What would have you done with Bret Hart in 1997.

[stlstudios189]

Vince did not want to risk having Bret take off with the title, mistrust was too high I would have screwed him over as well.

[DXZeke]

I wouldn't have even given Bret the choice to drop the title "his way" and would have declared the title vacant and had the Main Event at Survivor Series be a 4 way match.

Vince didn't want to pay Bret the crazy contract that they signed. 20 years at 1 million dollars per year. The idea is that Bret would work in the ring and also the front office... Once Bret decided he wasn't on board with The Attitude Era that was his trip off the WWE Island.

The Screwjob was surreal.
At the time the way Bret wanted to leave was to not drop the belt on the PPV and drop it the next night on RAW. What stopped Bret from not appearing and taking the belt to WCW much like Alundra Blaze did with the WWE Woman's title - then throwing it in the trash? Nothing. It's not like Bret was happy with Vnice or HBK before the screwjob.

Bret was a great performer, but he wasn't going to go with the new way of Wrestling. He was only interested in a Good Guy vs Bad Guy. None of the Tweener stuff.

[DonkeyJote]

Like it was said, Bret was newly into a 20 year contract. Vince realized that Bret Hart was no longer matching his vision of the business (the HBK's, Stone Colds, etc), so he allowed Bret to negotiate a contract with WCW and be allowed out of his WWE contract. Both sides wanted that.

Now as for what to do with Bret, I like Ted's idea. That would've been a good way to go. However, I think Bret had originally agreed to drop it clean to HBK. They had already started the buildup to the Survivor Series match, and Vince wasn't going to lose all that hype and scrap the match at the last minute. They probably could've just done HBK vs. Taker again, this time for the vacant belt. Or throw Kane in the mix, make it a triple threat. But once they got to the point where it was going to be Bret vs. Shawn, and Bret refused to lose, Vince had no choice. In Vince's shoes, I would have done exactly what he did.