The Survivor Series Screwjob! What happened?
Good guys rarely fought good guys. But due to a contract dispute, a member of the WWF tag-team champions, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, was going to be leaving the federation. He had been asked to wear a western outfit and come to the ring as a Canadian cowboy.
So this two-out-of-three falls match held at a house show in Anytown, USA would see the tag-team titles switch hands. The Hart Foundation would lose to The Rockers. At he end of the third fall the announcement was made, the Rockers were champs and everyone went on with their lives.
Then contract negotiations between Hart and the WWF cleared up, and the fed used an event during the match (The top rope had come off the turnbuckle during the second fall.) to reverse the decision and return the belts to the Hart Foundation.
Rocker member Shawn Michaels, whom many considered the best young talent in the business and who no less than Ric Flair called "The future of wrestling," was tired of it all. Tired of tag-team wrestling. Tired of a partner that put more emphasis on partying than wrestling. Tired of waiting. So he went to the big man himself. Owner of the then WWF, Vince McMahon, and asked, "What do I have to do?"
Shawn wanted more and was asking straight up what he had to do to get it. Vince answered, "You just did it."
Meanwhile, co WWF tag-team champion Bret Hart silently waited. People were saying that he was the best scientific wrestler in the world. He knew his turn would come.
Shawn's turn came with shattered glass. On an episode of WWF Superstars, in an act now famous in wrestling history, he turned on his partner Marty Janetty during a Brutus' Barber Shop segment and threw him through a glass window.
Bret Hart was enjoying a run as Intercontinental champion.
In mid-1992, WWF champion Ric Flair was told by Vince McMahon that he would not be renewing Flair's contract because Vince "couldn't figure out what to do with him." Flair suggested dropping the WWF title to Bret Hart. He also suggested to Vince that Bret drop the title eventually to Shawn Michaels. Shawn was a young version of himself and he thought the WWF would prosper with him as champion.
Flair and Shawn had, a few months earlier, a match on WWF Superstars that people were calling the match of the year.
At another house show near the end of the year, Flair was defeated by Bret and lost the WWF title. In November of that year, at the Survivor Series, Bret defended the belt against new Intercontinental champion Shawn Michaels and retained the title.
Two years pass. Wrestlemania 10 was the decade long cumulating of the birth of Sports Entertainment. The plan was for Bret Hart to emerge as champion, carried on the back of all the WWF superstars, and lead the federation into a New Generation. The next day all every wrestling fan could talk about was one thing...
...Shawn Michael's Intercontinental Ladder Match at Wrestlemania 10 with Razor Ramone.
Prior to 10, the best Wrestlemania match ever was considered to be the IC match at W3 pitting champ Randy Savage against Ricky Steamboat. The ladder match at 10 was considered better. All eyes began to look toward Shawn Michaels as a future WWF champion. And he knew it.
While Bret was having quality match after quality match, Shawn began having problems. Even though Bret was champ, Shawn was still the most popular. Along with his friends Diesel (Kevin Nash) and Razor Ramone (Scott Hall) two other VERY popular superstars, they made the WWF locker room a very hard place to be.
Shawn was suspended, brought back, refused to job the IC title to Dean Douglas (Afterthought, when Shawn refused to job to Douglas, Vince made him hand the title over at a ppv. Later on the ppv Douglas wrestles Razor Ramone for the title and Razor intentionally makes him look like a fool in the ring for his buddy Shawn.) Suspended again, and generally caused all sort of chaos. And the fans loved him for it.
Finally, at Wrestlemania 12, in a sixty minute Ironman match that was an incredible sight to behold, Bret dropped the title to Shawn.
Hart's contract had run out and after over ten years in the ring he wanted to take a break and spend time with his family. The plan was for Bret to return at the Survivor Series in November, work his way up to a return match at Wrestlemania 13, and regain the title from Shawn. But several events happened that changed things.
Event one; Bret's spot was taken by a returning former WWF Superstar that had tons of drawing power. The Ultimate Warrior. Even though the Warrior was gone in only a few months, his ego took the WWF locker room by storm. He was the ultimate Id-boy. Shawn went on the defensive. He knew Warrior wanted his title and took it personally.
Event two; The WWF's chief rival, WCW, offered Shawn and his friends Kevin Nash and Scott Hall a million dollar a year contract for three years if they jumped to WCW. Hall and Nash accepted, Shawn was given the WWF title and stayed.
Event three; At a Madison Square Garden card, with Nash and Hall leaving the company, they, along with Shawn and their friend HHH, approached Vince with the suggestion that after the main event of the night (Shawn would be successfully defending the WWF title against former champion Nash.)
The four superstars (HHH had defeated Hall earlier on the card.) would break kayfabe and go out to the ring together for one last goodbye to the fans.
Vince agreed and allowed it to happen. This made Shawn see how much power he really had in the WWF and, along with the Warrior situation, made him even more defensive.
Event four; Bret was offered a seven million dollar three year contract by WCW but turned it down because Vince, trying to compete with WCW, offered Bret a lifetime, 20 million over 20 years, contract. Bret stayed with the WWF out of loyalty and long-term security.
In the state of mind Shawn was in, especially since losing his back-up of Hall and Nash, his biggest rival being given the most lucrative contract of all time was an upsetting blow. Jealousy hit hard.
Event five; One of the most famous phrase's in wrestling history was first spoken by a nearly forgotten wrestler that no one believed had a future. "Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass!" The era of Stone Cold was beginning.
Event six; Since Bret's return, Shawn had been instructed to mention him whenever possible for a slow build up to their rematch. Shawn, out of jealousy most likely, decided to take it as far as he could. This led to an actual fistfight between the two in the WWF locker room. Shawn was badly outmatched and Bret came up the victor.
Event seven; Rival promotion WCW was doing everything in their power to drive the WWF out of business. WCW put their show, Monday Nitro, on opposite RAW and made it two hours against RAW's one hour. Every time the WWF would change RAW's time-slot so the two shows weren't in direct competition, WCW would change their time-slot so they were.
RAW was called a live show but it was actually taped every other week. On those taped weeks, WCW would give away the outcome of WWF's "live" matches. WCW also did what was before considered unthinkable. They paid a wrestler, WWF woman's champ Madusa, to come on their show and toss the WWF woman's title in a trashcan. She was then given a fat multi-year contract.
The WWF had lost more than twenty million dollars in the last year and was set to lose a lot more. On top of all that, and the recent steroid trial of Vince McMahon, the WWF was hurting badly.
After event number six, Shawn refuse to put Bret over. He would wrestle him, but would not let Bret have a pin fall victory.
The original plan was to have a controversial Royal Rumble finish, which would lead to a fatal four-way match to determine the number one contender for Wrestlemania. With Shawn refusing to lose to Bret, the plans had to be changed. Shawn was told he would have to relinquish the title on a live episode of WWE Monday Night RAW.
In a heartfelt (But phony.) speech that this wrestling fan marked out for BIG TIME, Shawn told of how he had lost his smile and needed to get it back again. He claimed that a knee injury would keep him out of action for months if not forever. He thanked Vince, handed him the belt, and walked away from the WWF.
Bret won the title in that aforementioned fatal four-way match, lost it the next night to Sid Vicious, (He was taken out of the Wrestlemania main event because of rising popularity of Stone Cold and WWF officials thinking the two would have a better match. They did.) Then won it back a few months later from The Undertaker at that years Summer Slam with a returning Shawn Michaels as the special referee.
With Bret as champion again, WWF ratings slumped. Wrestlers were complaining because sometimes they barely made enough to cover travel expenses. WCW and their nWo were taking wrestling by storm and it was only a matter of time before the WWF would be considered a minor promotion and lose all its credibility.
A federation is only as good as it's champion. Bret was one of the best mat men in the business, but without the drawing power to back him up Vince knew he could never defeat WCW with Bret as champion. He also saw that Bret was having a hard time dealing with the new, edgier direction the WWF was taking. Bret's promos made it clear that he didn't agree with the way fans admired Shawn and Stone Cold.
Vince decided to take action. He called for two meetings. The first meeting was with all the WWF's on-air workers. He told them that he thought perhaps time had passed him by and gave them more creative freedom over their character's development. Gone were the blue blood Hunter Hearst Helmsley and the singing cowboy JJ. In their place were HHH and a more up to date Jeff Jarrett and others.
The second meeting was with Bret Hart. Vince laid out what was happening with the Monday Night Wars (As they would soon come to be called.) and WCW. He told him that he couldn't honor their contract. He believed that Bret should take a lesser role with the company for the foreseeable future and wanted to renegotiate their deal.
Bret, in no uncertain terms, said "No."
"Bret Hart; Wrestling with Shadows," a Discovery Channel special, chronicles what happened next pretty well from Bret's point of view. WWE's Confidential (See vid download below...) shows the WWF side of things. Both sides tell the truth from their perspective of things. Putting the two together should make things clear for everyone without calling anyone the bad guy.
Bret accepted WCW's seven million dollar three year contract and was set to start with the company in December. But there was a problem. Bret was WWF champion. In all the years of professional wrestling history, no wrestler has outright disrespected a federation's world title (Not till Madusa did it to the WWF woman's title on Nitro.) unless it was part of a planned storyline.
When a champion was leaving a territory or company in general, he would lose the title in a match so the company could keep up the prestige their title had. For a feds current world champion to appear for another company was unheard of and could possibly do a lot of damage to the feds world title.
WCW had already paid Madusa to drop their title in a trashcan so Vince knew they weren't against asking Bret to do the same thing. So Vince decided that Bret should drop the belt at the upcoming Survivor Series ppv to the WWF's most popular wrestler, Shawn Michaels.
Okay, lets get a couple things straight. Question; Would Bret Hart have taken the WWF title to WCW and trashed it on live TV?
Probably not.
Question; what did Bret want to happen with the title situation?
Bret did NOT want to lose the title at all. He's stated afterward that he suggested losing it to Stone Cold but didn't say it till years later and Austin said he had not heard that story. Bret wanted to leave the WWF as WWF champion so his legacy would be just that. THE undefeated WWF champion in WCW.
No one can blame Bret for not wanting to lose the Belt to his hated rival Shawn Michaels. (In his home country of Canada, no less.) But in both "Wrestling with Shadows" and the WWE Confidential below, Bret states ON-CAMERA that he would "hand over" the title the night after Survivor Series on live RAW.
He wouldn't lose the title; he would surrender it without being beaten. That would have given him a fine legacy. At the same time, a drowning WWF might have been destroyed by the act.
Vince met with Shawn and Jerald Brisco the night before the match. Bret had stated he would NOT lose the title to Shawn. The three came up with several alternate endings to the match. Brisco taught Shawn some simple self-defense holds in case they had to take drastic actions forcing Shawn to defend himself against Bret.
The next day, Survivor series, Bret showed up hours late. Not long before the ppv started. He went to Vince's office and restated that he would not be losing to Shawn, but would abandon it the next night on RAW.
The plan was set in motion.
From what we've been told, only Vince, Shawn and Jerald Brisco knew what was about to happen. Referee Earl Hebner was informed 10 minutes before match time and agreed to it. (Funny thing is that Hebner's 10 minutes were not only spent having a private meeting with Vince, but also going over the match with Bret and Shawn and arranging for a car to be ready and waiting for him at the entrance to the arena.)
I would suggest others knew. Sergeant Slaughter was there and ready after the match. If he didn't know then he sure was quick to catch on. The Undertaker was the locker room leader at the time. It would be insane not to bring him in if just for crowd control reasons. Rumors have surfaced that Pat Patterson laid out the ending. Shawn was hanging out with HHH and Chyna at that time.
Another rumor is that due to how fast WCW tried to capitalize on it, that Shawn had called Kevin Nash and told him what was going to happen.
Linda McMahon must have known, although she and the others rumored to be involved have always said they weren't in on it.
The arena was unusually quiet before the show. Normally Vince was everywhere making sure things were going as planned, but that night Vince mostly stayed in his office area.
The match itself was almost entirely one sided. Shawn put up little offence against the Hitman. Bret later remarked about the oddness in this. The original plan had been for Shawn to lock Bret in his own finishing move, the Sharpshooter, and as Bret was breaking out of it, Owen Hart, Dave boy Smith, HHH and Chyna would rush the ring and it would end in a double count-out.
Near the end of the match Bret saw Vince and Brisco come out to the ring. He didn't know why they were there but started to suspect something was wrong. Shawn took control and put Bret in the sharpshooter. Bret reached for Shawn's leg and...
...heard the bell ring.
Vince had yelled to Earl Hebner, "Ring the bell," then yelled for the timekeeper to do it at the same time Earl called for it.
Shawn played it off well. Handed the belt, he made it look like HE was the one that had been screwed. Backstage he even threw the belt across the dressing room and yelled, "No way am I taking his fucking belt this way."
The backstage area was in stunned silence for several minutes. Owen and Davey had joined Bret in the ring. Bret knew right away what had happened. He stood up and spit right in Vince's eye. Then climbed out of the ring and destroyed a rumored fifty thousand dollars in video equipment. He climbed back into the ring and, without knowing the cameras were no longer live, motioned the letters W-C-W with is hand.
When reality set in backstage, no one could believe it had happened. Wrestling wasn't supposed to be real but this was more real than it had ever been.
Let me interrupt for a second with two thoughts. First, this same thing had happened before in the WWF. In the 1980s when Wendi Rictor was woman's champion, contract negotiations broke down between her and Vince and Vince had the Faboulas Moolah, dressed in a mask, go to the ring and actually pin Rictor and win the title. Rictor walked out and has never been back.
Two, some people say that this whole Screwjob thing was a work. (In wrestling lingo, work = fake, and shoot = real.) The rumor is that Vince and Bret had it planned all along. That Bret would go to WCW, do as much damage to their show as possible, win their world title and then return to the WWF as the triumphant hero. But there's a HUGE problem with that scenario.
The WWF didn't have the three years they would have to wait for Bret's contract to run out. They were in immediate danger. The WWF needed something FAST or within the next year they would have to declare bankruptcy. It's ludicrous to even consider that this as a work so just STOP IT!
After the match there were a lot of very angry workers backstage. Many said that they were quitting the company because "you just don't do that to a guy like Bret." (The only person that actually didn't show up on RAW the next night other than the Hart Foundation was Mick Foley, by the way. The wrestlers knew that Bret was going to have seven million dollars coming to him and if they quit they would get nothing till their contracts eventually ran out.)
In the locker room Bret asked Shawn if he had been involved and Shawn denied knowing anything. (He later admitted that he knew all along.) Vince showed up and wanted to talk to Bret. Bret told him that if he was still in the locker room after he got out of the shower that he was going to punch him right in the face. Vince was still there when Bret got out so Bret punched him in the face.
A lot of bad things have happened to Bret since the screw job but looking at just this event you have to say that Bret was wrong by refusing to drop the title.
Vince was also wrong in suggesting that Bret drop the belt to Shawn in the first place. He should have picked another wrestler from the beginning and Bret might have been more agreeable.
Shawn was an admitted asshole. His ego got far too big and he gave in to it.
There are no heroes in this. There aren't any villains either really. Everyone had a part in it and no one can be blamed wholly. This event changed the entire face of wrestling on many levels. Bret was mostly considered a good guy even though at the time he was playing a villain. Shawn was the forever bad guy but was loved by the fans. The line between face (good guy) and heel (bad guy) became forever blurred and even today it's hard to tell when one starts and the other one ends.
It also brought a realism to the "sport" everybody knew was fake. It made people see that, like Mick Foley said once, "I know the outcome of the match in advance but nothing is more real to me when I step in that ring."
Finally, it was the beginning of the WWF's Attitude era that brought about some of the greatest stars to ever walk that isle in Stone Cold, the Rock and Mick Foley. (Vince also, at the next Survivor series, did a mock screwjob ending involving the Rock and Mick Foley.)
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
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YAY! VIDEOZ!
Bret Hart defends the IC title against Shawn Michaels in a cage match!
http://rapidshare.de/files/717393/WWE_1994-_Bret_Hart_vs_Shawn_Michaels_-_Cage_Match.wmv.html
A build up to the Survivor Series match between Bret and Shawn!
http://rapidshare.de/files/1434771/Movie.wmv.html
WWE Confidental's story on what happened!
(This vid is only 7mb and very worth downloading.)
http://rapidshare.de/files/928080/WWE_Confidental_-_Montreal_Screwjob.wmv.html
The day AFTER Survivor Series on RAW Shawn brought down a midget dressed like the Hitman in an insulting (But funny.) segment.
(This file is 58mb. Right click, save target as... )
http://www.freewebtown.com/619wrestling.8m.net/Midget%20Bret.wmv
If right clicking the above link doesn't work the vid can be found here, http://www.619wrestlingmultimedia.8m.net/Segments.html
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LINKZ!
http://www.brethart.com/
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/Hitman/home.html
http://www.shawnhbk.com/
http://www.forever-shawn.net/
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TOMORROW IS THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF OWEN HART'S DEATH!
Last edited by XSaraXPoeX; 05-23-2005 at 10:07 AM.
Wow. Tremendous job as usual, Sara! I really liked hearing your opinions on certain things interspersed throughout, too.
At the time I can't imagine anyone else holding the belt other than Shawn. I get the feeling Bret wouldn't have wanted to drop it to anyone else for fear of appearing weak. It was a tough decision, and it's a shame it had to be made.
Tremendous job, one sided, but tremendous job nontheless
One sided? Really?Originally Posted by joeAR
Seems fair to me.
Eh not really one sided, just this one line bothered me: A lot of bad things have happened to Bret since the screw job but looking at just this event you have to say that Bret was wrong by refusing to drop the title.
He would have dropped the belt to anybody else but Shawn at that point(I believe this, Sarah doesn't) Plus i'm also biased
Last edited by joeAR; 05-22-2005 at 05:35 PM.
Bret would drop the title to anyone except Shawn. If the future of WWF/E was in such jeopardy, Vince would've agreed to Bret's terms. But Vince's ego wouldn't let him accept Bret's terms.
Was it selfish for Bret to not drop the title to Shawn? Yeah. But then again, it's also Shawn and Vince's fault. Shawn for doing everything to piss off Bret, and Vince for not doing anything to take care of the situation. Hell, even Vince did shit to stir the pot.
Fair enough.Eh not really one sided, just this one line bothered me: A lot of bad things have happened to Bret since the screw job but looking at just this event you have to say that Bret was wrong by refusing to drop the title.
He would have dropped the belt to anybody else but Shawn at that point(I believe this, Sarah doesn't) Plus i'm also biased
(No "H" in Sara, btw.)
Fair enough.
(No "H" in Sara, btw.
That's it, no god cookie for you
Sara did say this:Eh not really one sided, just this one line bothered me: A lot of bad things have happened to Bret since the screw job but looking at just this event you have to say that Bret was wrong by refusing to drop the title.
He would have dropped the belt to anybody else but Shawn at that point(I believe this, Sarah doesn't) Plus i'm also biased
"Vince was also wrong in suggesting that Bret drop the belt to Shawn in the first place. He should have picked another wrestler from the beginning and Bret might have been more agreeable."
Which is pretty much the same thing. I just don't see him being willing to drop the title to anyone not on the top level. He wanted to go out undefeated.
Dang! I wanted a god cookie.
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