The Montreal Screwjob was a pivotal moment in professional wrestling history that played out at 1997's Survivor Series. Bret Hart, then WWF Champion, was set to leave for WCW, and the idea was for him to lose the title to Shawn Michaels.
However, Hart refused to take a loss to HBK in his home country of Canada and, in a premeditated move, then-WWF owner Vince McMahon, referee Earl Hebner, and others conspired to end the match prematurely. During the match, Michaels applied the Sharpshooter (Hart's signature move), and Hebner called for the bell, signalling Hart's submission, even though the Hitman hadn't tapped out.
The aftermath has been well-documented and involved a physical altercation between Hart and McMahon backstage which ended with the latter being KO'd.
Talking on the AEPodcast, Hart once again reflected on that infamous night.
"I think Undertaker said they had to do what they were going to do because there were no other options. Bullsh*t I had another six weeks left from my contract. There [are] a million things that could have been done, and it was a case of liars and cheaters and backstabbers and guys that made that moment all happen, Shawn, Triple H, Vince McMahon, and I wish I’d knocked them all out. I have no regrets. It was the single greatest thing I ever did."
"I’ll put it this way. All I’m going to say is this. Jimmy Snuka came up to me about three years after the Montreal screw job. He came up to me and he shook my hand. He goes, 'I want to shake the hand of the man that knocked out Vince McMahon.' I remember he shook my hand. He said, 'Everybody talks about doing it. He lied and screwed over so many guys. Everybody talks about it, but the only guy that ever did it was you. That’s why he shook my hand."
Hart, who would later put his differences with McMahon aside (for the most part, anyway), then went on to talk in detail about the experience of punching the former WWE Chairman square in the face.
"Vince was calling my bluff. He was going to confront me and he wanted me to back down and take the high road. It was a gamble that he made, and then he thought he was going to try to get into a little altercation with me, and he wanted it to be like a pull apart, and everybody pulls us apart, and then he can sort of act like he stood his ground against me."
"In those fleeting seconds of having to think about this, like, 'I can’t believe Vince McMahon’s actually gonna confront me.' I didn’t charge him or anything. We actually walked up to each other and locked up like a wrestling match, and then I knocked him out with one punch, and it was the greatest punch I ever threw, absolutely beautiful uppercut between his arms, and I lifted him about a foot off the ground, broke my hand, but it was the sweetest punch I ever threw, and I wouldn’t change anything about it."
No one can blame Hart for feeling this way, and we're sure he's even happier to have once punched his old boss given the recent allegations shared about him in the midst of a huge sexual misconduct scandal.
As always, let us know your thoughts on Hart's no-holds-barred thoughts on McMahon in the comments section below.