The Montreal Screwjob, also called the Montreal Incident, was a notorious professional wrestling incident where the outcome of a major match was changed, without one of the wrestlers being informed, in order to "screw over" Bret Hart, who was in bitter conflict with his then-employer, WWF (Now WWE) owner Vince McMahon. The screwjob occurred on November 9, 1997, at the Survivor Series PPV event produced by the WWF in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. During the WWF Championship match between champion Hart and Shawn Michaels, McMahon, who was in charge of matches and storylines and producer of the show – and a small number of WWF employees, most significantly referee Earl Hebner – covertly changed the predetermined outcome of the match in favor of Michaels; the screwjob occurred without Hart's knowledge, causing him to lose the championship. Hart took the incident as a personal insult because he did not wish to lose the title to Michaels after the latter had told Hart that he would never do the same for him. With this event, the term "screwjob" came into wrestling parlance.
Hart had been WWF Champion since SummerSlam 1997. A week prior to Survivor Series, Hart, who had performed for the WWF since 1984, agreed to join rival wrestling promotion WCW in December 1997. McMahon sought to prevent Hart from leaving the WWF as champion; Hart was unwilling to lose to Michaels – with whom he had a legitimate feud following a series of adversarial confrontations and verbal exchanges. The match was originally planned to end in disqualification, causing Hart to retain the title, and then losing or forfeiting it at a later date. Instead, as the match approached the twentieth minute (a standard length for a televised WWF title match), under McMahon's direction, Hebner ended the contest as Michaels held Hart in the Sharpshooter (a submission hold and Hart's signature move); although Hart did not submit, Michaels was declared the winner by submission and became WWF Champion. Michaels and other WWF officials left the arena in a scramble, after which there were several altercations backstage involving the pair and a number of other wrestlers and staff, including McMahon being punched in the face and knocked unconscious by Hart.
As a result of the Montreal Screwjob, McMahon and Michaels elicited angry responses from Canadian audiences and others for many years, with McMahon viewed by many fans to have betrayed Hart, who was one of the WWF's longest-tenured and most popular performers at the time. The incident is considered one of the beginnings of the WWF's Attitude Era, and unintentionally led to the creation of McMahon's villainous (heel) on-screen character, "Mr. McMahon", on WWF television broadcasts. The screwjob garnered a notorious legacy; accounts differ as to who exactly was involved in the plan and the extent of their involvement, while some wrestling fans, performers and bookers believe the incident was an elaborate work executed in collaboration with Hart, which he denies. Hart did not return to the promotion until his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame in April 2006. Later legitimately reconciling with McMahon and Michaels, Hart returned in January 2010 for his first live appearance on WWE programming since the incident, with the screwjob used in a storyline between McMahon and Hart, leading to a match at WrestleMania XXVI. Longtime industry writer Mike Johnson referred to the screwjob as "arguably the most talked-about [event] in the history of professional wrestling". The incident was partly chronicled in the documentary film Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows (1998).
Bret Hart's departure from the WWF
At the time of the Montreal Screwjob, Bret Hart was a 14-year veteran of the WWF (now WWE), having got his first break in the promotion in the 1980s as one-half of The Hart Foundation, a tag team with his brother-in-law Jim Neidhart and manager Jimmy Hart (no relation). After the team had two reigns as the WWF Tag Team Champions – splitting from Jimmy Hart and becoming heroes between reigns – Hart then achieved tremendous success as a singles performer in the 1990s, twice taking the WWF Intercontinental Championship, and then winning the WWF Championship five times.
Between his third and fourth reigns, Hart took a seven-month leave of absence after WrestleMania XII, during which he considered contract offers from both the WWF and rival promotion WCW. In October 1996, Hart declined a three-year, $8.4 million offer from WCW, instead opting to sign an unprecedented twenty-year deal offered by WWF owner Vince McMahon, who promised to make him the highest-paid wrestler in the promotion and secure him a major role with the company's management following his retirement. Both Hart and the WWF saw the contract as an expression of mutual loyalty. By mid-1997, the WWF was facing financial difficulties due to stiff competition from WCW, which had become the largest professional wrestling promotion in the USA. At the same time, McMahon was planning an initial public offering to make the WWF a publicly traded company (even though the promotion would not go public until 1999), a move which required him to minimize any long-term financial commitments.
For several months prior to the 1997 Survivor Series, Hart and fellow wrestler Shawn Michaels had several backstage arguments, culminating in a fight before a WWF Raw event in Hartford, Connecticut, after Michaels had publicly accused Hart of having an affair with WWF valet Tammy Lynn Sytch, that saw Michaels go home for two months. On October 12, 1997, after a show in San Jose, California, Hart claimed he spoke to Michaels about being professional and trusting one another in the ring; Hart allegedly said he would have no problem losing to Michaels if McMahon requested. He also claimed that when Michaels replied that he "would not be willing to do the same" to him, Hart was shocked and became angry. This led to Hart's outright refusal to lose the WWF Championship to Michaels at the WWF's PPV event in Montreal, although in his documentary Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows (1998), Hart stated to McMahon that he would happily drop the championship belt but not in Canada. In his own autobiography, Michaels rejected Hart's claim, saying that he would have cleanly lost to Hart had storylines demanded so; others, including Jim Cornette in various shoot interviews, often denied this, saying that they knew first-hand that Michaels had no intention of losing cleanly to Hart. Michaels also observed that he had lost cleanly to Hart several times in the past, most notably in the WWF's first ever ladder match at a Wrestling Challenge taping on July 21, 1992, which would subsequently be made available on multiple home video releases by the WWF,WWF @ Portland, ME – Civic Center – July 21, 1992. The History of WWE. Retrieved May 30, 2011. and in the main event of the 1992 Survivor Series. Michaels also lost to Hart in a steel cage match in December 1993.WWF @ Utica, NY – War Memorial – December 1, 1993 (4,500). The History of WWE. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
McMahon believed he made the right choice in pressing Hart to return to the WWF, which kept him from joining WCW in 1996. By September 22, 1997, the promotion's monetary problems were at an all-time high. McMahon began deferring payments to Hart, claiming the company was in "financial peril". Meanwhile, McMahon reviewed the WWF's plans for the future and saw the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, and D-Generation X (DX) leading what was to become the "Attitude Era". The WWF's plans did not include Hart; McMahon therefore encouraged Hart to reopen negotiations with WCW. While Hart considered an offer from then-WCW President Eric Bischoff, McMahon informed Hart that the WWF would honor his contract if he chose to stay. When Hart spoke with McMahon about future plans and storylines, he was disappointed by McMahon's response and by what he considered lackluster suggestions. At the time, Hart felt as though his career had been sabotaged by changes to his character, which had been retooled as an anti-American Canadian nationalist; as a result, he drew significant ire from U.S. audiences but remained a hero in his native Canada, as well as throughout Europe, with Hart himself stating that young fans in Germany liked his pink and black outfit and saw him as the right kind of hero.
Hart was neither a hero nor a villain, and as such could not be properly placed into feuds with other wrestlers with more concrete personas. He had been unhappy about McMahon's move towards more controversial subject matter, which would become a staple of the WWF's product during the Attitude Era. Convinced that McMahon's future plans did not include him, Hart resigned from the WWF and signed an agreement with WCW, which had just offered him a large $3 million per annum contract on November 1, 1997. Hart's signing this deal caused McMahon to worry about the possibility of Hart entering WCW while still the WWF Champion. Hart asked McMahon if he would be mocked after leaving for WCW, as had occurred with other WWF wrestlers who had transferred to the rival promotion (for example, Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage going by the names of "The Huckster" and "The Nacho Man" respectively in the "Billionaire Ted" sketches of early 1996, as well as having Rick Bognar and Glenn Jacobs portray the characters of Razor Ramon and Diesel, respectively, characters that were made famous by both Scott Hall and Kevin Nash respectively before they joined WCW later in 1996). McMahon assured him that nothing of the sort would happen. Despite this, on the night after the Montreal Screwjob on Monday Night Raw, the DX performed a segment mockingly re-enacting the match between Michaels and Hart, with a dwarf dressed as the latter.
Title transition
Hart's imminent move to WCW created a tense situation, as he had won the WWF Championship at SummerSlam 1997 from The Undertaker, which had featured Michaels as a special guest referee. The finish of the match saw Hart spit in Michaels' face, followed by Michaels swinging a steel chair towards Hart, who ducked, and the chair striking down The Undertaker. Hart would cover The Undertaker, and Michaels would reluctantly perform the three-count. Hart's WCW contract was scheduled to begin on December 5, one month after the 1997 Survivor Series, which was to be held in Montreal.
Michaels, the leader of the emerging DX stable, had been booked into a main event title match with Hart at that show. McMahon, anxious for Hart to give up the title, sought his consent to job to Michaels. Hart refused to give up the title to a member of The Kliq (a group that included Michaels, Hall, Nash, Triple H, and Sean Waltman and that had previously held enormous backstage influence), apparently standing up for the rest of the locker room. As part of their rivalry storyline, Michaels repeatedly performed acts insulting to Canadian fans and the Canadian flag, which also upset Hart. Wrestling fans also knew of Hart's long-standing legitimate feud with Michaels—Hart had been angered at Michaels' forfeiture of the WWF Championship in February 1997, ruining plans for a Hart–Michaels rematch at WrestleMania 13, where Michaels was expected to lose the title to Hart.