The Hardcore Truth

by Bob Holly

It all comes back to what they want to do with you. They decided I was going to put people over and I was stuck in that role. It didn’t matter how great my ideas were. You can get over by jobbing but only so much. If you get beat week in and week out, people are programmed to expect you to lose, and who is going to support a loser or buy his merchandise? You can’t get over and stay over with three to five minutes of TV time per week when you lose all the time.

  Look at Mark Henry — he was basically a nothing guy for 14 years. Then the company figured out how to use him, got behind him, pushed the hell out of him, and he was suddenly World Champion. Good for Mark, but why did it take the company so long to figure it out? Without the machine behind you, you’re going nowhere.

  Take the recent example of Zack Ryder. He was sitting at home, not going anywhere, so he came up with an internet show that got him a cult following and forced management’s hand. They put him on the main shows but they still treat him as a joke. Even if you “make your own push,” you’re only going to get as far as management wants to let you get. He’s a good worker too. I remember him from when I spent some time in Deep South Wrestling. He caught lightning in a bottle with that internet show. Back in my day, the internet wasn’t as mainstream; plus, we were on the road so much that we didn’t have time to do stuff like that! There are only so many different ways of trying to get over, and most of the time, WWE doesn’t like it if you think outside the box.

  I did ask Vince what I needed to do but the thing you have to understand about him is that you have to come at him with ideas. I asked what I could do better and he told me, “You have all the skills, you just have to come up with ideas.” So I went away, came up with ideas for angles, programs, and catchphrases and they would either throw them away or use those ideas for other people.

  I took an idea for a shirt to the merchandising team once, something that Shelton Benjamin came up with for me. He couldn’t use it for himself but he thought it fit my character perfectly. Undeniably, it would have sold. The merchandise guys agreed it was great, put together three different versions, and ran them past Vince. He shot the idea down, saying I wasn’t one of the guys they were pushing and they only had so much space in the merchandise catalog. When that next catalog came out, there were three new Chris Jericho shirts. There’s a lot of money to be made with merchandising but if they won’t give you anything, you can’t make any money.

  It gets to the point where you just resign yourself to the fact that they’ll only push you if they want to, no matter what you do. Meanwhile, you do your job, you cash your check, and you go about your business.

  CHAPTER 16

  MONTREAL

  Even though I was under contract, the WWF didn’t use me in a single match from the middle of August 1997 through to March 1998. They would call me up at the last minute on a Saturday or Sunday and tell me they needed me at the next day’s pay-per-view or at RAW, so I’d get on a plane, get to the arena, and then sit backstage and watch the show. I still got paid for it but I never got to work. They just wanted me backstage in case someone else didn’t turn up or I was needed for a dark match or something. I hated just sitting around and not working, but it did mean I was around backstage to see some really interesting stuff . . .

  Everything came to a head between Bret and Shawn in ’97. In the last six months that Bret was with the WWF, I was sure he was having a meltdown because he thought Shawn was being put before him and he couldn’t stand it. I still had a lot of respect for Bret as a person and absolutely none for Shawn but even then, I still thought Shawn was hands-down the greatest worker to ever step foot in the ring. Honestly, I think the issue started because Bret couldn’t stand that Shawn was better than him. In his own mind, Bret was the greatest wrestler who ever put on a pair of boots. He really believed he was a real world champion. No, Bret, you were a world champion because you were told to be a world champion. It’s good to take it seriously to an extent but you’ve got issues if you truly believe that you’re a real world champion once you go back behind that curtain. When I got backstage, I stopped being “Thurman Plugg” or “Sparky” or “Hardcore” and went back to being Bob Howard. I separated myself from my character, and that’s why I have never felt that I absolutely had to be in the limelight. It was a job to me and if it weren’t for the people I worked with who helped me, I would have been nothing. You don’t get anywhere by yourself and you can’t be selfish. Bret Hart was always a little wrapped up in Bret Hart. That told me a lot about his character. As ’97 went on and his dispute with Shawn got worse, more cracks appeared.

  Shawn was acting like a jerk, plain and simple. He went out on national TV and made a comment that implied Bret was having an affair with Sunny, one of the women on the roster. I thought that was a chickenshit thing to do, given that Shawn knew Bret was married with kids. Everyone backstage knew it was wrong but nobody was going to stand up to Shawn because even without his buddies he was still tight with Vince. Everyone was still job-scared. I just knew that when Shawn messed with me at the beginning of my time there, I called him out because I wasn’t going to let that motherfucker humiliate me. If they fired me, they fired me but it was nobody else’s business so I dealt with it. And that “Sunny days” comment by Shawn was Bret’s battle to fight.

  Now, I would have marched right over to Shawn and knocked all his teeth out but Bret got into a hair-pulling contest with him instead. Shawn was doing a pre-taped promo backstage and Bret snapped when he saw Shawn — he went running over to him and pulled his hair like a little girl. He pulled a big chunk of hair out of his head. Are you kidding me? He’s supposed to be a man!

  Was Bret having an affair with Sunny? I have no idea. You’d see people talking backstage and if one of the boys was talking to a woman, some of the others would think, “He must be fucking her.” Same thing if one of the boys was eating in catering with one of the women or if they were watching the show together: “They must be fucking.” That’s the mind-set, and it’s bullshit. I didn’t see Bret and Sunny hanging out all the time so I don’t know what to believe.

  Shawn definitely saw some Sunny days though. Several of us walked in on him in the shower in Binghampton, New York, when he was having one of those Sunny days. I remember it clearly because Sunny’s boyfriend, Chris Candido, was out in the ring at the time. Of course Candido found out, but he didn’t do anything about it because he didn’t like confrontation. Everyone lost respect for him after that. If somebody fools around with your woman, you stand up to them. It doesn’t matter who it is — it doesn’t matter if they can whip your ass or not, you stand up to them. Even if you take an ass-whipping, you’ll earn more respect because you didn’t let yourself be walked all over. You go down swinging.

  All of this tension between Bret and Shawn backstage led up to their match in Montreal at Survivor Series ’97. A lot of wrestlers who weren’t around have given their opinion on the matter. I was backstage to see it go down, so here’s my take.

  Back then, it wasn’t like it is today, with the internet everywhere and every piece of news (and thousands of rumors) reported all the time. You would hear bits and pieces now and then, but I really didn’t know much heading in to Montreal. Nobody backstage knew what was going on. If they did, they were keeping their mouths shut. We knew that Bret was leaving for WCW at some point and, since he was the WWF champion, he’d have to lose the title before he left, but nobody knew how it was going to go down. Steve Austin had taken off by this point, so it was clear they were going to go with him winning the belt at WrestleMania the next spring. But nobody knew what was going to happen before that.

  Management doesn’t tell everyone who will be going over in a match, especially in the main events. They’re very hush-hush about that. I didn’t know who was going to go over but a lot of the boys had heard that Bret would win. We were watching the monitor backstage when it happened. Bret and Shawn were out there having a fucking great match — it was probably g
oing to be the best they ever had — and then Shawn got Bret in the Sharpshooter. Within maybe four seconds, the referee, Earl Hebner, rang the bell and everybody scrambled. Earl jumped out of the ring and ran to the back. Shawn looked pissed. Vince was ringside with a bunch of officials. Bret spat right in his face. All of the boys were sitting there in the back going, “Holy fuck . . . what just happened? That wasn’t the finish. . . .” It was obvious somebody just got fucked over.

  Shawn came backstage first. As usual, he had Hunter and their female bodyguard, Chyna, with him. Shawn was cussing like crazy, yelling at the officials, asking what the fuck just happened. It was a great performance, very convincing. Shawn’s a great actor. Bret was still at ringside, pitching a fit, breaking TV monitors and wrecking the equipment. Nobody backstage said a word. Everybody was in shock. When Bret got to the back, it like the parting of the Red Sea. Everyone got out of his way. Later, Vince went into the locker room to talk to him and when he came out, it looked like he’d had his ass whipped. Evidently Bret didn’t hit him hard enough because he still walked out. If somebody is going to screw you over like that, you’re going to want to make them pay, but all Bret did was punch him in the eye? Come on! Bret should have knocked him out. I didn’t know why everything had happened and I wasn’t in the position to give an opinion. I was in shock, and I wasn’t ready to make a judgment until I got the facts.

  When I arrived at RAW the next night, I still didn’t know what had happened. I’d heard stuff but took it all with a grain of salt. At that point, it was all hearsay. At RAW, Vince had a meeting where he told us all basically that he did what he had to do and that “if you don’t do things the way I want, you can leave.” Then he just got on with putting on a wrestling show. There was no general feeling backstage about who was right. It was a point of discussion but something we talked about in private. Nobody wanted to get any heat for voicing an opinion too loudly.

  To me, it looked like Bret was leaving the company and Vince couldn’t let him take the belt with him. Vince had to protect the title and he had to protect the company. He couldn’t risk his World Champion doing what Madusa had done and throwing it in the trash on WCW Nitro. I heard that some of the boys were worried: if Vince would screw Bret over like that after Bret had been with the company for 14 years, how the hell could everyone else trust him? I never thought like that. It never changed the way I saw Vince. I trusted Vince’s judgment and figured that if he had screwed Bret, it was because he had been backed against a wall and had no other choice. All the years I worked for Vince, I never talked to him about Montreal. Who was I to say anything? It was his business to run as he saw fit.

  Vince took the heat and became the most hated man in wrestling. It goes to show how smart he is as a businessman that he capitalized on it by putting himself on TV. As Mr. McMahon the heel, he let the fans spend their money watching him get his ass kicked. It was a business move and it paid off. To this day, any time Vince goes on TV, it pays off in ratings.

  There was some worry backstage that he had alienated a huge portion of the audience who were Bret Hart fans, but, as I’ve said before, it was clear to everybody that Steve Austin was going to be the top guy in the business. We weren’t worried. Sure, WCW would have the chance to get a lot more fans when Bret got there, but we had Steve. Whichever side had Steve was going to win; it was that simple. After Vince went on TV as a heel, business just got hotter. Then we ended up with The Rock coming through on top and we just left WCW dead in the water.

  It was much later that I finally made a judgment on what had happened in Montreal. A conversation between Bret and Vince that was taped without Vince knowing ended up in the documentary Wrestling with Shadows. In it, Bret says he doesn’t want to lose to Shawn and would rather hand over the belt on RAW the next night. That’s when I lost every ounce of respect I had for Bret. It doesn’t matter what else was going on, when he said he wanted to hand the belt over without doing a job, he pissed on the company and everybody who ever put him over. He didn’t get to the top on his own. He couldn’t have become the WWF Champion without everybody else putting him over, so for him to say he wanted to leave without losing to anybody was shitting on each and every person who ever helped put him on top. Imagine that a bunch of people at a regular job help you get promoted, then you decide to leave. Before you go, the guys who helped you get promoted, increasing your value so you can go elsewhere and make more money, ask for your help to cover the hole you’re leaving. Do you just say, “No, I don’t want to”? In wrestling, if you’re leaving a company and you’re a champion, you do the right thing and drop the belt to whoever the next person in line is and you do it 1, 2, 3 in the middle of the ring. Back before I started training as a wrestler, Bret was my favorite guy in the WWF, and it killed me to lose all my respect for him.

  WWE recently released a DVD in which Shawn and Bret talk about the whole rivalry. Bret comes across as the guy who was wronged. Of course they’re going to pacify Bret — they know the DVD wouldn’t have happened without Bret’s permission and it’ll sell better with Bret in it. Shawn’s going to play along too. It’s about pacifying one person so they can all make a load of money. Shawn says that he always sought validation from Bret. Let me tell you this — the only person Shawn needs validation from is God. He does not need validation from Bret Hart.

  Anyway, there were a few things said in that DVD that got me thinking. Bret said that he wanted Shawn to put him over at Survivor Series because Shawn had disrespected him backstage by saying that he wasn’t prepared to put Bret over. Now, if somebody said that to me, I would think he was an asshole but I’d still do the right thing and job the belt on my way out of the company. It’s a tough call and I think Bret’s back was against the wall. Bret thought that no one had respect for him, including Shawn, Vince, and everyone in the locker room. The funny thing is that everybody had total respect for Bret — until Montreal.

  Shawn hadn’t helped by acting like a dick, but that was just Shawn back then. He had Vince in his back pocket and felt he could get away with anything. The thing is, if Vince and Shawn had agreed that Bret could beat Shawn in Montreal but drop the belt to Shawn the next night on RAW, Bret could have said, “I’m not going to do that.” Hell, he could have just not turned up at all. Honestly, I think that even if they had put Bret over Shawn in Montreal, Bret would have just handed the belt over the next night and said, “Screw it, I’m not going to lose to Shawn.” I’ve heard people say that because Bret had worked for Vince for 14 years, Vince should have trusted him, but it’s the wrestling business. You don’t trust anybody in the wrestling business. And you sure didn’t trust anybody back when WCW and the WWF were at war. Vince just couldn’t take that chance. If Bret had screwed Vince, I think Vince would have rebounded, but it would have left a black eye.

  Later, Bret also claimed that he said he would drop the title to anybody anywhere except to Shawn in Montreal. I think Bret was just saying that and really had every intention of leaving without losing. Vince couldn’t take him up on that offer and Bret knew it because they had built up the match for the pay-per-view in Montreal. If Bret had dropped the belt to someone else before Survivor Series, it would have killed the whole storyline for the main event, which was the bread and butter for that show. It had to be Bret vs Shawn and it had to be for the title. Vince should have tested Bret and said, “Okay, I want you to lose the title to this mid-card guy.” I would bet that Bret would have said, “There’s no storyline there and you haven’t built this other guy up,” and made excuses to keep himself from losing. Bret was just jealous and acting out because Shawn was better than him and he felt he was being pushed out of the promotion. Bret is one of the greatest storytellers ever in that ring but he’s not the best. Shawn is hands down the best wrestler of all time and Bret needs to accept that.

  If I had been in Vince’s shoes back then, I would have done the same thing he did, no questions asked. I’m not excusing Shawn’s behavior
leading up to the match, but I would have waited for the pay-per-view and I would have beaten Bret the exact same way. I know why Vince told Bret he was going to win too — it was to get the best possible match out of him. If Bret hadn’t thought he was getting his way going into that match, he wouldn’t have put 100 percent into it.

  I didn’t like how long Bret held onto the whole deal, how he wouldn’t let it go. He said that he forgave Earl Hebner for his part in the proceedings but that if he had been in Earl’s shoes, he wouldn’t have done it. That shows how selfish Bret is because Earl had to feed his family. What was Earl going to do? Tell Vince that he wasn’t going to go along with the plan and then quit his job or get fired? Was Bret going to take care of Earl and feed his family for him? Of course not.

  I thought it was a shame what happened to Bret down in WCW. He really was one of the greatest wrestlers ever but he looked out of place. Bret wasn’t Bret after he left the WWF. He was never the same caliber of worker again after Montreal.

  Some people still think the whole thing was a work, something agreed to behind closed doors by Vince, Bret, and Shawn. If it was a work, it was the best work in wrestling history. I don’t think it was. It just boiled down to the fact that Bret didn’t like Shawn, Shawn didn’t like Bret, and somebody was always going to get screwed.

  PART 5: SHAWN MICHAELS

  I know Shawn much better now — he was off for several years because he broke his back, and in that time, he found religion and turned his life around. He’s super humble now, a really good guy whom you’d love to hang out with. He helps everybody. I guarantee not too many people know this, but there was a couple in Shawn’s church group who fell on hard times. The man lost his job and they were fixing to lose their house — Shawn stepped in and paid their house off for them. I thought that was such a commendable thing for him to do.