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What’s the story?
WWE was in a Flashback Friday mood and decided to upload a dark match that occurred just before the Attitude Era began featuring Bret “The Hitman” Hart, Shawn Michaels, and The Undertaker.
In case you didn’t know...
WWE rarely post dark matches or house show matches online without there being any significance to present day storylines.
The only places to find dark matches would be searching through social media, looking for old clips on YouTube or Dailymotion or watching them on the WWE Network.
The heart of the matter
The dark match took place on the Sept. 22, 1997, edition of Monday Night Raw and emanated from Madison Square Garden. The triple threat dark match that occurred was playing off the storyline between all three men that stemmed from their SummerSlam match.
The main event of SummerSlam 1997 featured Hart wrestling The Undertaker for the WWE Championship with Michaels as the special guest referee. The match ended when Michaels went to hit Hart with a steel chair, but accidentally hit The Undertaker and subsequently counted the pin.
The chair shot from Michaels was the catalyst that kicked off the feud between himself and Taker and led o their match at Ground Zero: In Your House which ended in a no contest.
Aside from this dark match after Raw, the next match would be The Undertaker wrestling Michaels in the first-ever Hell in a Cell match at Badd Blood: In Your House.
The Taker-Michaels feud was put on hold and Hart and Michaels wrestled their last match at the infamous 1997 edition of Survivor Series.
What’s next?
This match was only a snippet of the dark match all three legends participated in and the rest of the is not available on the WWE Network.
The WWE tends to save dark matches for network collections and DVDs, so there’s no telling if fans will be able to see the full match.
Author’s take
It’s always interesting to take a look back at history and see what transpired later.
I’m sure nobody could’ve imagined that the next two pay-per-views would be crucial to launching one of the biggest eras in the history of professional wrestling.
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