Copied from a post I made elsewhere..
Rewatched Wrestling with Shadows last night for the first time in about 10 years in preparation for TLF's Montreal Retrospective.
Nothing in there that I didn't already know but I mostly watched it to get a bit nostalgic but I able to appreciate it this time for what it was, pretty much a time capsule for the backstage political tension, uncertainty & projections for the landscape of Professional Wrestling as at the time it was filmed during '97, Nobody not Bret, Vince, Shawn, Austin or Meltzer or whoever could've anticipated what kind of impact on the industry the screw job was about to have. What kind of fortune awaited Vince & Steve & the Federation, how Bret & his new employers was about to be cursed & what kind of Legacy the documentary about to leave on the business whilst they were allowing themselves to be filmed.
2 comments in particular really resinated with me during the Documentary & couldn't have been any prophetic, I'm not sure if many people commented have referenced it since it aired so apologies if it had been to death..
1. During the "Bret screwed Bret" interview with Vince, he says "Bret made a selfish choice" & that he will "have to live with that for the rest of his life." Think Vince foreshadowed that not only would Bret be fated to spend the rest of his post career rehashing & retreading his version of events of Montreal in Shoot Interviews & Public Appearances but that Vince himself would continue to ruin salt in the wounds by exploiting & recycling the Screw Job angle himself for the next 20 years.
2. Bret, post Screw Job; theories this happened because Vince didn't like the fact that Bret wanted more creative control & that Bret had become too powerful, and that Vince couldn't allow that to happen. Bret seemed to think that he could perhaps set a precedent for "The Boys" & seemed to suggest that more Wrestlers having Creative Control over their characters could be a positive thing. Little did he know at this point, that there would PLENTY of that allright where he's headed. Little did he know, that this would be one of the many factors that would kill the company he had just signed for.