Bret Hart's "Letter to Shawn" column just before Survivor Series '97 is a pretty great

[Necro]

Bret wrote the column below just before Survivor Series 1997 for his old Calgary Sun columns. This column was also transcribed verbatim in the November 10th, 1997 Wrestling Observer newsletter.

"Shawn Michaels, you are a disgrace to professional wrestling. It amazes me that there was a time I actually thought you'd be the guy who could come up behind me and carry the ball when my time comes to retire. Now when you're behind me, I have to make sure I don't bend over. I am a second generation wrestler. Like a lot of second generation wrestlers, I've paid my dues. The way you are degrading the business makes me sick and breaks my heart. That's not what Heartbreak Kid was supposed to mean. I told you, and Vince told you, to leave our families out of this. So you got on RAW and said that my father is dead. This time you're so far over the line that there's no coming back. Every so often, after you shoot off your mouth, you come to me backstage with a lame apology and a limp handshake. "Oh Bret, my mouth always gets me in trouble when I get goin' out there. You know I didn't mean nothin' by it."

Don't bother this time, I'm not buying it. I would not embarrass my father--who is not only very much alive but is still tougher today at 83 and more of a man than you will ever be--as you have embarrassed your father with your degenerate behavior. How humiliating for your poor mother to have to explain your lewd gestures to her friends. You don't respect anybody, do you? What does Jose Lothario think of how you've made pornography out of what he taught you? Shawn Michaels, you are nothing more than a whore for this business.

You called me a paper champion because it bothers you that my contract is worth more than you and the whole Degeneration X put together. You said I wrestle because I need the money, but you wrestle because this business needs you. You are a festering cancerous tumor in this business. After Wrestlemania XII, I went home for a while to give you the chance to become "the man" because as long as I'm around you'll never be "the man." You were so bad at being "the man" that the WWF and WCW had the biggest bidding war in wrestling history to get me to come back. You'd have the World championship belt. But you don't. What do you have, besides a big mouth and a bad attitude?

Shawn Michaels, you said that beating the Undertaker makes you an icon. Not taking anything away from 'Taker, but you weren't the first guy to beat him, you just did it too late. You said you're the only icon that can still go, not like the fossils. You're so beat up from taking completely overdone bumps like a Mexican jumping bean that you can't even work a full schedule like the older guys. You only wrestle about once a month and you're proud of that? Then people who think they know more about this business than they actually do, write about what a hard worker you are. Anyone can work hard once a month. You've barebacked your way to main event matches and they give you the best guys in the business to make you look good.

So you and your boyfriend, Hunter, think I'm too old. Hunter said he's bigger than me in more ways than one, and then you pointed at Hunter's crotch and said he could put an eye out with that thing. Thanks for admitting that you know what Hunter has in his pants. So how come I have four kids and all you two have is each other? I'm not the one shooting blanks. By the way, you both looked very comfortable eating bananas together on Raw. Lots of parents tell me they won't let their kids watch the shows anymore because of you and they don't watch either because you're such an asshole. People are shutting the show off because of you! It took so long to make wrestling into family entertainment. Thanks for setting the business back 50 years! You are the one who is confusing expansion and destruction, not me. You, Shawn, are the destruction of this business. You make me sick. You said you're the best sports entertainer in the world. Don't even think about saying you're a wrestler. What I do is an art form and what you do is...what do you do, anyway, cause it's not pro wrestling anymore?

You called the WWF world championship a "tin title" but you're only saying that because you don't have the belt. When you did have it, you treated it like garbage and then threw it away! So now you want to try to win the title at Survivor Series? You'd better reconsider that because when I get my hands on you it's going to make the beating I gave you in the locker room last June look like a warm up. After that little scuffle, you went running to Vince, complaining that the work conditions in the WWF are unsafe. The only thing unsafe about the working conditions in the WWF is you, Shawn. You've gotten in the ring so "pilled up" lately that you can't even talk straight on TV. You'd better shake the cob webs free before you get in the ring with me at SS. This business has been my mistress for my whole life and I love her. You are raping her and taking her dignity away. Don't count on my reputation for professionalism saving your ass at SS. You're the one who threw the rule book out the window. The 17 stitches you got at Hell in the Cell are nothing compared to what's coming at Misery in Montreal."

Damn Bret went hard with the anti-gay stuff back then, besides that I think a lot of it was valid. Shawn was a disaster back then.

 

[Deezy]

It was 97......we all were calling Shawn Michaels a "fag".