Shawn calls him 'mark man' . it was the first promo where i was like....wait a second ...this is real.

Or Shawn’s Canada accent

If you don't want to wrestle/fight with someone you don't have to

Had their feud not ended up the way it did, there's a strong chance that the WWF's "attitude era" happens quite differently. No "Mr. McMahon" evil owner character as the perfect heel foil for the already incredibly popular Steve Austin in late 1997.

You beat me to it lol 👨‍🦲

Isn't it on "wrestling with shadows" that he explains it as basically "freedom inside a match, but no control over the result" ?

@@Erlewyn It's been ages since I've seen that film, so I can't remember. That sounds about right though. Bret had some measure of creative control, but not absolute control a la Hogan and his WCW contract.

@@Erlewyn If that had been the case, Bret wouldn't have had a leg to stand on with his "I can't lose in Canada, the children will lose all hope for the future if I do" nonsense. I'm not saying you're wrong, but if that was the phrasing in the contract, how did the bickering and negotiating drag on for weeks?

Means he didn't have to lose to anyone he didn't want to

From what I understand Bret had control over who he lost to on the way out as not to get buried on the way out. It was basically burial protection so he could go out looking strong.

Only wrestler that comes close to doing such beautiful motions nowadays or has that special type of flare to their matches where they move with such purpose and actually have an IQ in putting on a match are AJ Styles and Randy Orton. The only type of "new generation style" that looks decent enough that could make wrestling feel like old school but new and needed was NXT Pete Dunne and Walter.

Usually spoiled brats do

@@davidnelson4347 Brian King of crypto, "I worked at Sony!", hater of biscuits and gravy, 40 year old child mentally and physically, Jericho lives free in his head forever Last

@@tysontomko he must be fun at parties! Haha

Wasn't even unfortunate for the reason you say. Bret was out of line for refusing to just do as he was told and drop the belt legitimately.

How can you believe anything Corny says on the screw job lol. The one two people who claims to thought of the screw job are Corny and Russo.

Well, he shouldn't. Hogan backed out of the deal he agreed to. Hogan got what he deserved.

They're great wrestlers. That's why

They also always respected each other's talent in the ring. Real recognizes real, even though they hate each other.@@whidoineedthis