Shawn Michaels – Mid 1997

What were the plans for Shawn and Austin as Tag Team Champions in Mid-97? Were Owen and Bulldog going to get the belts back before Bret and Shawn had their fight that sent Shawn home?

Also Bret vs Shawn was supposed to be at KOTR 97, was Bret supposed to go over, and if they have that match, were they still scheduled to have the Survivor Series meeting? How far in advanced was the Bret/Shawn/Undertaker stuff planned?

​That whole period was REALLY flying by the seat of their pants, for obvious reasons. I don’t think there was any specific plans for the tag titles, but my feeling would be that they wanted to get as many belts off the Hart Foundation as possible before shit went south.

​As for the King of the Ring match, the ridiculous Cornette-style stipulations attached (Hart members handcuffed at ringside, Bret can’t wrestle in the US for a year if he loses, Shawn has to wear a diaper or whatever, blah blah blah) seemed to indicate a double-DQ non-finish​
​​ anyway, so they were likely still headed for that Survivor Series showdown. In fact, I’m pretty sure the original idea was to stretch it out until Wrestlemania but they had to move it up for obvious reasons. ​

​To this day, however, I’m still mystified as to why they HAD to get the World title back on Bret at Summerslam if Vince knew he was doing the deed. It feels like the stips for the match would have been easier to weasel out of than putting the title on him and trying to find a way out of THAT instead.​