The Montreal Screwjob

What are your thoughts on this infamous day in history?

Do you think that Brett should have agreed to drop the belt?
Was Vince right to 'screw' Brett
How much involvement do you think HBK had in the thing?
Was it good for wrestling as a whole?
Do you think it was one of the greatest works of all time (and wasnt actually a screw job)?
Do you think it will ever happen again (well in the WWE - we all know that TNA has done it since in a work)

I found this video of what happened - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0K3H9axnoc

Why was Brett wearing a wire before his meeting with Vince?

Any, it would be interesting to hear everyones thoughts.

I think it was genuine and it created notoriety and controversy for the wrestling business which was a much bigger pop culture sensation than it is today. I think HBK went along with it, probably because he didn't have a great relationship with Bret outside the ring and was happy to be made champ. I think there was real bad blood between Bret and Vince but I don't think it should be attempted again just for ratings (not that there is the same need to without any major competition).

If my boss told me to do something, and I didnt do it - id be fired.

Should of been the same for Bret. He put Vince in that position by defying him, so deserved it I guess.

If it was a work, theyll never ever top it.

For me its totally Brets fault, I can see why he wouldn't put Shawn over but he had creative freedom for the last 30 days of his contract and didnt want to drop the belt until his final night and not to a guy McMahon was ready to push, he left Vince with no choice, you have to protect the title

Bret could have used his creative freedom weeks earlier to get the belt on someone like Taker then had a SS rematch with him where the time runs out when he had Taker almost beat, that would have protected his character in Canada and he would haue did right by the business

Nobody came out of it looking great, but I think Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels (and the others involved in the plan) were callous in the way they orchestrated it.

Bret Hart was willing to drop the title to anyone anywhere, with one exception: He refused to lose to Shawn Michaels in Canada. Given that Michaels had been vile towards him for over a year, and had specifically said he would not do a job for Bret, and Bret was very serious (too serious) about his perception in Canada, I think this was reasonable. It's especially reasonable considering that Bret came from a wrestling background of honour and respect, and felt that he was receiving complete disrespect from Shawn Michaels.

It's easy to use the "if I didn't do what my boss told me to do I'd be fired" analogy, but I think that is too black and white. If you worked with a colleague who was consistently disrespectful towards you, and refused to help you meet deadlines for example, would you really want to help them meet their own deadlines? And if it was also written in your contract that you did not have to help anyone meet deadlines if you didn't want to, would you really be willing to help this colleague?

Bret's problem was that he took himself, and the betrayal, way too seriously. In fact he wasted the opportunity he'd been given, to go to WCW as the biggest and hottest babyface in wrestling, because he couldn't get over it and wouldn't talk about anything else. There were much better ways he could have dealt with it both at the time and in the (very long) aftermath.

Vince McMahon particularly was intent on making things as difficult for Bret as possible. He knew of the heat between the two wrestlers and was playing it for his own amusement. It is naive to say that either he was the boss and Bret should have listened to him (see the example above, and consider Bret's long and dignified tenure) and even more naive to think that poor Vince had to make a tough decision. Bret never refused to drop the belt, he just refused to drop it in Canada to Shawn Michaels. There was a month either side of Montreal in which he could have lost it to anyone else anywhere else.

For an example of how callous and calculating both Vince and Michaels were, watch the One Night Only event, where as per Shawn and Triple H's suggestion, Shawn beat Davey Boy Smith for the European Title in front of Smith's dying sister and home crowd. This was done purely as a political slap in the face to Bret, as Shawn did not need the title (he ended up laying down for Triple H to take it off him a couple of months later) and it only served to leave the British crowd and anyone watching at home with a sour taste in their mouths.

The truth is that Vince and Shawn loved screwing Bret, and indeed anyone else they got a chance to screw. Any suggestion otherwise, as I said, is naive.

Bret wore a wire because at the time he had a film crew following him around for a documentary (the awesome 'Wrestling with Shadows') and he'd told the director that he didn't trust Vince and thought something was going to go down at the Survivor Series. The director then convinced Bret to wear a hidden mic during his meeting with Vince.

I can't see past blaming anyone other than Vince McMahon. Contrary to popular belief, Survivor Series or the following RAW weren't Bret's last nights with the WWF. He had numerous RAW's and what turned out to be the Degeneration X pay per view before his WCW contract took effect. Vince's excuse - that he was worried Bret would 'pull an Alundra Blayze' and drop the WWF title into a trash can on Nitro - was completely unfounded, and I don't believe that was Vince's real reason for the screw job anyway.

He was looking for a way out of his contract with Bret (he said he had no money to pay Bret's $1.5 million a year contract but only 2 months later forked out $3.5 million for Mike Tyson) and I think he was annoyed that Bret had gotten so much out of him when the bidding war with WCW was on. Plus there's the fact that Vince was extremely close with Shawn Michaels at that time, he was his new favourite after Bret had been in that position for years.

You can argue that Bret should have dropped the belt to Shawn, and he would have if it hadn't been for Shawn firing back with "I wouldn't do the same for you" when Bret said he had no problem losing to HBK. So after that, why would he want to drop the belt to him? HBK liked to hark on about 'respecting the business' but where was Shawn's respect when he said he wasn't willing to return the favour?

It was HHH who first broached the subject of screwing Bret out of the title, and (apparently) after all other avenues had been explored it was decided it was the only way to get the belt off him. Which is bull. As noted above there was plenty of time for Bret to lose the title, it didn't HAVE to be at Survivor Series. That was Vince just wanting to stick it to Bret for 'getting one over him' with his contract.

Blaming Bret for the Montreal screwjob is borderline ridiculous. As crip says, he only asked for 1 thing, and Vince did everything in his power to ensure that Bret didn't get it. The whole thing was set-up to ruin Bret and it did. The only blame that can be laid at Bret's door, is that he let it.

I have heard all sorts of (lame) excuses for exoneratiing Vince over the years, and not one has any real standing, especially considering what Vince's real intentions were. From Vince fearing his title turning up on WCW TV (Poopie), from him having no choice as Shawn needed to go over (wrong) to Bret having to do what Vince told him (Vince didn't tell him anything, he didn't have the balls to in light of how adamant Bret was at not dropping the belt in Canada).

If you think Bret is to blame, you have got something against him.

what about the other points I raised?

Was it good for wrestling and do you think it could ever happen again (and not be a work ala TNA).

I would love Vince/ HHH to screw the streak - tell taker he is going to be going for 20-0 next year, but get the ref to make a fast count on Sunday. That would be awesome!

I don't know if you could say it was good for wrestling Hobo. A lot of people say that the 'Mr McMahon' character was born at Survivor Series that night but to be honest I think that would have come about anyway. He'd already had run-ins with Bret Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin and it had been acknowledged that he was the owner of the company so it would have been a natural progression.

Will it happen again? I can't see it happening in the WWE any time soon because I can't see Vince letting himself get into a position whereby someone will have 'reasonable creative control' inserted into their contracts. Plus there's the fact that the WWE don't have any competition right now, which obviously put pressure on the situation in 1997.

No offence, but I'd absolutely HATE it if they did that Hobo.

Hobo if that happened - and not a work - would blow the Montreal Screwjob out of the water!

I don't see it ever happening again for the simple fact that bookers have flogged the screwjob ending to death since Montreal, so it wouldn't be as groundbreaking and people would assume it was a work. In fact, take the recent Jeff Hardy situation. That would have been a huge deal at one time. As it turned out, people pretty much forgot about it within a week.

It may well have helped WWF business at that time. Statistically, they did much better numbers post-Montreal. Whether that was people tuning in out of curiosity, or whatever, those viewers stayed with them going forward. I still would argue it was bad for the wrestling business from a moral standpoint, but financially the company did much better business after Montreal, whether by coincidence or not.

Hobo, I'm not sure why you'd want that to happen. Are you just talking about Vince screwing Undertaker purely for the hell of it? I don't really know why anyone would enjoy that!

"Bret Hart was willing to drop the title to anyone anywhere"

Why then if this is true was he only willing to drop it the night after Survivor Series? his last night with the company?

If he was truly concerned for his character he could have dropped it earlier, he didn't though, he wanted to hold onto it for maximum time and in doing so left himself open to McMahon going into business for himself

the-gaffer wrote:"Bret Hart was willing to drop the title to anyone anywhere"

Why then if this is true was he only willing to drop it the night after Survivor Series? his last night with the company?

If he was truly concerned for his character he could have dropped it earlier, he didn't though, he wanted to hold onto it for maximum time and in doing so left himself open to McMahon going into business for himself

Bret offered to drop the belt to others. It was Vince McMahon who wouldn't let him. The only way Bret could have done so would have been to go against the script, something which he did not believe was ethical, ironically.

As stated before, Bret's last night was no Survivor Series or the Raw after. He was still contracted with the company until after the December PPV. There was plenty of time to get the strap off him.

I'm not sure where you've heard/read that Bret Hart was only willing to drop the belt the night after Survivor Series. It has been stated numerous times that he was prepared to drop it to anybody, anywhere, at any point between signing the deal with WCW (early November) and the start of that deal (late December) except for Shawn Michaels in Canada. He wouldn't have been legally allowed to turn up on Nitro and drop the belt in a bin (Madusa was out of contract, Bret wasn't) and nothing about his actions in the entire period (and indeed his career) suggested that he would behave in such a way.

Davieswasacrippledtart wrote:

the-gaffer wrote:"Bret Hart was willing to drop the title to anyone anywhere"

Why then if this is true was he only willing to drop it the night after Survivor Series? his last night with the company?

If he was truly concerned for his character he could have dropped it earlier, he didn't though, he wanted to hold onto it for maximum time and in doing so left himself open to McMahon going into business for himself

Bret offered to drop the belt to others. It was Vince McMahon who wouldn't let him. The only way Bret could have done so would have been to go against the script, something which he did not believe was ethical, ironically.

As stated before, Bret's last night was no Survivor Series or the Raw after. He was still contracted with the company until after the December PPV. There was plenty of time to get the strap off him.

I'm not sure where you've heard/read that Bret Hart was only willing to drop the belt the night after Survivor Series. It has been stated numerous times that he was prepared to drop it to anybody, anywhere, at any point between signing the deal with WCW (early November) and the start of that deal (late December) except for Shawn Michaels in Canada. He wouldn't have been legally allowed to turn up on Nitro and drop the belt in a bin (Madusa was out of contract, Bret wasn't) and nothing about his actions in the entire period (and indeed his career) suggested that he would behave in such a way.

Is he not referring to the original plan of dropping it the next night on Raw to HBK?

Oh right, if that's the case I was not aware that was ever the plan. However the fact remains that Bret was not unwilling to drop the title any other time; he was happy to drop it on plenty of occasions but Vince McMahon refused.

As far as I was aware, Bret was planning to relinquish the belt to Vince the following night on RAW, which was also in Canada.

I have always had a suspicion that Bret was in on it. Whether this is true or not I am not sure. In someways it doesn't make sense for a wrestler to be involved in the biggest storyline in history just as he is leaving... then again Bret's name will be remembered forever because of it.

That said if it was a set up someone would have probably blabbed by now and considering it is so many years on the fact that nothing has come out about it may well mean it was "real".

Which basically means I don't know!

Never a work that suggestion is just stupid conspriacy theory.

Vince McMahon regreted signing Bret to a 20 yr contract & wanted out. I think whether he could afford it is irrelevant.

I think it's difficult to credit the subsequent boom for this one event, that I think is more to do with the adult content & the product 'growing up' with the audience.

The conspiracy theory is interesting due to the timing of the camera crew following Bret, losing in the ratings, the fact some ex wrestlers believe it was a work (either Al Snow or Lance Storm, I can't remember which). But no way was it a work.

Davies, Y2D2 and Liverbnz echo my thoughts entirely. For anyone who hasn't seen Wrestling with Shadows I cannot recommend buying it enough. Being a huge Hitman fan, I just hate the way he will always be remembered for the Screwjob, and his subsequent poorly booked return and lame Mania match with Vince, than for being the best wrestler of all time IMO.

As for Vince's real motives, I believe the money issue played a part. I also think he believed the Hitman character was played out, and doing this to Bret in Canada would create so much new interest in WWF and help to win the Monday Night Wars.

I hate Bret, he deserved to be screwed!

Dx Dan. wrote:I hate Bret, he deserved to be screwed!

Hello Vince.

Vince is a wrestling GOD!

I dont remember Bret for the Screwjob, I remember Bret for limping around the ring with a chair beating on Vince in what is probably the worst Wrestlemania 'match' of all time.