Attitude Era of Earth 2

> Random Thought from the other day: it’s been well established how the Mr McMahon character was created by the events around Montreal, and that was an essential piece to the Austin star power.
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> Do you think it could’ve went down any other way?

More specifically, if Shawn ends up leaving or is out of the equation in the summer of ’97 (hopefully not in the tragic Pillman way), can you get to the same destination running Bret vs Austin as the main feud into 1998? Austin was doing his "lay out all officials" thing at that point, climaxing with the big Stunner on Vince. Could they use that point to start the Mr McMahon character, with maybe Bret as his corporate champion?
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> Without the Shawn factor (who was only around slightly after that point anyway), Bret might be more game to stay around & have a more positive experience. Watching old Raws from 1997, it seems like the crowd was against Vince pre-Montreal anyway, when he was just an "announcer". This would alter many other things (does HHH ever become anything without DX start?), but like I said, a random "what if" thought…

I think Bret have worked as Vince’s corporate stooge who was all about family values, yeah. I don’t how happy he would be in the Russo era, but it would have been an interesting character twist.