Scrapped Plans For Huge WrestleMania Match Revealed

WWE

As WWE WrestleMania approaches another milestone, it’s always interesting in to hear about what might have been.

MLW owner Court Bauer recently spoke to The Insiders podcast (subscription required) about plans for a match that would have taken place at WrestleMania 22.

Speaking about the return of Bret Hart to WWE, Bauer explained:

“Well, the original version was supposed to kind of, sort of, get off the ground in WWE in 2006 or 2007. Bret was back in the orbit of WWE after coming to terms with Vince and doing the DVD and at one point was going to be Bret versus Vince at WrestleMania 22 in Chicago, and then Bret was a little uneasy about doing that. They eventually did it much differently a few years later.”

The original WrestleMania 22 proposal, however, would be something very different, with Bauer saying:

“But the original idea was gonna be the Harts and the Hart Foundation versus the WWE, Vince, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Shane and Shawn’s students at the time.

“The idea would be you know, you have Paul London. You had Brian Kendrick, and then they were gonna sign Bryan Danielson.”

Clearly, this would have allowed for a much more nuanced match than just pitching Vince McMahon against Bret Hart, though Vince wasn’t exactly hot on the idea.

Bauer said, of McMahon’s reaction:

“I remember Vince looking at me saying. ‘You know, self-masturbatory gimmick.’ It was like a warning, like this is on you when this goes south. I’m like okay.”

Sadly, we never got to see Bauer’s vision and his time in WWE would end in 2007, though the legacy of the Hart’s continued with mixed results, as Bauer points out:

“Now truth be told Teddy outlasted me in WWE. I left the summer of 2007 and he stayed around for a little bit more. So I don’t know how that ended up going, but clearly he didn’t end up on air and the other guys did.

“Nattie is still there doing great things, Tyson is contributing behind the scenes, and Harry’s had his tours of duty there since, so it was interesting what could have been with that.”

WWE fans would eventually get Vince McMahon vs Bret Hart at WrestleMania 26 in a No Holds Barred Match.

Whilst it did feature members of the Hart Dynasty, it wasn’t a match that stands in high regard in the legacy of The Hit Man.

Transcript from WrestlingNews.co

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• bret hart
• Vince McMahon
• wwe

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