Dark Side of the Ring (2019) s01e02 Episode Script

Bret was amazing.
By any standard, Bret may go down
as one of the top technicians
in the industry.
Bret took the business seriously.
Sometimes to his detriment,
he took himself too seriously.
Bret believed he was
the WWF champion.
On November the 9th, 1997,
professional wrestler Bret Hart
had fought and clawed his way
to the top as world champion.
But in a matter of seconds,
he would realize
that those who make you
can just as easily destroy you.
The problem: Bret didn't want
to lose his championship.
Your last night in the company,
we need to crown a new champion.
You know what?
We'll just take it from him.
Like, I remember when I was a kid
exactly where I was standing
when Kennedy was assassinated,
and I remember
just as precisely where I was
when I found out
about Montreal Screw Job.
Screwing a Canadian hero,
in Canada?
How much more evil can one get?
I still feel like I have a neon sign
on my fucking head.
"I fucked you, Bret.
Never told you about it."
I was so mad,
like just really explode.
The Screw Job changed
so many things in the business.
The innocence of wrestling changed.
This was one of the worst things
in the world
that happened to me.
Say what you want, that was real.
They really screwed that guy.
The incident known
as the Montreal Screw Job
marks a turning point
in the history of wrestling.
Never before had the curtain pulled
to fully reveal
the behind-the-scenes drama.
A dark plot of betrayal was exposed.
Legacies were redefined.
And fans would never see wrestling
the same again.
CALGARY, ALBERT CANADA
I always say about
the Screw Job, if you go back
and you look at all the facts,
my story's never changed.
It's been the same story
from day one. I tell the truth.
I'm Bret "The Hitman" Hart,
best there is,
best there was
and there ever will be.
I'd say I was a real world champion
'cause I traveled
and defended my belt.
This is my history of my life here,
all these guys.
Despite everything that's happened
with the Screw Jobs,
for me, it's mostly happy memories.
My name's Jim Cornette.
I've worked for every
major wrestling promotion
in the United States
as a manager, announcer,
trainer, matchmaker.
Pretty much done it all.
I was actually there.
I actually lived it.
Giving my perspective.
It's just because my perspective
happens to be entertaining,
and some people
take exception to that.
I was the executive vice president
of talent relations.
I've been a writer,
producer, director.
Brother Love is a alter ego of mine.
You name it, I've worn
a lot of hats in the WWF, WWE.
Bret "The Hitman" Hart!
The patriarch of the Hart family
was Stu Hart,
and Stu was an aged old veteran,
double tough.
The dungeon was the basement
in the Hart house.
Well, the dungeon is hard to explain.
My dad, 60 or 70-year-old man,
would go down there
and torture football players
and body builders.
I don't feel my arms, sir.
"Let me show you a hold.
Take your arm"
You just ease this hand back
The Hart family is one
of the most famous in our business.
Sons all wrestlers,
the daughters married wrestlers.
They had a wrestling bear
that lived under their porch.
It was like the Munster's house
in Calgary.
Stu would invite everybody over
and and make breakfast.
They had a bunch of cats.
And he's, he's flipping the eggs.
He'd flip the cat shit over there,
then go back to flipping the eggs.
Made him tough is what it did.
And Stu began the Stampede
Wrestling Promotion in Alberta
and had a successful company there
for a long time.
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome
to this, another edition of
And Bret Hart
was kind of a pale, skinny,
you know, maybe 21-year-old kid
or whatever,
but you could tell he knew
what he was doing.
I'm more confident now than ever.
There's no reason
we shouldn't have those belts.
The Harts were very integral
to professional wrestling.
In 1984, Stu Hart is trying to keep
his struggling territory afloat.
The rapidly expanding WWF
strikes a deal
to acquire the entire promotion,
along with Stu's main star,
his son, Bret.
When Vince bought Stu Hart's
Stampede Wrestling in 1984,
he took Bret Hart and Jim Niedhart,
his son-in-law,
a team, The Hart Foundation,
managed by Jimmy Hart, no relation.
They were a tremendous tag team,
and Bret Hart had a perfect foil
in Shawn Michaels.
When you have
Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels
talented as they are at what they do,
sometimes, there's just chemistry.
You find a duet between two singers
that have never worked together,
but suddenly, it's a hit.
-Look at this. Whoa!
-360 in mid-air!
Internationally,
we're getting reports back
that we've got a megastar
on our hands in Bret Hart.
His work had made him
this megastar.
All they wanted to see
to talk about.
Same time, Ric Flair was champion
and was having some health issues.
We needed a change.
So Vince is looking at it
and going, "Why not Bret?"
That's the kind of guy
you wanna reward.
Vince McMahon's one of the most
unique individuals on the planet.
If you could cross a genius
with P.T. Barnum and Donald Trump,
you would get the love child,
Vince McMahon.
Vince is a third-generation
wrestling promoter.
Vince controls creative.
Vince controls the talent choices.
They run lunch schedule past
Vince McMahon to this day.
Over the years, Vince had
a good relationship with Bret.
I don't know. I think that, once Bret
became champion in Saskatoon,
that there started
there was a change taking place.
Hitman!
The criteria for a world champion
in those days,
there wasn't a set physical list
of maneuvers or whatever
that you had perform.
It was whoever
Vince thought could be the guy.
Vince McMahon decides
who the champion is.
It's not actually won by anybody.
So Bret didn't beat Ric Flair.
He won the championship
in a scripted contest,
okay, in a storyline.
Bret deserved, you know,
to have that accolade.
But at the same time, remember
that someone made you champion.
You didn't really beat anybody.
I think Bret looked
at the WWF championship
like guys years ago used to,
maybe 'cause of his father
and his lineage,
but when chosen to be
a champion of a major company,
it meant the promoter thought
that you were the best talent,
the best draw, you would make him
the most money, you were the guy.
While Bret's star is rising
in the WWF,
a fledgling promotion suddenly
starts edging out Vince McMahon
in the television ratings.
WCW in the early '90s
was a secondary competitor
to the WWF.
I happen to be Eric Bischoff.
You know, as the executive producer,
at least I had a voice within WCW.
WWF is up here.
WCW is way down here.
There's no way I can be better,
but I gotta be different.
They're tape. I'm live.
They target their content
towards kids.
I decided I wanted my characters
to be more reality-based.
-I'd use their real names.
-WCW came after our talent.
The perception was
they offered more money.
When Hulk Hogan left the WWF,
I think it hurt Vince personally.
It stung a little bit, and the first,
the first big names to go
were Scott Hall, Kevin Nash,
in the beginning.
Ted DiBiase left,
Roddy Piper shortly thereafter.
The curtain call,
as it came to be known, happened
because Nash and Hall were leaving
to go to WCW for big contracts.
It is as my last appearance
for the WWE,
and it's also
Kevin Nash's last appearance.
It was at Madison Square Garden,
the most famous arena in the world.
After the last match, Hall and Nash
and Michaels and Helmsley,
two of them good guys,
two of them bad guys,
all went out to the ring
and had a big hug and a big kiss,
and waved bye to the fans,
who had no idea what was going on.
With Shawn and those guys,
they broke kayfabe
in front of the fans
in Madison Square Garden.
"Kayfabe," like a lot
of wrestling terminology,
comes from the carnivals.
When you break kayfabe in wrestling,
you let the fans
and the general public
in the inside world
and ruin the illusion.
It wasn't like that.
It all just happened organically.
The fans were going crazy.
It was like a magical moment.
Here were are,
25 years later, talking about it?
You had been chosen and selected
to be in a secret brotherhood,
and you kept those illusions private,
to yourself, because it was a code.
It was the code of kayfabe.
Now, as competition between
the two biggest promotions heats up,
wrestling's fourth wall starts
to crumble, exposing its secrets.
And while Bret enters
the biggest rivalry of his career,
he never could've imagined
that it would end up leading
to his ultimate destruction.
Before their off-screen feud
would boil over
into one of wrestling's
most controversial moments,
Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels'
contrasting in-ring styles
led to some
of the greatest matches of all time.
As far as wrestling styles
between Bret and Shawn,
Bret was more basic, grounded,
more hard hitting, more technical.
Michaels,
from the other side, and oh!
Michaels,
he's an incredible performer,
but a lot of his stuff is more pretty
and a little bit more gymnastic.
Oh, he's caught by Bret Hart!
Look at that!
I think Shawn Michaels is probably
the greatest performer all around.
Plus, he was different.
He wasn't a big giant.
My contract was gonna expire.
Eric Bischoff
has sent feelers out to me.
There were two separate occasions
I talk to Bret about coming over.
I heard the initial offer
was 2 million
then 2-million-something,
up to like 3 million.
I'm sure they were rounding off,
but what's the difference.
Vince heard about
them giving me an offer.
I remember Vince said,
"I'll make you an offer."
We worked out a contract.
It was 1.5 million
for 20 years, I think.
Bret favors loyalty over money
and accepts the counteroffer
from Vince McMahon,
but then a mutual animosity
between Bret and Shawn
begins to take hold.
Shawn was starting to get
overwhelmed with the negative.
Doing a Chippendale kind of gimmick
is not a "heroic" thing to do.
Shawn Michaels saw an opportunity
to be more of a top guy,
and also be more of a prick.
Nobody breaks into this business
to work their way to the middle.
If you don't want to be on top,
you're in the wrong business.
I don't really care.
Do you want to wrestle me?
Oh, you do. Okay.
I don't think
they were that different,
which is probably where
the real-life rivalry came into play.
First day, I end up trashing
Shawn Michaels on the interview
about his
Playgirl Magazine  centerfold.
I said, "Shawn, is it okay
if I bring up  Playgirl Magazine
and take a jab at that
and say something?"
He goes, "Say whatever you want."
World Wrestling Federation
needs a hero,
a role model, somebody
they can look up to,
not somebody that poses
for girly magazines.
And I came back
and Shawn was just crushed.
Like he was gonna burst into tears.
Now, these guys are saying things
on live TV about each other.
Shawn made reference
to Sunny Days.
Sunny is Tammy Sytch.
She was one of the valets.
She was the first real, you know,
big pinup girl of the WWF.
Shawn was making the inference that
Bret was having some kind of affair
or some, some kind
of relationship with Sunny.
Even though, lately, you've had
some "Sunny Days," my friend,
you still can't get the job done
in any situation.
-Oh, boy.
-Now, from a fan's point of view,
it's getting exciting.
But if you're the other guy,
you're hating the dude talking
'cause you gotta go explain that
to your wife.
Don't mess
with a guy's wife or family,
or else you find yourself laying
in a ditch somewhere.
In Hartford, Connecticut
at the Hartford Civic Center,
all of a sudden,
in comes the Brooklyn Brawler.
And he says, "Hey, Vince.
Shawn and Bret just got in a fight."
Shawn finally comes
into my dressing room.
We haven't talked for months.
I was just trying to be nice.
I almost forgot we ever had issues.
I said, "Hey, Shawn."
He goes,
"Think I'm gonna talk to you?"
Whatever it was, Bret leg-dived him,
took him down.
I grabbed him by the hair,
swung him around the room.
His feet were off the ground.
Like two prostitutes fighting
in downtown or something.
Here comes Shawn, and he's hot.
And he has got in his hand
a handful of his hair.
It looked like a small possum.
And I'll never forget this.
He said, "This is
an unsafe working environment!"
As far as I know, I think
if anybody was sleeping with Sunny,
it probably was Shawn.
As the backstage friction
between Bret and Shawn intensifies,
Vince begins to lose
the TV ratings war
and is forced to cut costs.
Vince looks at the commitment
that he had made to Bret Hart,
and it was, it was a drain.
It was a drain on the company
at the time.
Vince told me that he couldn't afford
to pay me the contract he'd given me.
It kind of broke my heart.
It's like, okay, I get it.
I remember I got off the phone
with him and said, "I'm done."
I hung with Vince,
and I signed my WCW contract.
I can't remember
exactly what day or when I heard
Bret had made the deal,
was going to WCW.
Vince told us Bret was gonna
finish at Survivor Series.
He'd drop the belt and then he'd
you know, he'd be free.
It didn't turn out that way.
Bret wasn't just leaving the company.
He was going to our competitor
that was beating us in the ratings.
To have our champion leave
is bad enough.
To leave with the championship
is a kick in the nuts.
The time-honored tradition is,
when you're leaving a territory
or promotion,
you lose on the way out.
I gotta tell you, in the beginning,
there wasn't a whole lot of worry
because it was Bret
and we thought
that there would not be any issue
with Bret dropping the championship
to whoever we asked him to drop to.
When I first heard
that I was wrestling Shawn was
maybe about three or four weeks
before Survivor Series.
Anyway, so Vince goes, all excited,
"We're gonna drop the belt to Shawn."
When I saw Shawn, I remember,
I thought this is your chance
to open the door
for sort of dialogue.
When we shook hands I said, "I heard
we're wrestling at Survivor Series.
I want you to know you'll always be
safe with me in the ring.
I'll be professional.
I'd never do anything to hurt you
or injure you or anything."
And he looked at me and he said,
he goes, "I appreciate that,
but want you to know I'm not willing
to do the same for you."
He turned around, walked out,
slammed the door.
Vince, even though he knew
Shawn and Bret hated each other,
thought this match
was magically gonna go in the ring
and work out like he wanted.
The closer that we got to the match,
the more obvious it was it was not.
One of the things he had given Bret
in that brand-new contract
was creative control of his character
and the way he was presented.
I'm the boss of my last 60 days.
Why would I lose to Shawn?
He's disrespected me.
I'm not wrestling Shawn, not putting
Shawn over under any circumstances
'til he proves he's got enough
respect to put me over first.
And I was on Bret's side
'cause Shawn was the prick, not Bret.
But we had to get the belt back.
The news
of Vince's current champion
signing with his main competitor
would spell his defeat
in the ratings war.
With his back to the wall,
Vince must get his belt off Bret,
and what he's about to do will echo
far beyond the wrestling world.
With his last match in the WWF
less than 24 hours away,
Bret Hart is refusing any scenario
which has him losing the belt
to his real-life nemesis,
Shawn Michaels.
Bret is growing suspicious of what
his boss, Vince McMahon, might do.
Showed up that day ready
for my match,
but I did have suspicions
about the referee.
The only way they can screw me
is Shawn will never pin me
or make me tap out.
I wasn't worried about that.
The way it will work
is they'll get the referee.
Hello, I'm Earl Hebner.
I'm the referee.
My relationship with Bret was great.
Most of the time, he wanted me
to ref his matches.
People think, oh, I count to three.
That's not the ball game.
We're sort of a coach.
You're thinking for three people.
It's very, very hard.
-Let's get into the Montreal story.
-Do we have to?
Just kidding.
The day before that show,
I got on a plane, got in my seat.
The stewardess came
and said, "Mr. Hebner?"
I said, "Yes?" She said,
"You have a first-class seat."
"My ticket don't say 'first class'."
"Mr. Hart bought you
a first-class seat."
So I sat beside Bret,
and we talked, and Bret said,
"Will you promise me one thing?"
I said, "What?" He said,
"Won't count me out?"
I said, "Nope, I will not."
I said, "Gonna ask you to screw me."
He got tears in his eyes.
His lip quivered.
He's like, "Hell with that. I swear
to God on my kids, I will never,"
you know, and we was so adamant.
I shook his hand. I said,
"Tell me if that's gonna happen."
Complicating matters, a film crew
producing a documentary called
Wrestling with Shadows
is following Bret
to capture his last WWF match.
From the second I land,
I've got the entire
High Roads Production
film crew, they're filming.
And they got the boom mics
and followed me wherever I went.
It was like a lot of people I didn't
even know, all around the building.
The idea was
that Vince would get with Bret.
I think Vince felt, once he got
in front of Bret,
they would work something out.
I remember
the whole camera crew coming in.
They wanted to mic me. I remember,
"I don't. It's not how I operate."
He goes, "Just in case."
My name is Harry Zafrany.
I was the sound recordist
on Wrestling Shadows.
The director told us, "Look.
We gotta be very low profile
about this," you know,
"Nobody should know
that Bret Hart is wired."
It was a private meeting,
and Bret went in wired,
didn't let Vince know he's recording.
I never want to leave here
with any bad feeling.
This has been a bad week for me.
I feel betrayed.
The way this has been depicted,
it's hard for me as a hero
to come up short.
I was determined to stick to my guns,
and I was not backing down.
Right away Vince goes,
"What are we gonna do?"
I'd like to get through today.
Tomorrow I should go in,
do my speech, and forfeit the title.
It allows me to leave
with my head up in a nice way.
I would think it'd be a run-in.
But I'm open to anything.
I'm open to anything.
Going into this match,
you knew what was gonna happen?
I knew that
there was a point in the match
where Bulldog
and Owen would run out,
referee would lose control
of the match, ring the bell.
No winner, we'd go off
with a lot of chaos in the ring.
So end in like a disqualification?
Yeah, like a basically no contest.
Like, I remember
walking out to the ring,
and I knew, be leery of submission
holds in a match like this.
I already talked to Earl and thought
about it and, okay, I trusted Earl.
And so I put my guard down.
That was my fatal mistake.
I'm walking to go to the ring,
getting pulled aside.
Gerry Brisco says, "Vince McMahon
wants you to ring the bell
when he puts Bret
in the sharpshooter."
He said, "Well, are you gonna do it?"
I said, "I don't know."
Gerry Brisco is a producer, agent,
one of the toughest son-of-a-bitches.
He grabs me by the arm and says,
"Is Bret Hart gonna pay you?
This is what Vince wants.
Do you want a job?"
I said, "I don't have an idea
what I'm gonna do now.
Y'all messed my mind up."
And this was the truth.
I'm thinking, he had an opportunity
to drop the belt.
I know this is not right,
but I gotta have a job.
I told my brother,
this ain't gonna look good.
Get all my shit, put it in the car.
So I'm walking to the ring,
God, I promised Bret I wouldn't.
That was the longest walk of my life.
A great match planned.
Shawn was a great wrestler.
We were gonna start before the bell.
I don't think this match
has officially started.
After about 10 minutes
of brawling, fighting in the crowd,
I fight Shawn back to the ring,
throw him in,
and now the match starts.
They get in the ring.
I ring the bell to start,
and I'm going, God,
don't put the sharpshooter on.
The match lasted 10, 15 minutes.
-Look at this!
-Putting Bret in the sharpshooter.
Oh, my gosh, how humiliating!
With his own finish!
Didn't know how to put sharpshooter.
He steps through wrong,
folds my legs wrong.
I moved my legs
and switched them the right way.
When he put it on and I flipped over,
I could see Vince McMahon.
He's got this cold look,
yelling to ring the fucking bell.
He kept saying it to the guy,
"Ring the bell!"
As the match was going on, I'm going,
"I don't know what I'm gonna do."
I hated it.
And I remember in that moment
of looking at the timekeeper,
and Vince snaps,
"Ring the fucking bell!"
Aw, they're screwing me right now.
I remember reaching back
and showing that I wasn't submitting,
grabbed Shawn's leg
and started to reverse.
But you could hear the bell,
"bing, ding, ding."
If I hadn't rung the bell,
Vince McMahon
was gonna ring that bell.
At first,
I wanted to just kill Vince.
I wanted to just punch him out.
I couldn't believe,
after all the years I gave him,
all the matches and hard work,
he disrespected me like that.
Son of a bitch.
I jump out of the ring,
ran across the floor,
jumped the hockey fence,
could still hear the bell.
In the car and we drove off.
I had enough sense
to paint WCW backwards
so you can read it on TV.
Bret did the "W-C-W" for the fans
that are in Montreal.
But it was, you know,
it was what it was.
I remember I had
a nice good gob of spit,
and I remember
I just leaned over the top rope.
Hollywood couldn't have created
something better.
I wrecked a bunch of monitors
and threw $100,000 headphones
out into the crowd and stuff.
Because guys couldn't get along,
the most talked-about match ending
in history of professional wrestling
since the dawn of time.
Widely viewed by fans as wrestling's
most treacherous act,
the Montreal Screw Job
would tear the lid off
of wrestling's brotherhood,
but its true architect
has yet to be revealed.
I've told a couple of these things.
I've never gone this far,
but not gonna talk about this on TV
the rest of my life
so I don't care who gets mad at me.
So it was me and Vince Russo
at Vince McMahon's house.
My name is Vince Russo.
I was the head writer at the WWE
during the infamous
Montreal Screw Job.
And quite honestly,
I wasn't even originally slated
for this documentary.
I wanted to be part
because I was there.
Like, I knew what would happen.
So I'm sitting there that day.
First, Vince gets up,
takes a call from Bret.
What I could tell you
about that phone call is
Vince pitched
many different scenarios
for Shawn Michaels
to take the belt off of Bret Hart.
And Bret soured
on every single one of them.
Vince told Bret
we'd go to the drawing board.
That's exactly what we did.
"This finish
and that finish won't work.
Bret wants to hand the belt over
on TV the following night
without getting beat."
I'm sure he does!
So then he goes, and he calls Shawn.
Every time Vince goes in there,
I sit in a room twiddling my thumbs
with the guy I hate worse than
anybody in the world, Vince Russo.
We'd get in these creative meetings,
and the three of us would argue.
Wasn't the three of us.
It was Jim and Me.
We could not be farther apart
physically, philosophically,
mentally, morally.
If one of us was
an African American lesbian nun
and the other a Nazi skinhead Martian
from space,
we could not be more different.
The problem is,
he's still living in 1970.
He made the comment,
"Oh, when a guy comes out of a box,
he's instantly over."
Like, bro, this is like 1996.
Who's coming out of boxes, bro?
Vince Russo's never had respect
for professional wrestling.
He booked the wrestling program
to pattern after Jerry Springer.
Our styles completely crash.
Finally, Vince comes out.
I'm about lost my religion
with the creative team
'cause it's not my style.
I'm living in Connecticut, miserable,
280 pounds, aggravation eating.
I'm just not in my element here.
I said, "Vince, there's got to be
something we can do.
It's your belt."
Vince looks at me and says,
"Well, how would you do it, pal?"
Now it's a fucking challenge.
I'm going through every finish
or every situation I can think of
where nobody wanted to do a job.
I said goddamn double-cross him.
You can learn more
about modern wrestling
from these classic books
and classic magazines
than you can
by talking to people today
because history
always repeats itself.
In 1931, there was
another double-cross in Montreal,
the Battle of the Bite.
Strangler Lewis' championship
nobody could get it away from him
because it was worth
so much money.
Lewis has a title match in Montreal
against Henri DeGlane,
Henri DeGlane.
They lock up, and immediately,
DeGlane grabs Lewis' own hold
on Lewis, the head lock,
and takes him down,
and they go down because Lewis
is working with him,
and probably
they're gonna do some reversal.
DeGlane starts screaming
bloody murder.
The referee checks DeGlane,
huge bite mark on the guy's chest.
Apparently, when DeGlane
got the headlock on Lewis,
Lewis had bitten him.
Here's the thing:
it was actually Dan Kolov,
DeGlane's corner man had bitten him
in the locker room then did this.
Headlock,
nobody could see what happened.
Referee disqualifies Strangler Lewis
and awards the title
to Henri DeGlane.
That's a double-cross,
as old as the hills in wrestling.
So when Vince says,
"How would you do it then?"
"Bret's hold is the sharpshooter."
But let Shawn get Bret's hold on him.
If the referee just calls
for the bell as a submission,
nobody can tell anything was wrong,
what it's supposed to look like.
And to tell anybody
anything was wrong, I said,
"Bret Hart
would have to expose the business.
What's he gonna do?
Call the newspapers?"
But then Vince, "Nah!"
And he gave the "hmph" like he does
whenever discussing tomfoolery
and he'd say,
"Back to reality," and we went on.
Do you recall during that meeting
if Cornette ever told
a history lesson
about double-crosses
that had happened in the past?
Unless I was in the bathroom
during that scenario,
that scenario did not take place
in front of me at the table.
I'm not gonna call
Jim Cornette a liar.
When I was at the table,
Cornette at the same table,
I pitched that exact scenario
to Vince.
So basically,
out of pure frustration,
I said, "Vince, screw it, Vince.
Have Shawn put
the sharpshooter on Bret,
and have the referee call
for the bell. Do that."
Vince Russo didn't know
what a double-cross was.
He was sitting there
with his eyes open.
People tell me all the time,
"Oh, Vince, you, you 'take credit'
for the Montreal Screw Job."
I wish I didn't pitch the idea.
That was a miserable night.
It was one of the worst experiences
in my life in the wrestling business.
I swear on my mother's grave,
my father's grave, my wife's life,
and my dog's life,
the story I just told you is true.
Vince Russo is the biggest liar
in professional wrestling.
Imagine territory that takes in.
When at the monitor,
I saw him go into the spot.
That's when I shit myself.
Holy fuck,
he's actually gonna do this.
And look, to this-- Look, right now.
Close up on the goosebumps.
Now I'm thinking, I don't know
who else knows about this.
I know there is a high probability
that somebody in this building
will wanna beat the shit out of me
and I'm out of here.
When I'm starting my car
and starting to pull out,
I heard a car rev the motor
and saw the headlights behind me.
That had to be Hebner!
I beat him out of the building!
Just as Bret Hart was
double-crossed on live television
by his boss, Vince McMahon,
WWF executive Bruce Prichard
is blindsided himself
by the sudden change in plans.
So it's chaos. I'm not even realizing
what's happening in front of me.
How did you feel about
not being involved?
Oh, God, I was pissed off
that I wasn't smartened up,
and I was pissed off because
I was left in the back alone,
in a position where everyone thought
they knew that I was involved.
And I wasn't.
I felt very alone. I felt betrayed.
That piece of shit's locked himself
in his office.
The cameras are off.
Show's over. I got screwed.
I was so mad. There's Shawn,
suddenly in my dressing room.
He's swearing to God
he had nothing to do with it.
Shawn, you weren't in on that?
-My hands are clean on this one.
-He was a bad actor.
But one of the two
was in on it, that I think.
-Shawn had to be in on it.
-At that time, I had no idea.
Well, now we know Shawn
was just putting on an act.
This hush in the dressing room,
everyone's stunned.
Undertaker got so mad he kicked
over one of those steel barrels.
He just slammed the door
and said something about,
going to Vince's office to get
a straight answer why they did that.
You know, Vince
You gotta go talk to him,
explain why you did what you did.
You gotta give him one.
By giving him one, if he's gonna
hit you, you gotta take one.
Bret came out of the shower
and told Vince get out, and he goes,
"If you're still here when I get out,
I'm gonna punch you out."
Bret finished his shower. He took
his time and finished his shower.
Vince stood right in the middle
of the room waiting for him.
I finish the shower and I come out.
And it's funny 'cause I walk out
of the shower soaking wet, naked.
Vince said something to me,
"First time I ever had to lie
to my talent," which is such a lie.
I remember tying my shoes,
and when I got tying
my last shoelace,
I started to tie it like,
I'm gonna punch out Vince McMahon.
I can't believe I'm doing this.
And we walked towards each other,
end up tying up,
just like a pro wrestling match,
and I remember sinking
and just turning my whole body
and thinking, 14 years,
and coming up between our arms,
and I hit Vince McMahon
with the most beautiful
Mike Tyson upper cut.
I popped him, literally,
right off the ground.
He went straight down, out cold.
Everybody was stunned.
It was dead silent for a while,
and then Bret said, "Get the fuck
out of my dressing room."
I mean, I have to say
that I remember Shawn Michaels,
he was bawling like a baby.
I remember thinking, you're in on it.
He knew it. He was waiting for me
to make my way to him, finish him.
I just tapped him and said,
"Shawn, thanks for the match."
He couldn't believe
that I thanked him for the match,
and then he looked up at me,
burst into tears, really blubbering.
I had never, to that point,
heard of that much drama
and backstage just bullshit.
I lost sleep over
what I should have done.
Bret, you're not gonna
understand this,
Vince was trying to protect
his business.
It was never about not trusting you.
He didn't trust Eric.
I went in Vince's office and said,
"I need to talk to you."
I said, "I'm fucked."
He said, "We'll take care of it."
Sat everybody down and said,
"What I did last night was my call.
It's not Earl's fault, and anybody
don't like come to my office
I'll release your ass right now."
Screw Job was in the makings.
They had to find somebody
that would do it.
The conversation with Vince where
we really had the big heart-to-heart
was the Wednesday in Stamford.
I told him what I thought.
Vince's reaction was,
"If you had known,
you'd never be able to say
you didn't.
Shawn Michaels risked everything
for you and for this company,
so before you condemn
Shawn Michaels,
understand what he did for you."
A lot of "what if" scenarios
discussed the night before,
I think that everybody believed
that, at the end of the day,
Vince was going to be able
to convince Bret
to drop the championship.
That didn't happen,
so Vince asked Gerry Brisco
to let Shawn know there's a spot
in the match that, Shawn,
when you get him in sharpshooter,
we'll ring the bell.
Of all people, Bret Hart,
raised in the wrestling business
whose father was a wrestler,
who went through the code,
he's the one
that exposed the business!
Bret Hart "The Hitman"
how are you?
It was important, after 14 years
of the most dedicated, loyal,
hardworking service you could get
out of a professional wrestler,
I'd given
everything you could ask for
and I made it very, very clear
that my character
was not gonna be humiliated.
Bret was telling any and everybody
that he could, he didn't lose.
He was screwed.
And it was something
that Vince felt it was important
to address on Monday Night Raw.
Did you
or did you not screw Bret Hart?
There's a time-honored tradition
in the wrestling business
that when someone is leaving
that they show
the right amount of respect.
People like,
"We don't want to like the boss.
We liked Bret Hart, our hero."
Bret Hart didn't want
to honor that tradition.
Vince was really giving Bret Hart
all kinds of shit
for not honoring the tradition,
doing the right thing on the way out.
On TV,
this didn't happen ever before.
Vince, in this interview,
just came across very cold,
calculated,
and very, very heelish.
I truly believe that
Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart.
He can look in the mirror
and know that.
Rather than sweep this incident
under the rug,
Vince capitalizes on it by
transforming this real-life incident
into a storyline
where he reinvents himself
as an evil, conniving mastermind.
When I debuted, the fans didn't know
that Vince was the owner.
He was an announcer.
And then once the word got out
that he actually owns the company,
the power behind the throne,
this and that, Vince ran with it.
Mr. McMahon is one of the greatest
heel characters of all.
You've heard arenas full of people
chant, "Asshole, asshole!"
Asshole!
If they had done it right,
everybody prospered.
Shawn Michaels became
the WWF champion off a big win.
Vince McMahon became the catalyst
to the evil empire of Mr. McMahon,
and they handed the hottest wrestler
in the world,
Bret Hart, to WCW,
and they dropped that ball.
In the aftermath
of the Montreal Screw Job
wrestling changed forever.
The fourth wall had fallen.
Vince McMahon's
villainous character
would propel his company
into the stratosphere,
while Bret Hart would make
his lackluster debut in WCW.
You know, if you look
at how Bret Hart came to WCW
and how they launched me
the first day
Why don't we bring the man out
that's gonna referee this match.
I remember, referee? That's so lame,
such a lame way to bring me in.
Is that what you want, referee?
Eric Bischoff was an imbecile
trying to run wrestling.
He didn't have any idea how.
I have to take responsibility,
in that there may have been
better ways to bring Bret in.
I would be honored
to be the referee.
But at the same time,
we'll never know that
because the plans that we did have
for Bret were executed so piss poorly
because of his detachment.
He didn't get over in WCW.
Zero impact.
Hey, Bischoff!
And the WCW I quit!
The legacy of Montreal Screw Job
is nobody knows
if it was really a screw job.
I happen to believe
it was the real deal.
I feel the same now
as I did the first time I saw it.
It's a total work.
Everybody was in on it,
and they all did it together.
Now, look at Bret's face.
He doesn't look too shocked to me.
You're gonna spit on Vince
and then the truck
is gonna go, "Go tight on Vince.
Get Vince wiping his eye."
Vince has been in the TV business
his whole life.
Nothing's gonna happen
without his consent.
Everybody knows you're leaving.
You're gonna stand
in what's now your opposition's ring
on a global broadcast,
and you're gonna motion
the call signs of your competitor?
If that's not okayed by a big boss,
they're gonna cut away from that.
I've never discussed it with Shawn,
and I wasn't there,
I didn't ask guys there.
Watching it as an educated fan,
I would say it was a complete
collaboration by all parties.
That's all I got to say about that.
People do say it was a work,
and Bret was in on it. No, man!
This is the way
this piece of history went down.
Conspiracy theorists
will always be conspiracy theorists.
But unfortunately,
when people want more of a story
to be there that just isn't there,
they try to create it.
When we did an interview
with Scott Hall,
he believes the Montreal Screw Job
is this very scripted sort of thing.
He's not one of them too, is he?
I'm sorry.
It's just, it's ludicrous
Scott Hall would say he didn't talk
to Shawn Michaels.
I know they all talk
to each other about everything,
especially about this.
Why wouldn't they?
I will tell anybody to their face
that thinks this was a work,
you're a dumb stupid fucker.
These are death threats.
I've gotten a bunch.
These were the most creative
and picturesque so I framed these.
"Get by the ring one more time,
you make a target.
You won't know where it comes from.
Bye-bye."
They pulled it off
because I trusted the referee.
Poor Earl, he's just a little guy.
I feel so bad for him.
To put that on him
was such a rotten thing to do.
For the last 15 years,
it's been the shits.
That's always a chant
is, "You screwed Bret."
We never talked
for a long, long time. Many years.
It's even though
Bret and I are friends now,
this is still upsetting.
I guess you can tell
I'm kind of breaking down,
but it's something
that will be with me forever.
A lot of people will say,
"It was their idea,
from Vince Russo to Jim Cornette
to Triple H to Shawn to me."
You know, we all said it.
The Montreal Screw Job
is remembered
different ways by different people.
For the fans, it was one of the first
big behind-the-scenes things
that exploded and they heard about,
and realized there was
more intrigue in the locker room
and in the board room
than sometimes in the ring.
As soon as you don't believe
it's real anymore,
it's not worth watching.
That's the way the people feel
when they lose faith in their hero.
That's when you lose people
in wrestling,
because they believed
in the people involved.
Even if they didn't believe action,
they believed in the people.
I take a lot of pride,
almost ridiculous pride,
in being the wrestler that I was.
I believe that
I was the guy that reinforced
the wrestling aspect
of the wrestling show,
and that's what
I like to be remembered for.
The reality of the situation is,
is that, if two guys just could've,
you know,
could've got over themselves
we wouldn't be sitting here today.
I mean, any final thoughts
on, like, Jim?
I've ignored him for years,
and it's on and on.
It's my personal enjoyment
at this advanced age
to remind everybody
at every opportunity he's a liar.
It's freaking wrestling.
It means nothing.
I will live to piss on his grave.
Even if I'm in a walker,
my wife has instructions.
She's out of the will
if she doesn't get me there.
I'll find Vince Russo's grave
and piss on it,
and there will be a picture
on my wall when I pass.
And hate is a hell of a motivator.