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Filler Episode - The Montreal Screwjob
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Circumstances conspire against M and Josh for another week, but rather than deplete The Can any further, Josh records a filler episode covering an infamously conspiratorial incident from the world of professional wrestling.
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Transcript
Introduction and Solo Hosting
00:00:07
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Edison and Ian Denteth.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello, it's the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, and Auckland, New Zealand, i am Josh Addison, going solo again. our last episode, um I wasn't available for recording, so Em put up one of our one of our saved episodes from the can, and this this time around, Em is not available for recording, but we thought rather than rather than depleting the can, which we all know must be...
00:00:54
Speaker
can only be refilled with with lost souls and the tears of small children. We thought we'd we'd we'd leave a few leave a few still in there and I'll just record a filler episode by myself right now.
Dive into Professional Wrestling
00:01:04
Speaker
So I don't have anything else to say before I get the episode started. So let's just chuck in a chime and then let's talk about wrestling.
00:01:18
Speaker
Yes, wrestling. Professional wrestling. ah Because today, what I want to talk to you about is a topic that that this might have made a good um a good What the Conspiracy episode for me to have delivered M, but I'm not quite sure where M stands on on professional wrestling. I don't know whether they...
00:01:36
Speaker
Disapprove of of wrestling on the grounds that it's kind of a sport or agree with it on the grounds that it's kind of theater So I'm not sure ah Whether or not him would have heard of this before but if you have heard of professional wrestling and are at all familiar with it You've probably heard of the Montreal Screwjob Which is what I'm going to talk about today The Montreal Screwjob is known for being the most, I want to say the most infamous scandal in professional wrestling, but that's not really true because there have been a couple of of ah fairly unsavoury scandals involving people in the world of wrestling, but it's probably the most infamous thing to have ever happened, like, in the ring that that involved actual wrestling.
The Montreal Screwjob Scandal
00:02:17
Speaker
ah Because this is the incident where, during a ww WWF Survivor Series pay-per-view special in Montreal, on November 9th, 1997, Canadian wrestler Brett of The Hitman Hart was robbed of his World Heavyweight Champion title after he lost championship match to his rival Shawn Michaels. Now, the thing about it is...
00:02:38
Speaker
that that wasn't supposed to happen, at least as far as Bret Hart was concerned, or was it? We'll see. there's There's going to be a lot of murkiness in this one, which sort of comes comes as part and parcel of of the world of wrestling.
00:02:52
Speaker
So if you are familiar with the world of wrestling, you probably know everything I'm going to say right now, so maybe you want to maybe you want to go listen to something else. But if you're not... I should probably give you a bit of background and a bit of wrestling terminology because um these terms come up a bit and if you haven't heard them before um it can get it can get a little bit confounding. So in pro wrestling terms a face is a good guy and or I think it's short for baby face.
00:03:16
Speaker
um And a heel is a bad guy. Obviously, a wrestling characters, there's always good guys and bad guys. That's a face and a heel. And i've I've seen these terms, they've started to be used a bit more widely these days. I've seen them used in other contexts, but wrestling's where they come from.
00:03:29
Speaker
In particular, when people talk about but someone doing a heel turn or or a face heel turn and a heel face turn when when you get the storylines, when a good guy becomes a bad guy or a bad guy becomes a good guy, that sort of thing happens all the time.
00:03:42
Speaker
Another term that's going to come up a lot is the idea of a work. A work is a planned, is a scripted bit of the show, either inside the ring or or out of
Understanding Kayfabe in Wrestling
00:03:52
Speaker
it. Because, of course, yes, wrestling is quote-unquote fake in that it's scripted, making it as fake as any other stage production you've ever seen. Stage plays...
00:04:03
Speaker
and and and and musicals or what have you are really know no less fake than professional wrestling, as if that's what you want to call it. If nothing else, I mean, the the the the storylines and the outcomes of matches may be predetermined, but there's still some bloody good stunt work going on, if you've ever watched it. You know you can't you can't fake throwing some guy off of the top rope a couple of meters into a table yeah with which sure it might be a table that's rigged to collapse and absorb some of the blow but um doing that without hurting yourself horribly is not is not easy and indeed wrestlers do often hurt themselves horribly that that tends to be why what what what gets most of them into retirement and indeed as we'll see i'm pretty sure that's the way bret hart went
00:04:50
Speaker
I mean, I suppose if there is a difference between wrestling and and theatre that would cause people to to say wrestling's fake while theatre isn't, it's probably the existence of kayfabe.
00:05:02
Speaker
Kayfabe's a weird word. No one really seems quite sure where it comes from. It's it's probably from, like, carny slang. I think a lot of wrestling culture originates in carny culture, but...
00:05:13
Speaker
Kayfabe is this overall sort of umbrella term for for just the make-believe bits of wrestling. The the presentation of wrestling is as being a real thing. And the difference between stage actors and professional wrestlers is that wrestlers almost never break kayfabe, even outside of the ring. if you if ah If a ah stage actor or any actor is interviewed, say, talking about the role that they are playing it at the moment, they'll do the interview as themselves. They won't do it as as the character that they're playing, and except for ah you know cases like Borat or something like that.
00:05:53
Speaker
Whereas if a wrestler's interviewed outside of wrestling, though they stay in character, come what may. They go to, at times, ridiculous extremes to to not not to break kayfabe.
00:06:04
Speaker
Which makes untangling exactly what went on in this case all the more difficult.
Bret Hart's Wrestling Style vs. WWF Era
00:06:10
Speaker
Because, like say as I said, a work is ah is sort of ah is a planned, is a scripted, but the opposite of a work is a shoot, which is when something unplanned or or or improvised, you know, the wrestler improvises something on the spot or something, that's called a shoot.
00:06:26
Speaker
But then you get the idea of a worked shoot, which is, you know, it's possible sometimes you get things that appear. It looks like things have gone wrong. It looks like someone's gone off script and and done done something improvised.
00:06:40
Speaker
But then actually it turns out that no, no, that was planned all along. So even... Even sometimes when it looks like something isn't a work, it actually is. So we're going to be coming back to that because that that plays into this a lot. But for now, let's let's look at the star of the show, the person at the center of this all, Bret Hart, better known as Bret the Hitman Hart.
00:06:58
Speaker
He is he is a veteran wrestler. He's been referred to as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time by by other wrestlers themselves and and people in the industry. And by 1997, he had been with the WWF for 14 years.
00:07:12
Speaker
um he had been a popular face. you He was very much a good guy character. um Although, as the WWF had moved into its attitude era in the 90s, if you were around for the nineteen ninety s this... you You remember the idea of of think of attitude or things being extreme. or I read comic books in the 90s, and it became a cliché when characters would go grim and gritty for the 90s. It was all about making things a bit dark and edgy. and And so WWF went in this direction as well, where you now the the most characters were these, the rather than being heroic types, they were sort of the anti-hero characters like The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, who were could be sort of vaguely noble, but were mostly mostly just sort of anti-authoritarian, take-no-crap-from-anyone type characters, which wasn't an excellent fit for the kind of character that Bret Hart played. And so he sort of, he he went along with this as well, and and basically his character became ah a bit more of a dick ah to fit in with the rest of them. He's, as I said, Bret Hart is Canadian.
00:08:16
Speaker
So I think part of his act became like riling up the crowds by making anti-American statements, or at least by talking about how much better Canada was than America. Although when he was performing in Canada, I think he was allowed to be a bit more a bit more just plain heroic because he was the he was the homeboy hero in Canada.
00:08:33
Speaker
And his main rival at the time was this American wrestler called Shawn Michaels, who was very much a heel. He was one of the also one of the biggest wrestlers at the time and one of the biggest heel characters at the time. Now, things get interesting because at the start of 1997, just a week before the Montreal event, Hart had agreed to join WCW.
Bret Hart's Move to WCW and Title Loss
00:08:53
Speaker
That's World Championship Wrestling, which is the wrestling federation that Ted Turner set up as ah as a competitor to WWF. And in the 90s, you had this real, it was this real Coke versus Pepsi type situation. The two of them were at each other's throats. And I believe at this time, WCW was actually getting better ratings than And there had been there' been sort of long contract negotiations. WCW had come to Bret Hart and made ah made him a ah very good offer, but Hart sort of, I think, preferred WWF and sort of went back and forth. And eventually WWF and its owner, Vince McMahon, if if you've heard of the wwe WWF, you've you've definitely heard of Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon couldn't beat the deal, basically.
00:09:36
Speaker
And so eventually Bret Hart took this, I think, three-year contract with WCW. And and yeah Vince McMahon, I think, from what I gather, Vince McMahon had sort of yeah have accepted this. It was like, yeah, okay, they've they've made you an offer we can't beat. That's what happens. But, but...
00:09:54
Speaker
Bret Hart at the time had the ww WWF World Heavyweight Champion title. And so that would have been much preferred if he lost his title to another WWF wrestler before he moved.
00:10:07
Speaker
So that, you know, so so that it stays in-house. And i and this this this this happens a bit. Wrestlers did move around. And i think it was... i think it was customary that they'd hand off their title by by managing to lose it in a match to someone before they moved but there had been cases i think where maybe that didn't happen now vince mcmahon of course we need to acknowledge is is is quite the piece of work There was a Netflix documentary about him, I think it was either last year or the year before, called just called Mr. McMahon. um I haven't watched it, although I understand that it was not particularly flattering about him. I think he tried to stop it from airing.
00:10:43
Speaker
And yet from people I've heard of who who have watched it, even even this documentary glossed over some of the worst of... of things when When I talk about those particularly unsavory scandals in the wrestling world, I think Vince McMahon has been been at the centre of more than a few of them. there's been numerous, I think, sexual assault claims against him, sex trafficking as well.
00:11:04
Speaker
Incidents like the yeah the death of Bret Hart's brother, Owen Hart. This this hadn't happened yet in 1997, but in 1999.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:20
Speaker
he was supposed to be lowered to the ring from the the ceiling of the arena um but his his the quick releasee thing that was supposed to drop them off released too early and he fell to his death And so there's those sort of attitudes towards safety, which were not unique to Vince McMahon, to be fair. that That's sort of wrestling in a nutshell. but So there have been lots of things about that. It's notable, I think, or it's most notable to me, that when the podcast Behind the Bastards, which I've talked about plenty, it's a favorite one of mine, they did a series on Vince McMahon, and it ran for six episodes.
00:11:55
Speaker
And at that time in the podcast's history, the only other person who'd warranted a six-part series was Henry Kissinger. So that um it tells you where Vince McMahon stands. But anyway, back to Bret
Execution of the Montreal Screwjob
00:12:08
Speaker
Hart. So his next big match was the Survivor Series match against Shawn Michaels in Montreal on the 9th of November.
00:12:15
Speaker
Now Hart had apparently said to McMahon, yeah, he's fine with losing his title before before he left the ww WWF. That was, you know, that's fair enough. That's an accepted thing. But he didn't want to lose it to Shawn Michaels, and he didn't want to lose it in Canada.
00:12:29
Speaker
Or at least, don't know, I've seen a more recent interview with Bret Hart where he he says it was more that he didn't want to lose it to Michaels. He he wasn't so fussed about the canada the Canada, you know, about losing in front of his home crowd. He just... um he I saw him giving some anecdote where he had sort of said to Shawn Michaels in private earlier on that, you know, i've've I've got, you know, we're both professionals out there. I've got no ego. And sort of said to him, hey, look, I promise, you know, I'll i'll do or do what's best and there's no...
00:13:00
Speaker
Animus and Shawn Michaels said to his face, yeah, I'm not going to make the same promise to you. and And so it sounded like Bret Hart, going from that interview, his main thing was he didn't want to lose to Shawn Michaels.
00:13:11
Speaker
And Vince McMahon said, um yeah, OK, that's fair. where We'll sort something out. So they came up with a plan for for how that his match against Shawn Michaels was going to work out.
00:13:24
Speaker
From what I've heard, the original plan was that The wrestling match goes as wrestling matches always go. And then at one point, the referee, a guy called Earl Hebner, would git would get like knocked out knocked down. he's he's He's out of commission.
00:13:38
Speaker
And then Shawn Michaels would get Bret Hart in the sharpshooter, which is like a kind of a leg lock. That was Hart's specialty move. And this is a thing you see and and in big wrestling matches. that to make ah To make something sort of big and exciting, they'll have one wrestler use the other wrestler's specialty move against them. So it's all big and dramatic.
00:13:59
Speaker
And so then the idea was that ah Michaels would get Hart in the sharpshooter, which is is going going for a submission, trying to make him tap out. But no, Hart would escape. He'd he hit ah hed had reversed the situation. He'd get out of the sharpshooter and then he'd put Michaels in a sharpshooter himself. And and Michaels would would would then try to tap out.
00:14:19
Speaker
but But no, the ref is still down and he can't he can't call the match in Hart's favor. So then Hart has to let Michaels go and and go to the referee and try to revive him. But then while he's doing that, Michaels hits him from behind and gets him. And Michaels successfully pins Bret Hart.
00:14:35
Speaker
But again, the referee's still down. So he still can't count. That is a win for Shawn Michaels. And so then a second referee was going to run into the ring to count Hart out. Only some other wrestlers then come in and they'd knock the referee down before he could count Hart out.
00:14:49
Speaker
And it would did do the usual wrestling thing. And it had all just turned into a great great big brawl inside the ring. And it did all get called off as ah as a disqualification. So they'd say Hart lost the match, but he lost by disqualification. and since titles can only be lost by pin or submission, that would mean, yeah, he lost the match, ah but that wouldn't yeah that that wasn't going to upset the crowd because yeah you could say, well, it was all disqualification. He was robbed. There's wackiness with the ref and all that.
00:15:16
Speaker
But he'd keep his title and then they'd have a plan where the next day or sometime afterwards, there'd be like some sort of official ruling or something and he'd forfeit his title or they'd come up with some other way to get the title off him.
00:15:28
Speaker
That was the plan, but that's not what happened on the night. Instead, during this event with everybody watching, it goes through the plan up until the point where Shawn Michaels gets Bret Hart in the sharpshooter, but where he was supposed to sort of relax his grip and sort of sort of move his legs so Hart would be able to grab him by the leg and and make his way out of it.
00:15:49
Speaker
He didn't let Hart out of the sharpshooter at all. he He tightened his grip, and then Earl Hebner, who was supposed to be still be playing playing unconscious at this point, would would revive, or get back to his feet, and then instantly called the match for Shawn Michaels, despite the fact that Bret Hart clearly had not tapped out, had not submitted, but Hebner immediately said... gave the match to Shawn Michaels by submission, yelled to the bellkeeper, ring the bell, and apparently Vince McMahon, who was there ringside, also yelled to the bellkeeper, ring the bell. um The bell was rung, the match was over.
00:16:28
Speaker
Bret Hart had lost both the match and his title to Shawn Michaels. Because it turned out that Vince McMahon had had a change of heart. He he had got paranoid. He decided it was too risky to let Hart keep his title after the Survivor Series event because he was worried that, ah for one thing, word was already starting to get out, that Bret Hart was going to be moving to WCW.
00:16:50
Speaker
And he was afraid of some sort of scenario where the next night... At a WCW event, they might immediately start crowing about the fact that they've hired Brett Hart. And he was particularly worried that Hart might show up for this WCW event with his championship belt on his shoulder. Apparently, there'd been some event like some incident 10 years before.
00:17:10
Speaker
where another wrestler, one a woman, had um had moved and still had her her title belt on her at the time, and and then during some event, like, dumped her WWF belt into the trash, and made everyone look bad. he He was worried that WCW was going to use the situation to make themselves look better. And once again, and at this time, WCW was kind of doing better than WWF and he didn't want to give them anything. So from his perspective, it was much better that Bret Hart lose his title in the Survivor Series match. And so he had arranged to double cross Hart and plotted with Shawn Michaels and possibly others behind his back.
00:17:51
Speaker
to cost him his title on the night. I should say for the pedants out there, I've been saying WWF the whole time. um You may or may not be aware that eventually WWF would lose a trademark case against the World Wildlife Fund, the other WWF, and they they have eventually had to rebrand as WWE, w e World Wrestling Entertainment, but that didn't happen until 2002. So during the events that I'm describing, it was still very much the WWF.
00:18:19
Speaker
So, on the night, Bret Hart, he knew something was up as soon as he saw Earl Hebner getting to his feet when he wasn't supposed to.
Aftermath and Reactions
00:18:28
Speaker
And then as soon as the bell rang, he realised immediately what had happened. he He had been screwed over. He had been screwed out of his title.
00:18:35
Speaker
He got to his feet. He was absolutely furious. He spat in Vince McMahon's face. You can see video of this. And everyone got the hell out of Dodge. Basically, Earl Hebner, you can see he he calls the match, he yells to the timekeeper to ring the bell, and he's out of the ring and he's gone straight away. Vince McMahon and and his entourage, or his people with him, they also immediately just fled backstage.
00:18:59
Speaker
And at that point, I believe the pay-per-view event... cut out at that point So the people watching at home, that was all they get to so got to see. But afterwards, Bret Hart so went on a bit of a rampage, started started throwing things around ringside.
00:19:14
Speaker
He got back into the ring and made ah made like traced out the letters WCW in the air, because I assume figuring, well, screw them if that's the way you want to do it. I'm going to announce WCW now.
00:19:24
Speaker
and And then then things went went backstage. So the other wrestlers who were present, I think, who weren't in on it, were were quite shocked to see this happen. It realized that that McMahon had screwed Hart out of his title and were very much on Hart's side. So ah the wrestler Mark Calloway, better known as The Undertaker, it sounds like he became sort of the mediator here. Vince McMahon and his folks went and locked themselves inside Vince's office.
00:19:52
Speaker
The undertaker apparently went and sort of banged on the door and and insisted that Vince McMahon come and apologize to Bret Hart. Bret Hart had had apparently by this stage simmered down a bit and was back in his dressing room showering and getting changed. And apparently, basically, it seemed quite calm, but it basically said, if Vince McMahon is here by the time I'm i'm done changing, i'm goingnna I'm going to knock him out.
00:20:14
Speaker
So apparently McMahon did eventually come into the dressing room to try and explain his side of things and make make him see this is yeah it had to be this way, that's why I had to do it. And things did get heated Hart indeed did he end up punching McMahon in the face, knocking him down by some accounts.
00:20:29
Speaker
But it made no difference. That was that. michael's Michaels now had the title and there was nothing Hart could do about it. So Vince McMahon would give an interview a week later, still sporting a black eye, which was a little bit unusual, actually acknowledging what had gone on, which I think surprised people a little bit.
00:20:47
Speaker
um But he gave this this this sort of interview as part of one of the wrestling shows where he made the famous the magus claim, I didn't screw Brett, Brett screwed Brett. I think i I haven't seen the interview, but I assume he was basically saying, you know, it had to be this way. And it's only because he was so stubborn that I had to do this underhanded thing or something like I think he very much wanted he wanted to come across as the good guy in this situation, I think. But everybody sided with Bret Hart nonetheless.
00:21:14
Speaker
Bret Hart, of course, would then move to WCW. He spent three years there, which which from what I hear was with a little bit lacklustre, not his best performances. I don't think he was as fond of WCW as he was of WWF, and I think it came through. But again, they they were they were paying the big bucks.
00:21:34
Speaker
So he ended up retiring from wrestling in 2000 due to a bunch of injuries, including a particularly nasty concussion that I think had been affecting his performances for some time before that.
00:21:45
Speaker
WCW, despite the fact that they had been they had been on top, fairly quickly... went on ah a but but bit of a downhill slide. in In terms of the Coke versus Pepsi, they ended up becoming very much the Pepsi of the equation.
00:21:59
Speaker
and indeed worse worse than Pepsi, WCW didn't do well but well at all and ended up um getting going going up for sale and getting bought out by Vince McMahon in 2001, who basically just sort of, you know, folded their wrestlers and properties into the WWF and that was it.
Reconciliation and Retirement
00:22:16
Speaker
Bret Hart eventually, but a long time later, hart would have eventually sort of patch things up and reconcile with Shawn Michaels and reconcile with Vince McMahon. he He eventually returned to the WWE in 2010.
00:22:31
Speaker
So that's a full 13 years after this all went down to sort of take part in events and things like that. But that was that was kind of how it all played out. Now, what I've just described is...
00:22:43
Speaker
is a version of what went on. So this this version is that there was a conspiracy against Bret Hart to rob him of his title in a way that he had not agreed to. And indeed, part of his contract, I think, was supposed to give him creative control, including control when his WWF contract would come to an end. He would have creative control over how he would be going out. So this seemed you seemed to have violated that. But first of all,
00:23:10
Speaker
A lot of the details of exactly how it all went down are a bit unclear because it seems like whoever you talk to about the Montreal Screwjob will give you a slightly different version of what happened. there There are multiple versions of who knew what and when they knew it, who came up with what bit of the plan, yeah know who decided how it was all going to go down, and and exactly how all the pieces fit together. I mean, to give you one example, ah the referee, Earl Hebner,
00:23:39
Speaker
had not been not been in on the plans initially because and you I think you know it sounds like this would have been a fairly unpopular plan, no matter who you were talking to. and And they definitely you know they didn't want there to be any chance of it getting back to Bret Hart, that they were going to do this to him.
00:23:54
Speaker
so earl hebner despite the fact that he had an important part to play he was the one who had to get up you know not not not not at yeah but before he was supposed to and then actually call the match but he wasn't informed of this change of plans until right before the match was going to start apparently but then there are different versions of And Shawn Michaels, in his autobiography, I think, has claimed that he was the one who went to Earl Hebner beforehand and said, hey, look, change of plans, this is how it's going to go down. Earl Hebner himself says that it was um Gerald Briscoe, who's one of Vince McMahon's guys, who before the match said, no, this this is what you're going to do now. Oh, and by the way, don't forget that you're miked up. So if you try to warn Bret Hart about this, we'll know. so there are lots of different versions, and it's hard to know how much of it is
00:24:39
Speaker
yeah just people misremembering things, how much of it is people either trying to make it sound like they were a bigger part of what went on or trying to minimise their role and in what was quite an unpopular sort of happening.
00:24:53
Speaker
So there's there's that aspect to it. And then there is... Doubt, like I said at the start, the existence of kayfabe, the fact that you're never really quite sure, even when things look like they're legitimate, they might still be planned.
Was the Screwjob Planned or Genuine?
00:25:08
Speaker
these There have always been suggestions and doubts as to whether or not this was actually a conspiracy against Bret Hart at all. Was the entire Montreal Screwjob actually a work?
00:25:21
Speaker
And Bret Hart was in on it the whole time. had you know when When he and Vince McMahon were first hashing out the fact that WWF couldn't compete with the contract WCW was offering and Bret Hart was going to move, had at the time they sat down and actually decided this is the way it was all going to go. And these have been claims that have been made by people, people in the business,
00:25:43
Speaker
um for quite some time. even to the yeah Even Earl Hebner himself these days has apparently said that he thinks it was a work for a variety of reasons. So it should be said straight away, Bret Hart has always maintained that he was genuinely screwed over, that he was he was you genuinely taken surprise, he was genuinely furious um with what went on, which is what what know and and it was with genuine anger that he punched Vince McMahon in the face.
00:26:13
Speaker
But other wrestlers and other people have... have suggested that he didn't for for a number of reasons. Like some, some people just sort of think that the heart could, couldn't not have known. He must have been it. You know, he, that's, that's one of the claims. He, he just must have known. They can't have done it without, without letting him on.
00:26:31
Speaker
Some people think that it just looked a bit too scripted, how it all went down. now Interestingly, I said that when it all went down, everybody got out of the ring and the pay-per-view event sort of cut off there.
00:26:46
Speaker
There is footage, though, of what happened afterwards. WWF's... The cameras kept rolling and the WWF has massive archives of all of their events, and so other footage of the event has been shown later times.
00:27:01
Speaker
There's also amateur video of the event from people in the crowd. There's also the fact that... The Canadian film organisation was making a documentary about Bret Hart at the time, and so they there was a full documentary camera crew following him around everywhere, which also got footage of stuff that happened. And so because of that, there have also been claims by people who are like, you know, there's no way Vince McMahon would have...
00:27:25
Speaker
He wouldn't have let people see him do this. He wouldn't have let seen people see Bret smashing things up and making the WCW sign on the stage and everything. He wouldn't have let people see that, forgetting that he actually didn't.
00:27:39
Speaker
with when with The event when it happened, all and audiences or people in the in the arena at the time saw it, but audiences at home weren't aware that any of this had happened. The confrontation with Vince McMahon, I haven't seen video of it myself. i assume, i think there is video of it that was shot like by the documentary crew and stuff like that.
00:28:00
Speaker
And again, people have sort of said, oh awfully convenient that Brett Hart just happened to have a camera crew right there to capture the whole thing. But again, this was a documentary crew that had been following them around for quite some time, making a documentary on them. So the the claims that people make as to whether or not the whole thing was a work or whether it was genuine conspiracy...
00:28:21
Speaker
conspiracy they seem They seem to be answerable, and on the balance of things, it does look like it was genuine as it appeared to be. But kayfabe being kayfabe, it's just always hard to tell.
00:28:34
Speaker
Another thing is that Vince McMahon at the time... He was ah more of a behind-the-scenes he would he'd you He'd be sort of at the announcer's table commenting or he'd sort of be down their ringside, but he wasn't taking as much of an active role as a character within the world of WWF.
00:28:52
Speaker
And people credit the the Montreal Screwjob as being the start of ah Vince McMahon's turn as the as the character of mr
Legacy of the Montreal Screwjob
00:29:02
Speaker
McMahon. he he would have He became this character.
00:29:05
Speaker
sort of became a much bigger character, played a much bigger part, literally, in the WWF, to the extent that he eventually started working out a hell of a lot and started, wrestling you know, doing wrestling wrestling against other people and stuff. But so he he became this big boss man character. When I said the anti-hero types like The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin were very anti-authoritarian, he became the authority that they were were rebelling against. He became this sort of heel character that everybody would have rivals with.
00:29:32
Speaker
So ah apparently had sort of been trialing this a little bit at at earlier events, being being a bit more of this character. But people say it it's the there was the incident in Montreal. They sort of say that the the instant when Bret Hart's spit hit him in the face was the instant when the mc Mr. McMahon character was born.
00:29:50
Speaker
Which is one of the things people have used to say, well, maybe this was actually work. You know, maybe this was all planned right from the start to to launch the character of Mr. McMahon into the WWF. But again, it looks like that had been his, you know, this is something he'd been planning for a while.
00:30:06
Speaker
And so it's it's it's really not clear that what was, you know, Is it like they say, was the Montreal Screwjob a work to to kick off this Mr. McMahon character? Did he use it to sort of, you know, inspire him to to become the character?
00:30:24
Speaker
was it just something he was going to do anyway and it just happened to be a coincidence that um that the the timing was coincidental? Yeah. I've heard some people claim that with that interview where he said Brett screwed Brett, he was initially trying to be a bit more of a face, but when he realized that audiences weren't going for it, that they were very much on Hart's side, that sort of that was then that he slid into the heel character, so the whole Mr. McMahon character didn't solidify until a bit afterwards. So there's a lot of claim and counterclaim there.
00:30:52
Speaker
Certainly the phenomenon of the Montreal Screwjob became part of WWF and then wwew WWE lore, and it was referred to many times afterwards, but which again, some people thought was a little bit odd because, like I say, there had been previous incidents of, ah had there had been other screwjobs when wrestlers had been had been double-crossed in in a way like this. And nobody really talked about them. they They were always sort of hush-hush and quite covered up. And yet the Montreal Screwjob has become a legend.
00:31:20
Speaker
Maybe that's just because they couldn't avoid it you know it. It became such a big event that they had to fold it into the lore of WWE. wwe And of course, there's a possibility, as as we see time and again other things, maybe it's a combination of the two.
00:31:34
Speaker
you know maybe Maybe the betrayal and Hart's anger were indeed genuine, but maybe his reaction in the confrontation with the sick man, it could have been they were playing them up um for for the story, for the kayfabe of it all. You never you never never quite know.
00:31:51
Speaker
But um from from from what I've seen, from what i've the little bit of reading I've done and the little bit of videos that I've watched, the consensus seems to be that that that despite the fact that there are people who are sort of not necessarily in the know, but in the industry, people close to it who think that the Montreal Screwjob was a work, the general consensus seems to be that no, it it can't have been.
00:32:13
Speaker
And that indeed, Bret Hart was the victim of a conspiracy to rob him of his title and give it to Shawn Michaels. And that, I think, is the story of the Montreal Screwjob.
00:32:26
Speaker
As I say, there are so many different versions. yeah I've given the version that that I sort of... read and that seemed to make sense. But I'm sure if if you have heard about this previously or if you've ever gone looking, you've probably, you know, you you can encounter all sorts of permutations of exactly how things went down. But um that that that's that's the way it appeared to me. And that is the story that I have told you just now.
00:32:54
Speaker
so That's another another filler episode to keep you going. Hopefully this is the end of the disruptions of regular processes and by the time we do our next episode, Em and i will both be we both be on board and things can get back to normal.
00:33:09
Speaker
Fingers crossed. But until then, I'll let you go on your merry way and and see you next time.
00:33:23
Speaker
The podcaster's guide to the conspiracy features Josh Addison and Associate Professor M.R. Extentis. Our producers are a mysterious cabal of conspirators known as Tom, Philip, and another who was so mysterious that they remain anonymous.
00:33:37
Speaker
You can contact us electronically via podcastconspiracy at gmail.com or join our Patreon and get access to our Discord server. Or don't, I'm not your mum.
00:34:04
Speaker
And remember, groove is in the heart.