Ground Zero (1997)

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Ground Zero was a professional wrestling pay-per-view produced by World Wrestling Federation which took place on 14th September 1997

## Background

The main match heading into the show is Shawn Michaels defending the WWF Championship against Jim Neidhart. This match was scheduled to be Shawn vs Bret but after Pillman continued taking out everyone, Bret wanted a match against him instead, a triple threat was made between Mark Henry, Billy Gunn and Jim Neidhart which Neidhart won to become NO1 contender, Neidhart has been constantly called the weak link of the hart family and he's going into this to prove he's not but he kept being overshadowed by Bret and Pillman during the buildup

In late 1996, Brian Pillman had specific moments where it looked like he was gonna blow up and he became more agressive but that seemed to stop as he joined Hart Foundation at Survivor Series 1996. But after not doing much in the group and even being beaten by Taka Michinoku, Pillman's crazy side started popping up again as he kept chairshotting everyone in sight, he says the loose cannon has been launched but Hart Foundation kept trying to calm him down. In a NO1 contendership to the Intercontinental Championship, The Rock defeated Bret Hart by DQ after Pillman showed up and chairshotted Rock, Bret was pissed at that and Pillman proceeded to brutalize him, Pillman explained that him being in Hart Foundation was the worst thing that could have happened as he was constantly held back and it came to the point where he exploded, he wants to take out every single member of HF but due to their leverage with owner of WWF Vince Mcmahon, Brian Pillman was suspended. He kept showing up at random points just to chairshot more people and security. After Bret became the NO1 contender to the WWF Championship, Pillman attacked him, Bret wanted a match against him tonight but Vince added the stakes that if Pillman wins he's no longer suspended and can't be for another year and the match will also be a NO1 contender for the WWF title so if Bret loses, he loses his contendership

LW champion The One Cold Scorpio wanted respect for the LW division so Vince Mcmahon decided to do a fatal 4 way between LWs to determine the NO1 contender to the Intercontinental Championship as Brian Christopher defeated Essa Rios, Taka Michinoku and Chyna to get the match against The Rock. Scorpio wasn't in the match because Vince gave him his biggest challenge for the title yet: former WWF champion Owen Hart

Terry Funk announced that he was signed back to WWF, he was mad that Undertaker was pretending he ended Vader's streak when Funk had actually defeated Vader at In Your House 21 in 1996, Funk ended up challenging the leader of MoD Undertaker to a match as he still didn't like what he was trying to achieve with his group but was defeated by him at Canadian Stampede. They continued their feud which now involved Mankind who turned on MOD to join up with Terry Funk, at Summerslam Taker destroyed Mankind in a hell in a cell match as Terry Funk watched, everyone in the roster was scared of Taker except for Funk and Vader who just wanted to take him down, Taker decided to challenge Funk first which Vader was pissed by

Austin lost the IC title to The Rock at Summerslam and didn't want his rematch just yet, he first wanted to beat up one of the people in Nation of Domination: D'Lo Brown

## Results

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## Details

* Christopher goes towards Rock and immediatly gets rock bottom'd as he's defeated in 10 seconds. Jerry Lawler enters the ring and punts his son
* Jim Neidhart comes out in the second match and starts chairshotting Bret, Neidhart tries to shake hands with him but Pillman hugs him angrily
* Bulldog comes out during Scorpio vs Owen and beats up Owen as Scorpio takes advantage and wins
* The Rock hit Austin with his title belt leading up to a frog splash by Brown for him to win
* Pillman shows up after the main event with crazy eyes looking at the WWF title