Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
The end for Bret Hart; the beginning for The Rock..., 9 Jul 2009
This double DVD pairs up two pay-per-view events, from November 1997 and November 1998, that can be seen to bookend the most important transitional year for the World Wrestling Federation.
Survivor Series 1997, dubbed 'Gang Rulz', is still the most controversial pay-per-view card in US wrestling history; this is the event at which Vince McMahon orchestrated the infamous `Montreal double-cross' and relieved WWF World Champion Bret `Hitman' Hart of the title without his knowledge or consent. Pitted against his bitter real-life enemy Shawn Michaels in the show's final match, Hart (who would soon be leaving the WWF to join the rival WCW promotion) thought that his long-awaited singles match with Michaels would end in a non-finish that night; he had previously agreed with McMahon that he would drop the title to any wrestler of Vince's choosing (including Michaels), on any night of Vince's choosing before the end of the year; he just didn't want to drop the title that night, as the card was being held on (his native) Canadian soil. Vince, for reasons nobody has ever been able to explain adequately, chose to go through with the one plan Hart had expressly forbidden; with Hart trapped in a weak Sharpshooter submission hold, McMahon instructed the referee to call for the bell and award the title to Michaels, despite the fact that Hart clearly didn't submit. Watching the event live nearly twelve years ago, I remember thinking `what the hell?' as an infuriated Bret gobbed on Vince, and Shawn shot back to the locker room with a look of confused irritation on his face. Bret Hart immediately stormed out of the WWF, and never worked there again.
Lost in the confusion surrounding this sorry mess was that Survivor Series 1997 was actually a reasonably strong card of action. In his first match back since his serious neck injury at Summerslam four months previously, Stone Cold Steve Austin had a short, intense brawl with Owen Hart, relieving him of the Intercontinental Championship; however, by this point, Austin had totally outgrown the second-tier title, and surrendered it just over a month later in order to chase the World Championship in the run up to Wrestlemania XIV. Kane (Glen Jacobs) made his in-ring pay-per-view debut and had an intense scrap with Mick `Mankind' Foley, in a match that, at the time, reminded me very much of Foley's famous bouts with The Undertaker in 1996.
The other matches were pretty meaningless, but contained a few pieces of choice action, with Ken Shamrock, Vader, and Davey-Boy Smith shining as the 'MVPs' of the night. However, as with most cards from 1996 and 1997, quite a bit of childish dross left over from the `New Generation' often sits uneasily alongside the `Attitude era' personas of Austin, Foley, and to a lesser extent, Hunter Hearst Helmsley and The Rock.
Speaking of The Rock, he was fully established as a true WWF Superstar by the time Survivor Series 1998 rolled around. Dubbed the `Deadly Game', this pay-per-view was built around a tournament to crown a new WWF World Champion, and showcased The Rock (real name Dwayne Johnson) as the new leading heel wrestler of the organisation. He triumphed in the tournament (at the expense of the fans' beloved Mick Foley), and his victory paved the way for a showdown with Steve Austin at the following year's Wrestlemania. But the really interesting thing about the event is the truly mercenary way in which the real-life controversy from the previous year's Survivor Series was here re-written as a wrestling storyline angle; re-enacting his own actions against Bret Hart, Vince McMahon allowed The Rock to capture the title without actually defeating Foley in the final; it begun a common practice from McMahon and the WWF/WWE to use the infamous and unprofessional 'Montreal double-cross' as the basis for more storylines, re-heated disputes, and even jokes at Bret Hart's expense. And now, after more than a decade of listening to McMahon, Hart, and Shawn Michaels pathetically bicker about the details of this sordid and sleazy episode and their accountability for it, most wrestling fans have actually ceased to care.
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