Back خيانة مونتريال Arabic Montreal Screwjob Danish Montreal Screwjob German Traición de Montreal Spanish Montreal Screwjob French Մոնրեալյան դավադրություն Armenian Montreal Screwjob ID Screwjob di Montréal Italian モントリオール事件 Japanese 몬트리올 스크루잡 Korean
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| Date | November 9, 1997 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Venue | Molson Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Event | 1997 Survivor Series | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kayfabe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Working | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Result | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shawn Michaels defeated Bret Hart (submission, 19:58) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Part of a series on |
| Professional wrestling |
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The Montreal Screwjob (also called the Montreal Incident)[1][2][3] was a notorious unscripted professional wrestling incident that occurred on November 9, 1997, at the Survivor Series pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. During the WWF Championship match between Shawn Michaels and champion Bret Hart, WWF owner Vince McMahon and select WWF employees covertly manipulated the predetermined outcome of the match in favor of Michaels; the screwjob occurred without Hart's knowledge, causing him to lose the championship.
Hart had been WWF Champion since August 1997. A week prior to Survivor Series, Hart, who had performed for the WWF since 1984, agreed to join rival wrestling promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW) from December 1997. McMahon sought to prevent Hart from leaving the WWF as champion, but Hart was unwilling to lose to Michaels – with whom he had a legitimate feud – at Survivor Series, as it was taking place in his home country of Canada. The match was planned to end in disqualification, causing Hart to retain the title, and then losing or forfeiting it at a later date. Instead, under McMahon's direction, referee Earl Hebner ended the match as Michaels held Hart in the sharpshooter submission hold (Hart's signature move); although Hart did not submit, Michaels was declared the winner by submission and became WWF Champion.
As a result of the screwjob, McMahon and Michaels elicited angry responses from Canadian audiences and others for many years. McMahon was 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 screwjob impacted the professional wrestling industry in several ways: according to WWE, the incident is considered as one of the beginnings of the Attitude Era,[4] leading to McMahon featuring as a villainous on-screen character on WWF television broadcasts, and has been used as a theme in matches and storylines across the wrestling industry. It was also partly chronicled in the documentary film Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows (1998).
The Montreal Screwjob has 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 WWE until his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame in April 2006, and he made his next live appearance on WWE programming in January 2010. Hart later said he legitimately reconciled with McMahon and Michaels, and the screwjob was 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".[5][6][7]
- ^ "The Montreal Incident, What Happened Backstage That Didn't End Up In Wrestling With Shadows And More". PWInsider.
- ^ "Bret Hart comments on the infamous WWE Montreal incident, says Ric Flair was "not so great" to work with in the ring".
- ^ "PWTorch.com – 5 Yrs Ago: Bret Hart to leave WWF – Prelude to Montreal incident".
- ^ "A special look at the Attitude Era". WWE.
- ^ Johnson, Mike (November 9, 2015). "11/9 This Day in History: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels in Montreal". PWInsider. Retrieved November 9, 2015.
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