Luke Owen reviews the sixth episode of The Monday Night War…
Read the previous episode review here.
Oh goodie, another recap of The Montreal Screw Job. It’s a story that even a non-wrestling fan can tell you verbatim because it has been told so many times from so many different perspectives and all with the same commentary. The sixth episode of The Monday Night War, titled The Hart of War, offers nothing new to this tale as old as time, but commits an even bigger sin by not fully examining the utter failure of WCW’s booking of Bret Hart once he’d made the jump following the events of Survivor Series.
Like the Mick Foley episode last week, The Hart of War spends a lot time talking about Bret’s early days in the WWF and why the jump to the competition could (and should) have been the final nail in the coffin for the fledgeling company. A lot of time is spent on his rivalry with Shawn Michaels, which of course would lead to the now infamous match at Survivor Series 1997 and, as you would expect, it’s all very familiar. Bret was a traditionalist, Shawn wasn’t, they had a respect, it turned bitter etc etc. You’ve heard it all before, but it is justifiable to give the Montreal Screw Job some relevance in its impact in the ratings war.
While interesting, The Hart of War really suffers because it doesn’t bring in anything new in terms of commentary. Even interviews with the likes of Vince Russo, Scott Hall and Hillbilly Jim (of all people!) offer nothing but the same views you’ve heard before. It’s even funnier when you hear people like Road Dogg talk about the brawl in the locker room and the Survivor Series match, when he’s given more frank and honest opinions of it in shoot interviews outside of the company. They even discuss things like accusations of an affair with Sunny, but don’t have any comments from her despite Sunny being on the show earlier talking about other subjects.
And, like the series has suffered from in the past, The Monday Night War just seems to want to focus on how WWF improved itself against the competition rather than talk about how WCW imploded with backstage politics and horrible, out-of-touch booking. Of course, this WWE produced documentary series would like to lead you to believe that it was the improvement in quality that led to the WWF’s resurgence during 1998 and 1999, but it was a combination of elements and one of those was the poor management over at WCW. Case in point, Bret Hart. They took a man who was legitimately the hottest pro-wrestler in the world and they not only booked to have his first PPV appearance as the role of a referee in a lame Eric Bischoff/Larry Zbysko match, but then did nothing with him. Sean Waltman puts it best when he says that Bret wearing the metal plate to knock out Goldberg was the most memorable moment of his WCW run, which says a lot. The problem with this episode of The Monday Night War is that they just gloss over this fact to focus more energy on the rise of the Mr. McMahon character that came out of the “Bret screwed Bret” promo.
It’s infuriating when you realise that you’re 40 minutes into this 58 minute-long episode and they’re just starting to cover Survivor Series ’97. Granted there isn’t a huge amount to cover with Bret’s WCW run because, as we’ve established, it was virtually non-existent, but the episode glosses over it like it was a non-entity in the ratings war.
The Monday Night War is still the most interesting show on the WWE Network, but it doesn’t have a lot to compete against. The show’s biggest problem is that every episode is starting to feel the same and there is nothing new seemingly on the horizon. We’ve now had four episodes on the bounce which have focused on WWF “re-inventing” themselves and its becoming rather tiresome. Some variety is in order for this show to remain interesting.
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published September 17, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
