Bret Hart Never Forgave WWE For This..

And at this point, I'm I don't think I've ever been so humiliated or hurt in my whole life. Bret Hart was betrayed in front of his home crowd, stripped of his championship without ever giving up, and then blamed for the entire thing. Sympathy.

I have no sympathy for Brett whatsoever. None. Almost 30 years later, he's forgiven some of the people involved.

But there's one thing WWE did that Bret Hart has never forgiven. Let me break it down. The bell that broke everything.

November 9, 1997. The Molson Center in Montreal. Almost 20,000 Canadian fans are on their feet screaming for their hero.

Brett the Hitman Heart, the WWF champion, is locked in his own signature hold. The sharpshooter and the man twisting his legs is Shawn Michaels. And then it happens.

Referee Earl Hebner, a man who was supposed to be flat on the mat from a ref bump, jumps up and screams for the bell. The bell rings at 19 minutes and 58 seconds. The announcer declares a new champion.

The music hits and Brett Hart, the most loyal man the company ever had, is lying in the middle of the ring, betrayed in front of his own country. And the scary part is that Brett felt it coming. Before the match, Vader and Davy Boy Smith pulled him aside and warned him to watch for a screw job.

Do not stay down too long, they told him. Do not get caught in a submission hold. Think about how poisoned the air backstage must have been for veterans to be whispering warnings like that to the champion of the company.

The match itself was wild from the opening bell. It spilled through the crowd and Shawn Michaels even wiped his face with a Canadian flag to pour gasoline on the Montreal crowd. This was supposed to be the start of a classic.

Brett later said they were on pace for a great match and that the bell cut off around 25 more minutes of what they had planned. Here's the thing you have to understand. Brett never gave up.

He never tapped. He never said the [music] words. In fact, at the exact moment the bell rang, he was doing what he was supposed to do in the planned finish.

He was reaching back to reverse the hold. At ringside, Vince McMahon elbowed timekeeper Mark Eaton and screamed at him to ring the bell. The order came from the boss himself, not the referee, not the rule book, the boss.

If you see me here, I'm reaching around to grab his ankles to rehears it. See, and I have no idea the match is going to end till now. That is Brett himself, just weeks after that night, walking through the tape frame by frame on Canadian TV.

And what he says next tells you everything about how deep this cut went. And at this point, I'm I don't think I've ever been so humiliated or hurt in my whole life. 14 years.

That is how long Bret Hart had worked for this company. He had wrestled hurt. He had wrestled sick.

He had missed only two shows in 21 years of wrestling. And this is what he got for it. Can't believe that after 14 years of giving this guy everything that I gave him that he would do that to me.

The guy he is talking about was not Shawn Michaels. It was the man sitting right there at ringside in plain view, close enough to touch. Vince McMahon had come down to the ring apron on purpose so that when the double cross happened, Brett would see exactly who did it and Brett saw him.

He stood up in that ring and he stared straight down at his boss. I'm looking right at Vince. There's only one guy to look at.

What Brett did next was not part of any script. It was not a wrestling angle. It was one man showing another man exactly what he thought of him on live pay-per-view in front of the whole world.

I spit right in his face and uh I just couldn't believe it. I was devastated. And he was not done.

Brett smashed the ringside monitors, destroyed announce equipment, and traced the letters WCW in the air with his finger so every fan in Montreal knew where he was going. He later said the headsets he threw into the crowd turned out to be worth $100,000 each. His brother Owen, Jim Nidheart, and Davy Boyith came down to the ring to stand with him.

The crowd was in shock. The locker room was in shock because everyone backstage knew what the finish was supposed to be. And this was not it.

Now, here is where it gets even uglier. The referee, Earl Hebner, was not just some official. He was Brett's friend.

And the night before in Detroit, Brett had gone to him because he had a bad feeling. Listen to what Earl swore to him. And I remember Earl Hebner, he got tears in his eyes, like heavy tears.

And he swore it'll never happen. I would never ever do it. I swear to God.

I swear on my kids. He swore on his own children. And then, according to Brett, the inner circle got to Earl moments before the match and they did not ask him nicely.

Vince McMahon, Triple H, Shawn, and I who else said, "This is what's going down, and this is what you're going to do. " Hebner was told he was wearing a microphone and that if he said or did anything to tip Brett off, he would lose his job. So, Earl rang the bell and then he ran out of that building as fast as his legs could carry him.

Backstage, things went from bad to worse. The Undertaker, the locker room leader, was furious. He pounded on Vince McMahon's door and told him to go to Brett's dressing room and explain himself like a man.

And Vince went. Brett was in the shower when Davy Boy Smith and Rick RDE poked their heads in with the news that the boss was sitting in his dressing room waiting. Brett sent back a message that could not have been clearer.

And I told him, I said, "You tell Vince McMahon just to get the hell out of here because if he's not, it's not safe for him right now. " Vince stayed anyway. Brett came out, sat across from him, and calmly told his boss that if he was still standing there when he finished getting dressed, he was going to knock him out.

He was not shouting. He was not raging. He said it flat and matter of fact, the way his father Stu would have said it.

Vince did not move. So Brett put on his pants, tied one shoe, then the other, and realized there was nothing left to tie. He stood up and walked toward his boss.

The Undertaker was in that room. He watched the whole thing happen. Everybody kind of stood up and he launched a punch that I have no idea how it got through all these people.

Think about that. The room was full of bodies, agents, wrestlers, Vince's own people, all ready to jump in and break it up. And somehow through all of them, One Punch found its way home.

Hit Vince right in the temple and Vince went down. One Punch, the owner of the biggest wrestling company in the world, out cold on his own dressing room floor. And the Undertaker did not describe a slap or a shove.

He described a knockout. He went down like a ton of bricks, man. Brett has told his side of that punch, too.

He knew that if he swung over the top, someone would catch his arm. So, he changed his plan at the very last second. And I I came right to him.

I thought 14 years, you son of a. And I I came up between our arms. 14 years.

That was the thought in his head as the uppercut landed. The punch lifted Vince off the ground, knocked him out cold, and broke Brett's own hand. Brett has called it the best break he ever had.

I broke my hand. Best break I ever had. I broke my hand right here on this baby bone.

And Shawn Michaels, he was sitting in that same dressing room swearing to God that he knew nothing about the screw job. Brett was almost sure he was lying, but almost sure is not the same as knowing. So instead of throwing another punch, Brett did something colder.

He walked over, tapped Shawn on the shoulder, and said four [music] simple words. And I said, "Thanks for the match. " And he looked at me and he just burst into tears.

In that moment, Brett says he knew Shawn was guilty. The tears told him everything the words would not. So that is the night itself, the bell, the spit, the punch.

But a betrayal this big does not come out of nowhere. To understand why Vince McMahon would do this to his most loyal champion, we have to go back and follow the money, the broken promises, and one insult in San Jose that lit the fuse. The road to Montreal.

To understand the double cross, you have to start with loyalty because Bret Hart had a chance to leave and he turned it down. Back in 1996, WCW's Eric Bishoff offered Brett a massive three-year deal commonly reported at around $8 to 9 million. lighter schedule, movie opportunities, Turner money.

Any wrestler alive would have signed it. But Vince McMahon came back with something no wrestler had ever been offered before. A 20-year contract, roughly $1.

5 million a year, as an active wrestler, then a producer and ambassador role for the rest of his life. It was a loyalty package, a promise that Brett would be a WWF man forever. And tucked inside that contract was one small clause that would change wrestling history.

Brett got reasonable creative control over his character for his final days with the company. Brett chose loyalty over money. He stayed.

Then 1997 happened. WCW's NOAO was crushing the WWF in the Monday Night Wars and the company's money problems got serious. And on September 22, 1997 at Madison Square Garden.

Vince sat his champion down and broke his heart. Brett has told this story many times and his version has never changed. Listen to how he described it just weeks after Montreal.

Something else Vince McMahon has lied about is that he said that it was a joint decision to leave. It was never a joint decision. According to Brett, there was nothing joint about it.

He was told straight out what was going to happen to that 20-year promise. And I was uh approached by him in Madison Square Garden after the pay-per-view in England, and he said basically, we are going to break your contract. Take a second and feel the weight of that.

This is the man who turned down Ted Turner's millions to stay loyal. And now the same company was telling him it could not keep its word. Brett was on a tour of the Middle East while the window to give his notice was closing.

And Vince's booking ideas for keeping him around did not convince him. Even then, right up to the very end, Brett did not want to go. He has said he made one last phone call that had nothing to do with money.

I still called Vince McMahon up and said, "I don't want to talk money. [music] I just want to know. I just want you to talk me into staying.

" Vince did not talk him into staying. So Brett went back to WCW and Bischoff's new offer landed in the range of $2. 5 to $3 million a year with fewer dates.

In early November 1997, with a heavy heart, Brett signed. But here was the problem. He still had weeks left on his WWF deal.

He still had that creative control clause, and he was still the WWF champion. That belt is what kept Vince McMahon up at night because Vince had been burned before. In 1995, Medusa, known in the WWF as Alundre Blaze, had walked onto WCWTV and dumped the WWF Women's Championship into a trash can on live TV.

Vince was terrified of a repeat, this time with his top title. Even Vince Russo, who was in the creative meetings that week, says that fear was the whole engine behind everything. Vince was afraid Brett was going to bring the WWE title on WCW TV.

Even the Undertaker years later laid out the company's thinking in the exact same way. They had to they had to get the title off of Brett cuz I mean it was a war back then. Fine.

So take the title off him. Brett was ready to lose it. And this is the part of the story WWE's official version always skips.

[music] Brett never refused to lose. He refused one very specific loss because of one very specific insult. On October 12th, 1997 in San Jose, Brett went to Shawn Michaels and told him he had no problem dropping the title to him if that was the plan.

It was a peace offering, wrestler to wrestler, and according [music] to Brett, Shawn threw it right back in his face. Shawn told him he appreciated it, but he was not willing to do the same for Brett [music] in wrestling. That is about the deepest insult there is.

Years later, sitting across from Shawn himself, Brett explained exactly where his line was. I said, "But I'm not. " I said, "I want Shawn to put me over first to prove to me that he has the respect for me to put me over.

" And why did respect suddenly matter so much? Because of that one conversation in San Jose. After what he said, it all came down to that remark about saying that he wouldn't put me over.

Shawn has denied he would have refused to lose if he was booked to. Though others, including Jim Cornet, have said Shawn had no intention of putting Brett over cleanly at that point. Either way, Brett's mind was made up.

Not to Shawn, not in Canada, not in Montreal, but everywhere else. Brett offered Vince a menu of ways out. listened to his own offer.

I said, "Why don't I why don't we have the match in Montreal and I'll drop the belt the following night in Ottawa on Monday Night [music] Raw live. " That was just one option. He also offered to lose at Madison Square Garden on November 15 or in a four-way match in Springfield or to drop the [music] belt to Ken Shamrock, the Undertaker, Vader, or Mankind.

He even said he would lose to the Brooklyn Brawler in the Garden. anybody but Shawn, unless Shawn showed him respect first, and WCW had even agreed to a short extension so [music] Brett could drop the title cleanly before he left. On top of all that, Brett was holding a legal ace.

That little clause from the 20-year deal. I [music] have a in my contract that says I have reasonable creative control [music] in my last 30 days. And to Brett, using that clause was not about ego.

It was about one thing only, protecting his character in the one place on earth where it mattered most. that my [music] character was not in any way, shape or form going to be trashed or beaten or humiliated [music] in in Canada. He was not even asking to win.

He was asking for one simple thing on one specific weekend. And uh what happened from that point on wasn't so much a factor to me, but I made it very clear that I was not prepared to [music] uh go out on my back in my home country, not on Remembrance Day weekend. Lawyers on both sides exchanged letters over it.

This was no longer just wrestling business. It was a contract fight. Behind the scenes, the creative team was drowning.

Vince Russo says the meetings went on for 12 [music] hours with Vince pitching idea after idea. And near the end, out of pure frustration, Russo blurted out a dark joke that became a prophecy. Vince, have Brett ha have Shawn put him in the freaking sharpshooter and have Earl call for the bell.

Officially, that idea went nowhere. Officially, they made a deal. The agreed finish for Montreal was a chaotic brawl.

a schmaz with a ref bump, the sharpshooter, a reversal, a Heart Foundation versus Degeneration X runin, and a disqualification. Brett keeps the title [music] and drops it later. Pat Patterson helped lay it out, and Brett even taught Shawn how he wanted the sharpshooter applied.

And here's the wild part. We do not have to take anyone's word for what was promised. A documentary crew filming Hitman Heart.

Wrestling with Shadows had Brett wired [music] with a hidden microphone, and Vince is heard agreeing to a finish that would not bury Brett. It is the closest thing to a smoking gun in wrestling history. But on November 8th, the night before the show, Vince, Shawn, and a small inner circle met in a Montreal hotel and planned [music] the real finish.

Shawn has admitted he was in the room and he has described what it felt like in chilling terms. And [music] again, and the thing is, you know, he says, and I've always said it, you know, it's like it it is like a mob hit. A mob hit, his words.

And Shawn says Vince made him one promise in that room about who would carry the blame. I can remember Vince, you know, don't worry, I'll take the heat. was like, "Dude, there's like there you you can take whatever you want.

" By the night before the show, the plan was locked, even as they made one final try to talk Brett into losing. But so the night before, it's more or less like, "Okay, I got one last ditch effort tomorrow to try to convince him, but [music] as of right now, this thing's actually going to have to happen. " So the trap was set.

Brett walked out to that ring believing he had a deal, believing his friend Earl, believing his contract meant something. 20 minutes later, the bell rang and every one of those beliefs was dead. But the screw job itself was only half the crime.

What Vince McMahon did next on television 8 days later is the reason Bret Hart is still angry almost 30 years on. Brett screwed Brett. One week after Montreal, Vince McMahon sat down across from Jim Ross on Raw.

Brett was gone. The belt was safe. Vince could have said nothing.

Instead, he looked into the camera and rewrote history. When Ross asked him straight, "Did you screw Bret Hart? " This was Vince's answer.

I look at it from the [music] standpoint of the referee did not screw Bret Hart. Shawn Michael certainly did not screw Bret Hart. Nor did Vince McMahon screw Bret Hart.

And then came the five words that Bret Hart has been fighting against ever since. I truly believe that [music] Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart. Vince painted Brett as the villain, a selfish man who refused to honor the traditions of the business that made him.

That interview combined with the very real heat gave birth to the evil Mr McMahon character and the attitude era exploded around it. WWF business surged. Vince became a television star off the back of a real betrayal.

Meanwhile, the locker room was in revolt. Mick Foley skipped Raw in protest. The Undertaker was described as real pissed [music] and he told Vince it did not have to go down that way.

Even Shawn Michaels admits that the morning after only one man's opinion mattered to him. But he, you know, I remember waiting on him and he came out. He walked up to me.

He goes, "We're cool. " Off he went. I went, "All right.

" That was the Undertaker. Coming out of a closed- dooror meeting with [music] Vince, the company steadied itself and moved on. And then it went further.

Degeneration X mocked the whole thing on TV with a little person dressed up as Brett Hart. The man was gone and they were still using his name for laughs. Canadian crowds answered back with you screwed Brett Chance that followed McMahon, Michaels, and Hebner for years.

Even Vince Russo, who sat in those creative meetings and still says he was on Vince's side, [music] admits there was something almost tragic underneath it all. If Vince could love somebody, which he really can't, Bret Hart was the closest he came to. The person Vince came closest to loving, and that is the [music] person he chose to double cross on live television.

Brett could not just move on. Weeks later, still sitting there with a broken hand, he answered Vince's story with the simplest math in the world. [music] Well, all I know is no matter what scenario you paint, like what what could have happened, I could have uh [music] dropped the title the next night.

any scenario was better than the scenario that that that they that they did do. And when he looked at the show they were building without him, he saw his own shadow everywhere. You know, Steve Austin should have led to me.

Undertaker led to me. Shawn Michaels led to me. I'm gone.

I'm not even on the show and I'll never be back. Life after Montreal was cruel to Brett. [music] His WCW run is widely seen as a waste.

They had no idea what to do with him. A kick from Goldberg at Starcade 1999 gave him a concussion that effectively ended his career. His first wife has talked about what that [music] time did to their home.

Brett was going into his depression. I was going into my depression. And things weren't even really good for us at the time.

Anyway, and then it got worse than any of it. In May 1999, his brother Owen died in a stunt gone wrong at a WWF pay-per-view. Owen had stayed with the company after Montreal because his contract locked him in.

Brett has said that if he had still been in the WWF, he would have talked Owen out of that harness. For Brett, Montreal was never one bad night. It was one entry in a long ledger.

He says Vince never fully paid his father Stu the reported $750,000 for buying Stampede Wrestling back in 1984. He says Vince promised him a six-year title reign in 1992, then had him lose to Yokozuna at Wrestlemania 9 so Hulk Hogan could grab the belt seconds later. Broken promise after broken promise, all leading to that bell.

So did he ever forgive. Even the piece came with a knife hidden in it. After Brett's stroke, Vince reached out and WWE planned a career DVD.

Its working title was screwed. The Bret Hart Story, a hit piece modeled on the Ultimate Warrior takedown DVD. Brett refused to touch it and he flipped the whole project, winning creative control and turning it into the respectful set called The Best There Is, the Best There Was, The Best There Ever Will Be.

Then slowly the real thaw came. In 2006, Brett accepted his Hall of Fame induction introduced by Stone Cold Steve Austin. Though he was not ready to stand in a WWE ring at WrestleMania yet, watching Shawn Michaels against the Undertaker at Wrestlemania 25, convinced Brett it was time to bury the hatchet.

[music] Natalya has said her husband Tyson Kid helped open that door, telling Brett that Shawn spoke well of him and felt real remorse. On January 4, 2010, he returned to Raw and hugged Shawn in the ring, and Brett [music] has said that moment was real. He beat Vince at Wrestlemania 26 with the sharpshooter.

In 2014, he even called Earl Hebner into a ring and forgave him face to face. He has said letting go of the anger was like putting down a big bag of rocks. But do not confuse peace with forgetting.

Because to this day, Brett draws one hard line. It was real. It was never a wrestling angle.

Anyone that thinks that it was a work is either an idiot or um they're just trying to provoke a reaction. You know, [music] I wish it was a work. I wish that we'd planned it all out and that I would come back 10 years later when I'm old and wrestle Vince McMahon and [laughter] beat him with a chair.

And the anger never fully drained away. As recently as 2024, Brett called Vince, Shawn, and Triple H liars and cheaters and backstabbers, said there were a million other ways to get the belt off him with 6 weeks still left on his contract, and said Vince McMahon can rot in hell. After the Janelle Grant lawsuit against Vince, Brett said he had absolutely zero respect left for the man.

He still rejects WWE'se's official story that he was unprofessional and refused to lose. Yet, ask Brett about that night [music] and he does not talk like a victim. He talks like a man who won the only thing that mattered.

My whole family and everything they did to me that day. Uh [cough and clears throat] I think Vince got off lucky, you know, myself and uh it would never change anything I ever did. I thought it was my uh crowning, you know, the probably the single best thing I ever did.

Brett has called the screw job probably his most defining hour. He shook the hands. He took the Hall of Fame ring.

He hugged Shawn Michaels in front of the world. But his story has stayed exactly the same for almost 30 years. They had a deal.

They broke it on purpose in his own country in the most humiliating way they could find. And the company still blames him for it. That is the this in the title.

Not the bell, not the belt, the lie that came after. Bret [music] Hart made peace with the people. He never made peace with the story.

And if the last 30 years have taught us anything, he [music] never will. If you enjoyed this video, click on the boxes playing on your screen to watch similar content.