Bret ranaway for all of 96 first after he had to drop belt to michaels in iron man
In the words of steve austin...he ran away in shame
And do that shytty lonesome dove show
Then he pulled this shyt at survivor series
Vince needed bret in 96 when nwo started kiilling wwf
Then bret leaves in 97 and tried to put the nail in wwfs coffin
Bret screwed bret
He wanted to take a break after WM 12, he didn't run away.
HBK refused to lose the WWE championship, giving the lost my smile speech and citing a career ending knee injury. At Wrestlemania 13, he was the guest announcer and made a Wolfpac hand signal. A few months later, he came back and moonsaulted off the top rope and landed on his feet.
After that he got into a backstage fight with Bret Hart, made the infamous "Sunny Days" comment, then the Montreal screw job. Once he was champion, he supposedly railroaded Owen Hart's push, then he got the back injury that coincidentally took place as he was scheduled to job to Austin for the title.
Before Wrestlemania 14, there is a story about him refusing to job to Austin and the Undertaker threatened to kill him if he didn't. After Mike Tyson hit what was supposed to a ko punch, Michaels continued to chew his gum as he was supposed to be unconscious.
The British Bulldog was set to face Shawn Michaels in the main event of a UK-only PPV. Bulldog had done several interviews in his home country hyping the main event and saying that he was dedicating the match to his sister who was dying from cancer.
Shawn was in "No jobs to anybody" mode, and politiced to win the European Title and go "against the grain" and beat the hometown boy in the main event. Shawn made Bulldog tap to the figure four in front of Bulldog's home country, in front of his dying sister, in front of his wife, and in front of a UK only audience, and then he went on to do nothing with the European title until losing it on-purpose to tag partner Triple H on a RAW in December of 1997.
One of the incidents mentioned in Bret's book claims that Bret, who was champ at the time, told HBK that despite their differences, he would have no problem dropping the belt to him. HBK allegedly thanked him and then said "I just want you to know that I wouldn't do the same for you".
Also, according to multiple sources, including Jim Cornette and Hart, during a match with Vader, HBK got upset with him for apparently pulling his hair or throwing potatoes, that he dressed down Vader in front of everyone, and told him that he'd be fired if he did it again.
Regarding the Montreal Screwjob;
If you know the whole story then you know Bret didn't do anything wrong. Bret was willing to drop the title the next night as well as any time over the next month before his contract ended. Was Bret a dikk for not wanting to lose at SS? A little but in that era wrestlers had much more control so it wasn't crazy that he didn't want to lose there and he shouldn't have. He wasn't going to go to WCW with the title, he was completely fine with dropping it before his contract was up in a few weeks
Plus, if anyone didn't follow the "script" it was Vince and Shawn. Bret did what was agreed upon backstage. All Bret did was not like the script they had and refuse to do it--something Steve Austin did all the fukking time, by the way
If Vince McMahon would have controlled Shawn Michaels who seemingly did and said whatever he wanted without consequence, this would have never happened. Bret was fine with putting Shawn over until Shawn said that he wouldn't do the same for Bret.
Shawn being Shawn with that c*nty, unnecessary remark caused the whole thing to snowball from there. I don't blame Bret one bit for saying 'fukk that' and refusing to lose after all of that. IMO, Vince and Shawn were 99% to blame for what lead up to the screwjob.