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The Montreal Screwjob?..

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Guest ken adams

Here is one thing I've never understood, maybe some can explain this for me because obviously I missed something.

 

 

In "Wrestling With Shadows", Bret signs a huge contract with Vince. Shortly after, Vince tells Bret that he can't afford to pay the new contract, so he gives Bret permission to seek a deal with wCw. Then, Vince gets mad when Bret DOES sign with wCw.

 

If Vince told Bret it was ok to sign with wCw, it doesn't make a lot of sense for Vince to be mad, and have to "screw" Bret to protect himself.

 

This was how "Wrestling With Shadows" presented Bret's side. Obviously, I missed something. I know this is a tired subject, which is why I never asked it, but since a new thread was started, can someone fill in the blanks for me? Thanks!

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I don't think Vince was ever mad at Bret for signing with WCW. It was his stubborn refusal to just drop the belt. The neverending fascination with Montreal lies in the idea that no one was really right and both Bret and Vince have a point.

 

Vince in the end was pissed that Bret would use his "creative control" clause over something like jobbing the belt on his way out. It was something he had to do. Nobody would have thought anything of it once he debuted on WCW (hell Jeff Jarrett jobbed to Chyna on his way out of the WWF, debuted on WCW the next night, nobody cared about his previous loss).

 

What I think goes unexamined is this aspect: Why was Shawn Michaels in this match at all? Bret had major problems working with him, so why not just job Shawn to UT at HIAC, hold off on the Kane debut a bit longer, and then have UT beat Bret at Survivor Series. They could still do UT/Shawn in the casket match, maybe debut Kane in that scenario and have him cost his brother the WWF title.

 

Bret/Shawn outside of Canada was a bizarre heel/heel matchup that wasn't terribly marketable. So I say have UT go into Montreal, Bret wouldn't have minded jobbing to him, and the crowd likely wouldn't have shit on UT beating Bret. It gives UT the blowoff against Bret at least, and they can resume UT/Shawn right after it and forget the goofy Shamrock push.

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my only guess is that with the emergence of Steve Austin followed by the departure of Bret, it made sense to put the belt on a credible heel for Austin to beat at WM...now I don't know all of the politics involved backstage, guys like HTQ do, but my GUESS is that at some point prior to Montreal, Austin was penciled in for a title win at WM14 already. I had heard they were going to run another Bret/Austin match at WM before this happened, correct? Makes sense, then, to put the belt on the next biggest heel in line, which would be HBK.

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The decision to put the WWF Title on Steve Austin at Wrestlemania XIV was made before Montreal and was probably even penciled in when they did the double turn with Austin and Bret at Wrestlemania XIII. One scenario presented to Bret to try and get him to stay, though it was clearly designed to get him to leave, was for Shawn to beat Bret for the belt in Montreal. Michaels would then win a Fatal Four-Way the next month, which would also involve Bret, Undertaker and Ken Shamrock. At the Rumble, Shawn would beat Bret again in a Ladder match. The next night on Raw, Bret would open the show saying that if he couldn’t beat Shawn for the belt he would retire. Bret would win the belt that night, and then drop it to Austin at Wrestlemania XIV. Bret turned that down, obviously, because it was four major losses and only one win in return.

 

In the end, Bret did agree to drop the belt. He even agreed to lose the belt to Shawn. He just didn’t want to lose to Shawn in Canada. Part of that wasn’t just the being in Canada, it was because Shawn flat out said, on more than one occasion, that he wasn’t going to do any jobs to anyone in the company, and Bret was against putting someone over who wasn’t prepared to return the favor, to him or anyone else.

 

Vince being mad at Bret for using the creative control clause is classic Vince hypocrisy; Vince is fine and happy to use contract clauses to the letter when it's to get the better of other people, but when the same gets done to him he gets upset.

 

Bret vs. Shawn was done at Survivor Series because it made business sense. The Canadian hero defending against the punk heel who everyone knows Bret legitimately doesn’t like makes more sense, and means far more business-wise, than Bret defending against The Undertaker. It also could be that Vince had the Screwjob in mind when he set the match up, and knew full well that Undertaker would have had no part in it at all.

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I've covinced myself Montreal was a work just because I know Vince would want to do a screw-job bigger then the Hogan-nWo-turn.

 

The best way to that would be to make it a "shoot".

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I don't know how this whole thing got complicated into a big moral dilemma. Here's the situation in a nutshell. Bret refused to drop the belt in a high-profile match because he was a giant mark for himself, and wanted his character to win.

 

As a result, Vince changed the finish of his big PPV match without his knowledge to a situation where he loses the belt, but still looks extremely, extremely, strong since it was obvious he never submitted. He basically leaves the WWF as the legitimate heavyweight champion.

 

This finish made Bret so angry that he whined about it for years and years, long after his career got ended by an incompetent jackass in WCW.

 

Seriously, if you watch "Wrestling with Shadows" (I just watched the last hour again a week ago), it's scary how much of a mark Bret is for himself. He talks about how Vince murdered his character by having him turn heel, and how if he had to play the #2 heel for a while, there was absolutely nowhere for his character to go, and his character would be completely dead.

 

Then, he talks about how they might as well just shoot him in the back of the head if they were going to job him to Shawn, and how giving Shawn a cheap pinfall would be "raping him in the middle of the ring". The way he treats the whole thing, it's almost like he thinks the whole thing's real or something.

 

He also talks about how awful it was that Vince told him to say bad things about the American cities he was in, because he didn't really feel that way about the cities. Uh, hello Bret. You were playing a heel. You don't have to believe every single thing in your heart that you say to get some cheap heat.

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It’s bad enough trying to simplify Montreal, because it is far more complicated than some people think. However, trying to ‘put it in a nutshell’ as Bret refusing to do a job because he was a mark for himself and “wanted his character to win”, is to completely ignore and play down the issues that lie at the center of the whole situation.

 

As a result, Vince changed the finish of his big PPV match without his knowledge to a situation where he loses the belt, but still looks extremely, extremely, strong since it was obvious he never submitted. He basically leaves the WWF as the legitimate heavyweight champion.

 

To try and put things in a wrestling perspective ignores the business and professional aspects that made this situation so much more than simply Bret’s reluctance to do a job for Shawn Michaels.

 

This finish made Bret so angry that he whined about it for years and years, long after his career got ended by an incompetent jackass in WCW.

 

This was so much more than being ‘screwed’ in a fake wrestling match. If you really put yourself in Bret’s shoes, and tried to understand the situation for what it was, which was more than the ending to a wrestling match, then you’d understand where Bret would be so upset that he’d ‘whine’ about it. Put in the same situation, you’d be upset too.

 

Seriously, if you watch "Wrestling with Shadows” it’s scary how much of a mark Bret is for himself. He talks about how Vince murdered his character by having him turn heel, and how if he had to play the #2 heel for a while, there was absolutely nowhere for his character to go, and his character would be completely dead.

 

Bret took himself and his wrestling very seriously, maybe it was too seriously, but if you’re not going to look out for yourself then nobody else will, and Montreal proved that to the world. With Bret playing #2 heel to Shawn, and Austin the #1 face, there really was nowhere for Bret to go at that time. He couldn’t be #1 heel with Shawn around, and being the #1 face was out of the question too.

 

Then, he talks about how they might as well just shoot him in the back of the head if they were going to job him to Shawn, and how giving Shawn a cheap pinfall would be "raping him in the middle of the ring". The way he treats the whole thing, it's almost like he thinks the whole thing's real or something.

 

With the whole Canada vs. USA storyline, it’s understandable why Bret would think that, as the Canadian babyface hero, it would be bad idea for him to get beaten in his home country. Would you have had Sgt Slaughter beat Hulk Hogan at WM VII?

 

Bret doesn’t think wrestling is real, and I’m amazed some people seriously think that. Bret takes this business very seriously, and he should. If you don’t take what you do for living seriously, then you’re probably not going to do good job at it.

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Guest Damn You Helmsley

Oliver Stone needs to hurry up and make this into a film.

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I wish we could just put it past us at this point. I mean, Bret Hart got inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and from his speech, its obvious he has moved on with his life and put it behind himself. Can't we all just do the same, after nearly ten years?

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The Montreal Screwjob is the Kennedy Assassination of pro-wrestling

 

 

Well that's the real question, isn't it? Why? The how and the who is just scenery for the public. Michaels, Hunter, Hebner, the Stooges. Keeps 'em guessing like some kind of parlor game, prevents 'em from asking the most important question, why? Why was Bret Hart screwed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?

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