Bruce Prichard reflects on Shawn Michaels “losing his smile”

Bruce Prichard, on his “Something to Wrestle” podcast stated that the plan was always to have Bret Hart put over Shawn Michaels at WM12 and for Shawn to return the favor at WM13. During the year, Shawn and Bret grew distant, with Hart believing Shawn was becoming cocky and over-confident, using his political affiliation with The Kliq backstage to get finishes changed as well as influencing Vince to get rid of wrestlers he didn’t like or felt were threatening his spot. Bret claims Shawn became a monster. Shawn claims Bret became paranoid and was obsessed with him. Prichard believes Shawn’s knee injury where he “lost his smile” and gave up the WWF Championship, was an excuse to not drop the belt back to the “Hitman”. The Undertaker ended up taking the championship from Psycho Sid and Bret beat Steve Austin in a classic 5 star Submission Match. Shawn missed the show but provided guest commentary for the main event.