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00:01Bret was amazing by any standard brett may go down as one of the top technicians in the industry
00:10brett took the business seriously i think sometimes to his detriment he took himself a
00:15little too seriously brett believed he was the wwf champion on november the 9th 1997 professional
00:22wrestler brett hart had fought and clawed his way to the top as world champion but in a matter of
00:28seconds he would realize that those who make you can just as easily destroy you here's the problem
00:35brett didn't want to lose the championship it's your last night in the company we need to crown
00:40a new champion you know what we'll just take it from it it's like i remember when i was a
00:46kid
00:46exactly where i was standing when john f kennedy had been assassinated and i remember just as
00:52precisely where i was when i found out about the montreal screw job screwing a canadian hero in
00:59canada how much more evil can one get and i still feel to this day like i have a neon
01:05sign on my
01:05fucking head i fucked you brett never told you about it but i fucked you i was so mad like
01:10it just
01:10ready to explode the screw job changed so many things in the business the innocence of wrestling
01:17changed this was one of the worst things in the world that happened to me in this business say
01:23what you want about wrestling that was real he really screwed that guy the incident known as the
01:28montreal screw job marks a turning point in the history of wrestling never before had the curtain
01:34been pulled back to fully reveal the behind the scenes drama a dark plot of betrayal was exposed
01:41the legacies were redefined and fans would never see wrestling the same again
01:58you know it's one thing i always say about the screw job is that if you go back and you
02:02look at all
02:03the facts my story has never changed it's always been the same story right from day one because i tell
02:08the truth i'm brett the hitman hart the best there is the best there was and the best there will
02:13be
02:13i always say i was a real world champion because i really traveled all around the world and defended
02:18my belt this is my history and my life here all these guys despite everything that's happened with
02:23the screw jobs and all that kind of stuff for me it's mostly happy memories my name is jim cornett
02:29for
02:29the past 35 years i've worked for every major professional wrestling promotion in the united states as a
02:33manager announcer trainer matchmaker pretty much done it all i was actually there i actually lived
02:41it i'm giving you my perspective just because my perspective happens to be entertaining that some
02:48people take exception to that i was the executive vice president of talent relations i've been a writer
02:55producer director brother love is a alter ego of mine you name it worn a lot of hats in the
03:02wwf
03:03wwe the patriarch of the hart family was stew hart and stew was an age-old veteran double tough
03:15the dungeon was the basement in the heart family house well the dungeon is hard to explain my dad 60
03:22or 70 year old man would go down there and torture a bunch of football players and bodybuilders
03:26i don't feel my arms sir let me show you a hold here you just take your arm like this
03:33the hart family is one of the most famous families in the history of our business
03:36the sons were all wrestlers the daughters all married wrestlers they had a wrestling bear that
03:42lived under their porch it was like the munsters house for the people in calgary stew would invite
03:48everybody over and and make breakfast they had a bunch of cats and he'd take the thing where he's
03:53he's flipping the eggs and he'd flip the cat over there and then go back to flipping the eggs you
03:58know
03:58it made them toughs what it did and stew began the uh stampede wrestling promotion in alberta
04:05and had a very successful company there for a long time hello hello hello and welcome to this another
04:12edition and bret hart was kind of a pale skinny you know maybe 21 year old kid or whatever but
04:19you could
04:19tell he kind of knew what he was doing i'm more confident right now than i've ever been
04:23and there's no reason right now that him he shouldn't have those belts right now the hearts
04:26were very integral to professional wrestling around the world in 1984 stew hart is trying to
04:32keep his struggling territory afloat the rapidly expanding wwf strikes a deal to acquire the entire
04:38promotion along with stew's main star his son brett when vince bought stew hart stampede wrestling in
04:471984 he took bret hart and jim neidhart who was son-in-law as a team the hart foundation they
04:53were
04:53managed by jimmy hart no relation they were a tremendous tag team and bret hart had a perfect
05:00foil in in sean michaels when you have two guys like bret hart and sean michaels that are as talented
05:05as they are at what they do to begin with and then sometimes there's just chemistry you find a duet
05:11between two singers that have never worked together before but suddenly it's a hit look at this
05:20internationally we're getting reports back that we've got a megastar on our hands in the form of
05:27bret hart he his work had made him this mega so that was all they wanted to see that's all
05:33they wanted
05:33to talk about this and at the same time rick flair was the champion and rick was having some health
05:38issues
05:39we needed to make a change so vince is looking at it going why not brett that's the kind of
05:46guy
05:46you want to reward vince mcmahon's one of the most unique individuals on the planet if you could cross
05:54a genius with pt barnum and donald trump you would get the love child that would be vince mcmahon
05:59vince honestly is the third generation wrestling promoter vince controls creative vince controls
06:05talent choices they run the lunch schedule past vince mcmahon to this day over the years vince
06:11had a good relationship with brett i don't know you know i think that once brett became champion in
06:18saskatoon um there started there was a change that was taking place the criteria for a world champion in
06:31those days there wasn't a set physical list of maneuvers or whatever that you had to perform it
06:37was whoever vince thought could be the guy vince mcmahon decides who the champion is going to be
06:43it's not actually won by anybody so brett didn't beat rick flair he won the championship in a in a
06:52scripted contest okay in a storyline brett deserved you know to have that accolade but at the same time
07:00remember that someone made you champion you didn't really beat anybody i think brett looked at the
07:06wwf championship like guys years ago used to maybe it was because of his father and his lineage but when
07:12you were chosen to be a champion of a major company it meant that the promoter thought that you were
07:17the
07:17best talent that you were the best draw that you would make him the most money that you were the
07:22guy
07:23while brett's star is rising in the wwf a fledgling promotion suddenly starts edging out
07:29vince mcmahon and the television ratings wcw in the early 90s was a secondary competitor to the wwf
07:39i happen to be eric bischoff you know as the executive producer at least i had a voice within wcw
07:45wwf is up here wcw is way down here there's no way i can be better than the wwf but
07:52i gotta be different
07:53for them their tape i'm live they target their content towards kids i decided i wanted my characters
08:00to be more reality based i would use their real names wcw came after our talent the perception was
08:06they offered them a lot more money you know when hulk hogan left the wwf i think it hurt vince
08:12personally it it stung a little bit and the first the first big names to go were scott hawk kevin
08:18nash in
08:19the very beginning ted dibiase left roddy piper shortly thereafter the curtain call as it came
08:25to be known happened because nash and hall were leaving to go to wcw for their big contracts it
08:31is my last appearance for the wwe and it's also kevin nash's last appearance it was at madison square
08:37garden the most famous arena in the world after the last match paul and nash and michaels and
08:44helmsley two of them good guys two of them bad guys all went out to the ring and had a
08:49big hug and
08:50a big kiss and waved bye to the fans who had no idea what was going on with sean and
08:56those guys
08:56they broke kayfabe in front of the fans in madison square garden the word kayfabe is like a lot of
09:04wrestling terminology it comes from the days of the carnivals when you break kayfabe in wrestling
09:08you let the fans and the general public in the inside world and ruin the illusion it wasn't like
09:15that it all just happened organically because the fans were going crazy i mean it was like a magical
09:21moment here we are 25 years later talking about you had been chosen and selected to be in a secret
09:29brotherhood and you kept those illusions private and to yourself because that it was a code it was the
09:35code of kayfabe now as competition between the two biggest promotions heats up wrestling's fourth wall
09:42starts to crumble exposing its secrets and while brett enters the biggest rivalry of his career
09:48he never could have imagined that it would end up leading to his ultimate destruction
09:58before their off-screen feud would boil over into one of wrestling's most controversial moments
10:03brett hart and sean michaels contrasting in-ring styles led to some of the greatest matches of all
10:10time as far as wrestling styles between brett and sean brett was more basic more grounded more hard
10:17hitting more technical michaels from the other side and oh no michaels he's an incredible performer but
10:24also a lot of his stuff is more pretty and a little bit more gymnastic oh he's caught by brett
10:29hart
10:29oh look at that i think sean michaels is probably the greatest performer all all round plus he was
10:36different he wasn't a big giant my contract was gonna expire eric bischoff has sent feelers out to me
10:44there were two separate occasions when i began to talk to brett about coming over and i heard the
10:50initial offer was two million and then it was two million something and it got up to like three
10:54million and i'm sure they were rounding off but at that point what's the difference right vince heard about
10:59them giving me an offer and remember vince said he goes i'll make you an offer and we worked on
11:04a
11:04contract it was 1.5 million for 20 years i think brett favors loyalty over money and accepts the
11:12counter offer from vince mcmahon but then a mutual animosity between brett and sean begins to take hold
11:19sean was starting to get uh overwhelmed with uh negative doing a chippendale kind of gimmick is not
11:26a heroic thing to do sean michaels saw an opportunity to be more and more of a top guy and
11:32also to be more and more of a prick nobody breaks into this wrestling business to work their way to
11:37the
11:37middle i mean if you don't want to be on top you're in the wrong business i don't really care
11:42if you
11:42want to have dinner with me do you want to wrestle me oh you do okay i don't think that
11:47they were really
11:48that different which is probably where the real life rivalry came into play first day when i walked
11:55out and i ended up trashing sean michaels on the interview about his playgirl magazine center fall
12:00before i went out i said sean i'm gonna it's okay if i bring up that playgirl magazine and take
12:04a jab
12:05at that and say something about it he was no go ahead say whatever you want world wrestling federation
12:10needs a hero they need a role model they need somebody they can look up to not somebody that
12:15poses for girly magazines and i came back and sean was just crushed he almost looked like he burst into
12:21tears now now we're doing live tv and these guys are saying things on live tv about each other sean
12:28made reference to sunny days sunny is uh tammy sit she was one of the valets she was the first
12:34real you
12:35know big pinup girl of the wwf and sean was making the inference that brett was having some kind of
12:43an affair or some kind of relationship with sunny even though lately you've had some sunny days my friend
12:51you still can't get the job done in any situation oh boy now from a fan's point of view it's
12:59getting
12:59exciting but if you're the other guy you're hating the dude who's talking about you because now you've got
13:05to call home and explain that to your wife you don't mess with the guy's wife or his family or
13:09elsewise you find yourself laying in a ditch somewhere so we're in hartford connecticut one
13:14night at the hartford civic center and all of a sudden the door bus open and in comes the brooklyn
13:18brawler and he says hey vince sean and brett have just gotten a fight in the bathroom sean finally
13:25comes into my dressing room we haven't talked for about a couple months i just remember i was just
13:29trying to be nice i almost like forgot that we ever had issues i said hey sean i was brushing
13:33my hair and
13:33he goes you think i'm gonna talk to you and whatever it was brett just leg dabbed him and
13:37took him down right there so i grabbed him by the hair swung him around the dressing room i think
13:41his
13:41feet rock she off the ground a couple of times depending it was like two prostitutes fighting
13:46in downtown or something here comes sean and he's hot and he has got in his hand a handful of
13:52his hair
13:52it looked like a small possum and i'll never forget this he said this is an unsafe working environment
14:00as far as i know i think if anybody was sleeping with sunny it probably was sean
14:10as the backstage friction between brett and sean intensifies
14:14vince begins to lose the tv ratings war and is forced to cut costs
14:21vince comes back and looks at the commitment that he had made to brett hart and it was it was
14:27a drain it
14:28was a drain on the company for what we were bringing in at the time vince told me that
14:32basically he couldn't afford to pay me the contract that he'd given me kind of broke my heart like
14:37where it's like okay i get it i remember i got off the phone from him and i said i
14:41guess i'm i'm done
14:42i hung up on vince and i signed my wcw contract i can't remember exactly what day or when i
14:49heard that
14:49that brett had made the deal and was going to wcw but vince told us brett is going to finish
14:54up at
14:54survivor series he dropped the belt and and then he'd you know he'd be free it didn't turn out that
15:01way with brett leaving the company brett wasn't just leaving the company he was leaving the company
15:07and going to our competitor that was beating us in the ratings to have our champion leave the company
15:12is bad enough to have them leave the company with the championship is kicking the nuts the time-honored
15:18tradition is when you're leaving a territory or a promotion you lose on the way out i gotta tell you
15:24in the beginning there wasn't a whole lot of worry about it because it was brett and we thought that
15:30that there would not be any issue with brett dropping the championship to whoever we asked him to drop
15:37the championship to when i first heard that i was wrestling sean was maybe about three or four weeks
15:44before survivor series anyway so vince pulled me he goes he's all excited he goes we're gonna drop the belt
15:50sean so i saw sean all right i thought this is your chance to open the door for sort of
15:57dialogue
15:57so i remember when we shook hands i said sean i just heard that we're wrestling at survivor series
16:02i said i want you to know that you'll always be safe with me in the ring that i'll always
16:07be
16:07professional i would never do anything to hurt you or injure you or anything like that and he looked at
16:13me and he said he goes i appreciate that but i just want you to know that i am not
16:17willing to do the
16:18same thing for you and he turned around and walked out of the dress room and slammed the door
16:23vince even though he knew that sean and brett hated each other somehow he thought this match was
16:28magically going to go into ring and everything was going to work out like he wanted and the closer
16:32that we got to the match the more obvious it was that it was not one of the things he
16:36had given brett
16:37in that brand new contract with all the bells and whistles was reasonable creative control of his
16:42character in the way he was presented i'm the boss of my last 60 days why would i lose the
16:47sean he's
16:48disrespected me i'm not wrestling sean or i don't know i'm not putting sean over under any circumstances
16:53until he proves me that he's got enough respect for me to put me over first and i was on
16:57brett's side
16:58because sean was the prick not brett but we had to get the belt back the news of vence's current
17:04champion
17:05signing with his main competitor would spell his defeat in the ratings war with his back to the wall
17:11vence must get his belt off brett and what he's about to do will echo far beyond the wrestling world
17:22with his last match in the wwf less than 24 hours away bret hart is refusing any scenario which has
17:30him
17:30losing the belt to his real-life nemesis sean michaels brett is growing suspicious of what his boss
17:36this mcmahon might do showed up that day and i was ready for my match but i did have suspicions
17:43about
17:43the referee i mean oh i remember thinking the only way they can screw me if sean will never pin
17:47me or
17:48tap make me tap out so i wasn't worried about that i said but the way it'll work
17:52is they'll get the referee hello i'm earl hebner i'm a referee my relationship with brett was great most of
18:00the time he always
18:01wanted me to refuse matches people think oh i can count to three and it's over it's that's not the
18:06ball game we're sort of a coach you're thinking for three people it's uh very very hard okay so let's
18:14get into the to the montreal stories do we have to just kidding the day before that show i got
18:22on
18:22the plane got in my seat the stewardess came back and said uh mr hebner i said yes ma'am
18:27she said uh
18:28you have a first class seat i said my ticket don't say first class she said mr hart bought you
18:33a first
18:33class seat so i went on up here beside brett and we looked we talked and uh brett said uh
18:39will you promise
18:39me one thing i said what's that he said you won't count me out i said nope i will not
18:44count you out
18:44i said you know they're gonna ask you to screw me tomorrow but he got the tears in his eyes
18:49and he
18:49could just lip quiver and he was like the hell with that i swear i swear to god on my
18:53kids i would never
18:54you know and he was so adamant and i shook his hand and i said just tell me if something
19:00like that's
19:00gonna happen complicating matters a film crew producing a documentary called wrestling with
19:06shadows is following brett to capture his last wwf match from the second i land i got the entire
19:13highroads production film crew they're filming and they got the boom mics and the whole thing
19:18and they followed me where i went it was like uh a lot of people that i didn't even know
19:23all around
19:24the idea was that vince would get with brett i think that vince felt that once he got in front
19:30of brett
19:31face to face that they would work something out but i remember um the whole camera crew come in like
19:36they wanted to bike me out there yeah i can't it's not how i operate he goes just in case
19:42my name is harry zafrani i was the sound recordist on wrestling with shadows the director told us look
19:50we gotta be very low profile about this you know nobody should know that brett hart is is wired it
19:57was a private meeting and brett went in wired didn't let vince know that he was recording it i never
20:02ever
20:03wanted to leave here with any kind of bad feeling but this week has been a bad week for me
20:06i feel kind
20:07of betrayed a little bit the way this whole thing has been depicted it's really hard for me as a
20:11hero
20:12here to come up short i was determined to just to stick to my guns that i was not backing
20:17down and
20:18right away vince goes well what are we going to do i think what i'd like to do is get
20:22through today
20:22i think tomorrow i should just go in and do my speech and forfeit the title i think it allows
20:26me a
20:27chance to leave with my head up and leave in a nice way i would think it'd be a run
20:31-in type thing
20:32but yeah but i'm open no i think that's i'm open anyway going into this match you knew what what
20:39was
20:39going to happen i knew that there was a point in the match where bulldog and owen would run out
20:45referee would lose control of the match ring the bell there would be no winner and we would go off
20:50with
20:51a lot of chaos going on in the ring so the match would end in like a disqualification yeah like
20:55basically in no contest like i remember walking out to the ring and i knew like okay be leery of
21:03submission holds and a match like this but i already talked to earl and i thought about it
21:08and it's like i said okay i trusted earl as i put my guard down that was that was my
21:13um fatal mistake
21:15i'm walking down to go to the ring and i'm getting pulled aside and jerry briscoe says
21:19defenseman wants you to ring the bell when he puts brett in the sharpshooter i said what
21:25he said well are you going to do it i said i don't know jerry briscoe is a producer agent
21:30one of the
21:30toughest sumbitches on the face of the earth he grabs everybody on he says is brett hart going to pay
21:36you
21:36this is what vince wants do you want a job or not i said i don't have an idea of
21:41what i'm going to do
21:42right now y'all messed my mind up and this is the truth i'm thinking he had opportunity to drop
21:47the bill
21:48i know this is not right but i gotta have a job i told my brother to put all my
21:55in the car
21:56this ain't gonna look good get all my out the dress room and put it in the car so i'm
21:59walking
21:59to the ring god i promised brett i wouldn't count him out that was the longest walk of my life
22:05we had a great match planned out and sean was a great wrestler we're going to start fighting
22:09before the bell starts i don't i don't think this match has officially even started finally after
22:14about 10 minutes of brawling out and fighting out in the crowd and stuff i eventually fight sean back
22:18to the ring throw him in the ring and now the match starts i get in the ring right i
22:23ring the bell to
22:24start and i'm going god don't put the sharpshooter on the match lasts 10 15 minutes look at this oh
22:33putting brett in the sharpshooter oh my gosh how humiliating he's going to beat him with his own
22:38finish sean actually didn't know how to put the sharpshooter on he steps through the wrong way
22:41folds my legs the wrong way and i moved my legs and switched them the right way i remember when
22:47he put it
22:47on i flipped over i could see vince mcmahon and i could see he's got this cold look on his
22:51chest and
22:52he's yelling it to ring the bell ring the bell and he kept saying it to the guy ring the
22:56bell as the
22:57match was going on i'm going i don't know what i'm going to do i hated it and i remember
23:04in that moment
23:06of looking at the timekeeper and vince snaps at him to ring the bell oh they're screwing me right now
23:12and i remember reaching back and showing that i wasn't submitting and i grabbed sean's thing and
23:18it started to reverse and you could hear the bell banging if i hadn't rung the bell vince mcmahon was
23:25going to ring that bell and at first i was like i want to just kill vince i want to
23:29just jump through
23:29the ropes and just punch him out i couldn't believe he did it to me after all the years that
23:33i gave him
23:34all the matches and all the hard work and he would disrespect me like that you son of a bitch
23:39i jumped out of the ring ran across the floor jumped the hockey fence and could still hear the
23:44bell ringing jumped in the car and we drove off i had enough sense to paint wcw backwards so that
23:49you
23:50could read it on tv brett did the wcw for the fans there in montreal but it was you know
23:58it was what it
23:58was i had a nice good gobber spit and i remember i just leaned over the top rope
24:08hollywood couldn't recreate something better than that i wrecked a bunch of monitors and threw
24:13hundred thousand dollar headphones out into the crowd and stuff because of a couple of guys who
24:18couldn't get along they hit on the most talked about match ending in the history of professional
24:23wrestling since the dawn of time widely viewed by fans as wrestling's most treacherous act
24:28the montreal screwjob would tear the lid off of wrestling's sacred brotherhood
24:33but its true architect has yet to be revealed
24:43this is where i've told a couple of these things i've never gone this far but i figured like i
24:47said
24:47i'm not going to talk about this on tv anytime in the rest of my life so i guess at
24:51this point i don't
24:51care who gets mad at me so it was me and vince russo at vince mcmahon's house my name is
24:56vince
24:56russo i was the head writer at the wwe during the infamous montreal screwjob and quite honestly um
25:04i wasn't even originally slated for this documentary and then i wanted to be a part of it because i
25:11was
25:11there like i knew what what happened so i'm sitting there that day first vince gets up and he takes
25:18phone call from brett what i could tell you about that phone call is you know vince pitched many
25:24different scenarios for sean michaels to take the belt off of brett hart and brett soured on every
25:32single one of them vince told brett we'd go back to the drawing board and that's exactly what we did
25:38well this finish won't work and that finish won't work and brett just wants to come out and hand the
25:42belt over on tv the following night without getting beat i'm sure he does so then he goes and he
25:48calls
25:48sean every time vince goes in there then i sit in a room twiddling my thumbs with the guy that
25:54i hate
25:55worse than anybody in the world vince russo we'd get in these creative meetings and the three of us
26:00would argue and it wasn't the three of us it was jim and me we could not be farther apart
26:07physically philosophically mentally morally if one of us was an african-american lesbian nun and the
26:13other was a nazi skinhead martian from outer space we could not be more different the problem is
26:20he's still living in 1970. i'll never forget he made the comment oh when a guy comes out of a
26:27box
26:27he's instantly over like bro this is like 1996 like who's coming out of boxes bro vince russo's never
26:35had any respect for professional wrestling he booked the wrestling program to pattern after jerry
26:40springer our styles completely crash finally vince comes out and i'm about lost my religion with
26:48whole creative team thing anyway because it's not my style of wrestling i'm living in connecticut
26:52i'm miserable i weigh 280 pounds because i'm aggravation eating i'm just i'm not in my element
26:57here i said vince i said there's got to be something we can do i said it's your company and
27:02it's your
27:02belt and vince looks at me and says well then how would you do it pal well now it's a
27:07challenge
27:08once again i'm going through every finish i can think of or every situation i ever think of where
27:12nobody wanted to do a job i said goddamn double crossing you can learn more about modern wrestling
27:19from these classic books and classic magazines than you can by talking to people today because history
27:26always repeats itself in 1931 there was another double cross in montreal the battle of the bite
27:33straggler lewis controlled the championship and nobody could get it away from because it was worth
27:38so much money lewis has a title match in montreal against henry de glane henry de glane they lock up
27:46and
27:46immediately de glane grabs lewis's own hold on lewis the headlock and takes him down and they go down
27:53on the mat because lewis is working with him and they've and probably they're going to do some kind
27:57of reversal de glane starts screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs the referee checks de glane
28:02huge bite mark on the guy's chest apparently when de glane got the headlock on lewis lewis had bitten
28:10him here's the thing it was actually dan kolov de glane's corner man had bitten him in the locker room
28:18and then did this and then when they locked up boom headlock nobody can see what happened referee disqualifies
28:24strangler lewis and awards the title to henry de glane that's a double cross and it's as old as the
28:31hills
28:32in wrestling so when vince says well how would you do it then brett's hold is the sharpshooter
28:41but let sean get brett's hold on him if the referee just calls for the bell as a submission
28:49nobody can tell anything was wrong because that's what it's supposed to look like anyway
28:53and to tell anybody anything was wrong i said bret hart of all people would have to expose the
28:59business i said what's he going to do call the newspapers but then vince and he gave that humph
29:05like he does when whenever you would be discussing tomfoolery and he would say all right let's get
29:10back to reality and we went on do you recall during that meeting with vince and cornette
29:14cornette ever told a history lesson about double crosses that had happened in the past unless i was
29:20in the bathroom during that scenario that scenario did not take place in front of me when i was sitting
29:28at the table i'm not going to call jim cornette a liar and when i was sitting at table and
29:33cornette
29:33was sitting at the same table i pitched that exact scenario to vince so basically out of pure
29:41frustration i said vince i said screw it vince have sean put the sharpshooter on brett and have
29:48the referee call for the belt do that vince russo didn't know what a double cross was he was sitting
29:54there with his eyes open people tell me all the time oh vince you you you take credit for the
30:00montreal
30:01screws i wish i didn't pitch the idea that was a miserable night it was one of the worst experiences
30:08in my life in the wrestling business i swear on my mother's grave my father's grave my wife's life and
30:15my dog's life the story i just told you is true vince russo is the biggest liar in professional
30:21wrestling and imagine the territory that takes in
30:27when i was sitting there at the monitor i saw him going to the spot that's when i shit myself
30:33holy he's actually gonna do this and look to this look right now close up on the goosebumps
30:41now i'm thinking i don't know who else knows about this i just know that there is a high probability
30:48that somebody in this building is going to want to beat the out of me in the next 10 minutes
30:53and i'm
30:53gonna get out of here when i'm starting my car up and starting to pull out i heard her car
30:58rev the
30:58motor and saw the headlights pop up behind me that had to be hebner i beat him out of the
31:04building
31:11just as bret hart was double-crossed on live television by his boss vince mcmahon wwf executive
31:18bruce pritchard is blindsided himself by the sudden change in plans so it's chaos i'm not even realizing
31:26what's happening in front of me how did you feel about not being involved in oh god i was pissed
31:32off
31:32that i wasn't smart enough as to what they were doing and i was pissed off because i was left
31:36in
31:37the back alone in a position where everyone thought they knew that i was involved and i wasn't i felt
31:45very alone i felt betrayed that piece of shit's locked himself in his office cameras were off show's
31:53over i got screwed and i was so mad and there's sean suddenly in my dress room he's swearing to
31:59god
32:00that he had nothing to do with it sean you weren't in on that my hands are clean this one
32:04swear to god
32:05he was a bad actor but one of the two was in on it that i think sean had to
32:12be in on it you know
32:13at that time i had no idea well now we know sean was just putting on an act
32:21there was like this hush in the dressing room everyone was kind of stunned i remember undertaker got
32:25so mad that he kicked over one of those big steel barrels he just slammed the door and said something
32:30about uh he was going down to vince's office to get a straight answer on why they did that to
32:34me
32:34you know vince you got to go over and talk to him explain why you did what you did you
32:40got to give
32:41him one am i giving him one let if he's gonna he's gonna hit you you got to take one
32:45brett came out of
32:46the shower and told vince get out of his fucking dressing room and then he said he goes he said
32:51if you're
32:51still here when i get out i'm gonna get dressed i'm gonna punch you out brett finished his shower
32:55i mean he went back and took his sweet ass time and finished his shower and vince stood right in
33:00the middle of the room waiting for him to finish so i finished shower and i come out and it's
33:06funny
33:06because i walk out of the shower sopping wet naked vince said something to me along lines of this is
33:13the
33:13first time i ever had to lie to one of my talent which is such a lie i remember tying
33:17my shoes and i remember
33:20when i got tying my last shoelace i started to tie it and i go this is it i'm gonna
33:24punch out vincent
33:25man i can't believe i'm doing this and we walked towards each other end up tying up just like a
33:31pro
33:31wrestling match and i remember just sinking down and kind of just turning my whole body and thinking 14
33:37years and coming up right between our arms and i hit vince with the man with the most beautiful mike
33:44tyson
33:45uppercut i popped him literally off the right off the ground he went straight down out cold
33:52everybody was stunned no one could believe it was dead silent for a while and nobody said anything
33:57and then brett said get the out of my dressing rooms i mean i have to say that i remember
34:01sean michaels
34:03he was bawling his eyes out like a baby and i remember thinking i know you were in on it
34:07and he knew
34:07it he was like waiting for me to make my way over to him and finish him off but i
34:12just tapped him on the
34:13shoulder and i said sean thanks for the match or he couldn't believe that i thanked him for the match
34:18and then he looked up at me and he just burst into tears like really plumbering like i had never
34:23to
34:24that point heard of that much drama and backstage just sometimes i lost sleep over what i should have
34:30done that day brett you're not going to understand this now but vince was trying to protect his
34:35business it was never about not trusting you he didn't trust eric i went in vince's office and said
34:41i need to talk to you he said okay i said i'm fucked he said i got a meeting with
34:46everybody
34:46today we'll take care of it sat everybody down and said what i did last night was my call it's
34:52not
34:52earl's fault and anybody don't like it can come to my office and i'll release your ass right now
34:56screw job was already in the makings they had to find somebody that would do it the conversation i had
35:03with vince were where we really had the big heart to heart was the following wednesday in stanford
35:08and i told him what i thought vince's reaction was if you had known then you would have known
35:13you would never be able to say that you didn't know sean michaels risked everything for you for
35:19this company so before you condemn sean michaels understand what he did for you and your family
35:25there were a lot of what if scenarios discussed the night before and i think that everybody believed
35:31that at the end of the day vince was going to be able to convince brett to drop the championship
35:38that didn't happen so vince asked jerry briscoe so let sean know there's a spot in the match uh that
35:45sean to get him in the in the sharpshooter will ring the bell of all people bret hart who was
35:52raised in
35:52the wrestling business whose father was a wrestler who went through the code he's the one that exposed the
35:57business we're talking with bret hart the hitman today how are you it was very important to me
36:01after 14 years of uh probably the most dedicated loyal hard-working service that you could ever get
36:07out of a professional wrestler i'd given this man everything you could ever ask for and i made it very
36:12very clear that my character was not in any way shape or form going to be humiliated brett was telling
36:19any and everybody that he could he didn't lose he was screwed and it was something that vince felt
36:25it was important to address on monday night raw did you or did you not screw bret hart there's a
36:33time
36:33honored tradition in the wrestling business that when someone is leaving that they show the right
36:40amount of respect the people like no we don't want to like the rich billionaire boss we liked bret
36:44hart he was our hero bret hart didn't want to honor that tradition vince was really giving bret
36:51hard all kinds of for not honoring the time-honored tradition of doing the right thing on the way
36:56out on tv this didn't happen ever before vince in this interview just came across very cold
37:05calculated and very very heelish i truly believe that bret hart screwed bret hart and he can look in
37:14the mirror and know that rather than sweep this incident under the rug vince capitalizes on it
37:20by transforming this real-life incident into a storyline where he reinvents himself as an evil
37:27conniving mastermind when i debuted the fans didn't know that vince was the owner he was an announcer
37:35and then once the word got out that he actually owns the company he's the power behind the throne this
37:40now vince ran with him mr mcmahon is one of the greatest heel characters of all time yes i mean
37:46you've heard arenas full of people chant asshole if they had done it right everybody prospered sean
37:56michaels became the wwf champion off a big win vince mcmahon became the catalyst to the evil empire mr
38:04mcmahon and they handed the hottest wrestler in the world bret hart to wcw and they dropped that ball
38:16in the aftermath of the montreal screwjob wrestling changed forever the fourth wall had fallen
38:22vince mcmahon's villainous character would propel his company into the stratosphere while bret
38:29hart would make his lackluster debut in wcw you know if you look at how bret hart
38:34even came to wcw and how i god they launched me the very first day why don't we bring the
38:39man out
38:40that's gonna referee this match god i remember like referee it's so lame like such a lame way to bring
38:46me
38:46in is that what you want referee eric bischoff was an imbecile trying to run wrestling he didn't have any
38:53idea about how to run wrestling i have to take some responsibility and the fact that there may have
38:58been better ways to bring bret in i would be honored to be the referee but at the same time
39:06we'll never know that because the plans that we did have for bret were executed so pissed poorly
39:11because of his just detachment from it all he didn't get over in wcw zero impact hey bischoff
39:18at the wcw i quit i think the legacy of the montreal screw job is that nobody knows if it
39:27was really
39:28a screw job or not i happen to believe it was the real deal to me i feel the same
39:34way now seeing it
39:35back as i did the first time i thought saw it as a total work everybody was in on it
39:39and they all did it
39:40together now look at brett's face he doesn't look too shocked to me you're gonna spit on vince and
39:48then the truck is gonna go tight on vince go tight on vince get vince wiping the loogie out of
39:52his eye
39:53vince has been in the tv business his whole life nothing's gonna happen without his consent
39:59everybody knows you're leaving you're gonna stand in what's now your opposition's ring on a global
40:06broadcast and you're gonna motion the call signs of your competitor if that's not okayed by a big
40:14boss in my mind they're gonna cut away from that i mean i've never discussed it with sean and i
40:18wasn't
40:18there and i didn't ask guys who were there watching it as an educated fan i would say it was
40:25a complete
40:26collaboration by all parties that's all i got to say about that people do say it was a work and
40:32brett was
40:33in on it no man this is the way this piece of history went down conspiracy theorists will always
40:40be conspiracy theorists but unfortunately sometimes when people want more of a story to be there that
40:45just isn't there they try to create it when we did an interview with with with scott hall he believes
40:52that the montreal screw job is this very scripted sort of thing he's not one of them too is he
41:00i'm sorry just it's just it's ludicrous that scott hall would say that he didn't talk sean michaels
41:05about this i know they all talk to each other about everything but especially about this why the
41:09wouldn't they i will tell anybody to their face that thinks that this was a work you are a dumb
41:15stupid these are death threats i've gotten a bunch of them but these were some of the most creative and
41:21and some of the most picturesque so i framed these get by the ring one more time you make a
41:26target under
41:26those lights you won't know where it comes from bye bye they pulled it all off because i trusted the
41:32referee poor earl he's just a little guy i feel so bad for him like to put that on him
41:40was such a
41:40rotten thing to do for the last 15 years it's been the shits it's always a chance in any arena
41:47as you
41:47screw brett we never talked for a long long time many years it's even though brett and i are friends
41:54now this is still upsetting i guess you can tell i'm kind of breaking down a little bit but it's
42:01something that will be with me forever a lot of people say hey it was their idea all the way
42:05from
42:06vince russo to jim cornett to triple h to sean to me you know we all said it the montreal
42:13screw job
42:14is remembered all kinds of different ways by all kinds of different people for the fans it was like
42:19one of the first big behind the scenes things that exploded and they heard about and they
42:24realized that there was more intrigue in the locker room and in the boardroom than there sometimes was
42:28in the ring as soon as you start doing that as soon as you don't believe it's real anymore it's
42:33not
42:34really worth watching that's the way that people feel when they lose faith in their hero that's when
42:40you lose people in wrestling because they believed in the people involved even if they didn't always
42:46believe all the action they believed in the people i take a lot of pride almost uh ridiculous pride in
42:53being the rest that i was i believe that i was a guy that reinforced wrestling aspect of the wrestling
43:02show and that's what i'd like to be remembered for the reality of the situation is is that if two
43:10guys
43:10just could have you know could have got over themselves well we wouldn't be sitting here today
43:19i mean any final thoughts on like jim i've ignored him for years and it's on and on it's my
43:28my personal
43:28enjoyment at this advanced age to remind everybody at every opportunity that he's a liar it's freaking
43:34wrestling it means nothing i will live to piss on his grave even if i'm in a walker my wife
43:42already
43:42has instructions she's out of the wheel if she doesn't get me there if i'm not ambulatory i'll
43:47find vince russo's grave and i will piss on it and there will be a picture of that hanging on
43:51my wall
43:51when i pass away and hate is a hell of a motivator
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