Today is the 20th anniversary of the infamous Montreal Screwjob. It has become one of the biggest events and most talked about items in the history of the great industry of professional wrestling. Many fans can remember where they were when it happened. I had just begun my Senior Year of High School, and boy am I dating myself right now! I was watching the 1997 Survivor Series pay-per-view. It was a decent card for the most part and included a classic between Stone Cold Steve Austin and my personal favorite wrestler of all time, Owen Hart. The main event was a match for the WWF Championship between Bret "Hit Man" Hart and Shawn Michaels. The end of the match saw a seismic shift in the landscape of professional wrestling and it was forever changed.
Shawn Michaels used Hart's finisher the Sharpshooter against him and locked it in. All of a sudden, WWF Chairman Vince McMahon got up from the announce' table and ordered referee Earl Hebner to ring the bell. The Heartbreak Kid just became the new champion and all hell broke loose! Hart, incredibly irate, spat at McMahon and proceeded to destroy equipment at ringside. Meanwhile, Michaels and his Degeneration X cohort Triple H hightailed it out of there. Before leaving the ring, Hart drew the letters WCW in the air to confirm to the crowd their knowledge of him going to the rival company.
It certainly didn't end there! What we didn't see happened in the locker room. Bret Hart punched McMahon in the face. We learned even more when the film "Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows" came out. It focused more on what led up to that moment and the circumstances involved. The cameras followed the journey of Hart meeting with McMahon about how the match would end. There were many stories and rumors that came out of this. Bret Hart apparently refused to drop the championship to Shawn Michaels in his home country of Canada. Hart claimed he would have dropped it to someone else gladly. There have always been two camps when it came to this incident: those who believe Hart got screwed, and those who agree that Bret screwed Bret.
I can certainly understand both sides of the story. At that time, the now 18-year-old in me automatically sided with Bret and thought he got screwed. It took time before I understood the counter argument. Bret was promised a certain ending and it didn't happen. The agreed upon end was to have shenanigans go on, leaving no winner. Bret would still retain the championship and agree to hand the title over the next night on Raw. From that perspective, I understand where Hart came from. He didn't want to leave the WWF for WCW, despite not agreeing with the new "Attitude" being born. Vince McMahon himself said WCW wouldn't know what to do with a Bret Hart, and boy was he right! However, it came down to money when McMahon couldn't deliver on Bret's asking price so Bret had to do what was right for him and left.
Here's where the opinion changes! Vince McMahon was probably worried about Hart taking his company's championship and showing up on WCW Monday Nitro with it. After all, Madusa did the exact same thing. I'd like to think Hart had enough integrity not to do that. That's not to dismiss Madusa either. She was trying to make a living, after all! Not only that, but there was the Lex Lugar incident. Not to mention, McMahon had done the same thing himself when he had Ric Flair show up in the WWF with the NWA World Title belt. Also, Hart's attitude had changed, he was angrier, and certainly had heat with Shawn Michaels. McMahon did what he felt was the right thing to do and stated in an interview the very next night that "Bret screwed Bret!" Others who agree with McMahon state that in wrestling, the right thing to do is lose on your way out and it really shouldn't matter who you lose to, or where, for that matter!
This blog is not about either opinion, however! What I am asking is, was this something that needed to happen for wrestling to continue and evolve? Was it a necessary evil? Let's think for a second what this all led to. Stone Cold Steve Austin was on the rise and he needed a foil to work with. Austin had a great program with Bret Hart in that respect but now Bret was gone. That new foil ended up being Mr. McMahon. For years, many knew that Vince McMahon was the real owner of the WWF. Now, it was blatant and everyone knew. That gave birth to the Mr. McMahon character. The Austin/McMahon rivalry helped the WWF reach new heights. They eventually beat WCW in the ratings and won the Monday Night War.
If the "Montreal Screwjob" never took place, would any of these events have happened? Many even ask to this day if this was a work or a shoot. Heck, in some places, mainly Canada, both Shawn Michaels and Earl Hebner still receive "You Screwed Bret" chants! It's still real to them, dammit! The Butterfly Effect on this would really be interesting. It's almost like "It's a Wonderful Life!" The human race will never know how things would turn out if Bret wasn't "screwed." It's an interesting thing to think about, though! Opinions about whether Bret got screwed or not aside, how different would things be without the Montreal Screwjob?
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