Boring

Absolutely Fantastic

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

I'm not going to blow things out of proportion here. Bret Hart's infamous screwjob loss is not the first time a person has gone into a match expecting one result and had the owner, referees, wrestlers conspire to produce another. It's not even the first time it had happened in the WWE. It's certainly not the first time a wrestler had shown sour grapes toward their former promotion. Ric Flair bringing the WCW Championship belt onto the WWE television and Austin's angry rant at WCW politics on his arrival in ECW are about on the same level. But this was the night that I sat there as a 16 year old and was given, for the first time, an inkling that there was a bit more going on here than choreographed fighting between friends, It was for me the night wrestling lost its previous innocence.The night kicked off with a traditional four on four Survivor Series match, with the New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg and Billy Gunn) teaming with the Godwinns (Henry and Phineas) to defeat The Headbangers (mosh and Thrasher) and the New Blackjacks (Barry Windham and Bradshaw). This was quite an average match with Bradshaw getting the ball rolling, pinning Henry Godwinn. Phineas Godwinn struck back for his team, taking out Windham following a clothesline. Next it was Mosh taken out by the Bad Ass Billy Gunn following. Thrasher then hit a stagedive on Phineas to square the match again. The New Age Outlaws then combined to take care of Bradshaw and then beat down on Mosh a few times to settle the match with the New Age Outlaws surviving.The next match, which I can't really tell you much about the lead up to saw The Truth Commission (The Jackyl, The Interrogator, Sniper and Recon) defeat the WWE's #4 stable the Disciples of the Apocalypse (Chainz, Skull, 8-Ball and Crush) with the INterrogator the sole survivor. This was a short, not very good, match and the less said about it the better.Next match saw the Survivor Series match done properly with Team Canada (THe British Bulldog, Doug Furnas, Phil Lafon and Jim Neidhart) defeating Team USA (Vader, Marc Mero, Goldust and Steve Blackman)> THe match eventually came down to Furnas and Bulldog vs Vader. Vader was bale to hit the Vader bomb on Furnas for the pin, but was then jumped from behind and hit with the ring bell by the Bulldog who got the pin to be the sole survivor.It was then time for Kane, who had debuted at the Badd Blood PPV where he cost the Undertaker the No.1 contendership in his Hell in a Cell match with Shawn Michaels, to have his first singles match on PPV taking on Mankind. This is not a great match, and Kane wins with the Tombstone. The Kane character still moved a little awkwardly at this stage. Guess it's not easy getting around in a rubber mask.Next match, another four on four Survivor Series match was easily the best SS match of the night. It saw Ahmed Johnson enlist the help of the Road Warriors (Hawk and Animal) and Ken Shamrock to take on the evil Nation of Doimination (Farooq, The Rock, Kama Mustafa and D Lo Brown) The match comes down to an exhausted Shamrock taking on D Lo Brown and the Rock, but Shamrock survives, forcing first Brown, and then the Rock to tap out to his devastating ankle lock as JR screamed "Shamrock has survived!" in the background.It was then time for rising star Steve Austin to win the Intercontinental Championship from Owen Hart. Austin had defeated Hart at the Summerslam PPV, but had broken his neck in the fight. Owen then won back the title in a tournament so he could lose it to Austin here. This was a bad short match.This finally brings us to the infamous main event which saw Shawn Michaels put Bret Hart in the sharpshooter to win the WWE Title in an average match. The problem was that Bret Hart was not aware that he would be losing the title. He then blew up, spitting in Vince McMahon's face, breaking TV monitors and writing "WCW" with his finger as the show went off air. The incident has sparked various conspiracy theories and opinions that I'm not going to bother getting into here. The main immediate consequence was the establishment of Vince McMahon as a boss who likes to screw his employees, something that Vince would milk for all it was worth over the next decade.Just imagine the shock for me, a 16 year old watching what was going on at home. Something off had just happened and wrestling would never be quite same again.

Survivor Series 1997 let me get right to the point,the Main event of the Pay Per View the other matches were OK but i was only really interested in Bret's match so that's all I'm going to summarise Main Event the best there is the best there was and the best there ever will be, Bret "Hitman" Hart vs HBK Shawn Michaels the match starts before the bell rings Hart and Michaels fight up and down the aisle before being coaxed into the ring to start the match for real. I'm not going to spoil the ending of the match except to say that what happened was absolutely ridiculous and Vincent Kennedy McMahon should be ashamed of himself! I strongly suggest you get this pay per view on video or DVD and watch it for yourselves.

It is now May 2004. This event took place in November 1997, Six and a half years ago. Even now Vince McMahon (owner of WWE) is trying to smooth things over with Bret, but Mr Hart will only return on the proviso that he can 'get revenge on Shawn Michaels or Vince McMahon' after what happened at this event. Three words Bret: GET OVER IT. It happened, its in the past, LET IT GO.Every time I hear the term "The Montreal Screw-job" a shudder courses through my body. Bret Hart was leaving to go to WCW. He wanted the PPV match that people had payed good money to see, both in person & on Pay - Per - View from home to end in a massive brawl, and a double disqualification, then he wanted to ditch the WORLD Title the next night on TV and walk away. I'm sorry, but how would that have been better for anyone other than Bret himself, and his own fans? Neutrals will recall that titles in the WWF (as it was back then) were only ever surrendered due to injury, or other personal problems where the Wrestlers were left with no choice but to vacate their title. Even Shawn Michaels (who was fond of winning, but not very fond of losing his numerous titles) dropped the World Title to Stone-Cold Steve Austin at 'The Big One' Wrestlemania 14. What if he had refused? Austin winning his first World Title by being given it the next night on Raw wouldn't have had quite the same feel. Bret Hart's problem was that he couldn't handle not being the top dog anymore, and he wanted to spoil it for the fans by not doing the decent thing and letting Shawn win. A victory for Shawn after interference surely would have been a more acceptable way to end his tenure than what we got. Its just a pity that the owner was forced into doing something he didn't want to do by Bret's petulance.Shawn Michaels was put in a precarious position. Whether he knew what was going to happen is fiercely debated even to this day, but even if he did, what was he meant to do? Refuse his chance at the World Title to show loyalty to someone who had dragged their feud into the schoolyard by saying his parents must be ashamed of their son Shawn? Why should he? The only person who screwed Bret Hart was Bret Hart, the minute he thought he was bigger than the Man and the company he was working for.And on a side note, the only people that were really screwed that night were the fans, because controversial ending aside, the PPV was not memorable for anything else. The whole event had been built on the title match and it showed with a poor under-card. Normally any other Survivor Series (bar The woeful 6th Annual in 1992, which coincidently also had World Champion Bret Hart vs Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels for the World Title as the main event - which Bret won) would be recommendable, but not this one. Probably one of the hardest old events to get hold off, but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)Firstly, let me get the bad bits out of the way. Longtime WWF fans will know that this was the event where Bret Hart parted company with the WWF after an incredible 13 year career. It's important to be objective here because there are two sides to a story but I do believe Vince McMahon made a mistake in doing what he did to Bret. Obviously, there was a ratings war going on with WCW at the time and I suppose that type of thing can make people do funny things. I don't need to go into great detail about the events here but despite this being a great event most people including myself only really remember it for the ending. Bret Hart was screwed in a way and it was so sad that his relationship with Vince McMahon ended like this. All I will say in closing is that the ending of the main event between Bret and Shawn Michaels really did spoil what was a great event.Back to the action-the matches were brilliant.We had battles such as Mankind having a wild brawl against the invincible Kane and Vader leading a team to battle in a good match which was memorable for Vader's partner Goldust and his sulking on the ring apron (Goldust refused to enter the match). The action throughout was top notch which was typical for the WWF of that era.The main event between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels was a good match spoilt only by the ending where Shawn Michaels was declared the winner via submission even though Bret Hart did clearly not submit.