The Montreal Screwjob was the disputed ending of Bret Hart’s WWE Championship defense against Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series on November 9, 1997. Michaels had Hart in a Sharpshooter when the bell rang, although WWE says Hart had not submitted. The moment became the most notorious point in a rivalry that had been built on television for years—and that also involved a real dispute over trust, Hart’s planned move to WCW, and what should happen to the championship.
How the rivalry developed on screen
Hart and Michaels’ rivalry preceded the Montreal finish by years. WWE’s collection timeline lists Hart defending the WWE Championship against Michaels at Survivor Series in 1992. Their best-known earlier contest was the Iron Man Match at WrestleMania XII, which WWE’s Hart profile identifies as a major match in their rivalry.
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In 1997, the television story added a highly visible conflict involving Michaels and Hart’s associates. At SummerSlam on August 3, Michaels served as guest referee for Hart’s match against The Undertaker. WWE says an errant chair strike by Michaels decided the outcome. That incident supplied on-screen context for the rivalry, but it should not be mistaken for a complete explanation of the separate backstage dispute that followed.
WWE’s chronology records Hart Foundation responses to Michaels and the build toward Survivor Series on Raw broadcasts dated September 29, October 6, October 13, October 20, and October 27. The story culminated in Hart defending the WWE Championship against Michaels in Montreal on November 9.
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What happened in Montreal
The central sequence is clear in WWE’s account: Hart was champion, Michaels applied Hart’s Sharpshooter, referee Earl Hebner called for the bell, and Michaels was declared the new champion. WWE says Hart had not submitted. The disputed act was not simply that Michaels won; it was that the match was stopped and the title awarded while Hart was still resisting the hold.
WWE later called the episode the “Montreal Screwjob.” Its historical account and retrospective place the match in the context of Hart’s scheduled departure for rival WCW and a dispute with Vince McMahon about the championship’s future.
Why the finish became a real-life controversy
WWE’s 2006 retrospective says McMahon feared Hart could take the championship with him to WCW. It recounts the crowd’s reaction and Hart’s confrontation with McMahon after the finish. Those are WWE’s later descriptions of the events and McMahon’s concerns, rather than a definitive account of every participant’s private thinking.
Secondary reporting gives more detail about the negotiations, but those details are reported accounts, not facts visible in the match itself. A Wrestling Observer report published 25 years later describes Hart’s reluctance to lose in Montreal, proposals for a later title change in Springfield, and tension connected to Michaels’s earlier position on doing jobs. The report helps explain why trust and the choice of finish mattered, but recollections of private discussions are not necessarily uncontested.
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A contemporaneous Wrestling Observer Newsletter account, republished by F4W, reported an earlier plan in which Hart would beat Michaels at WrestleMania XII and later lose to him in a third meeting: the November 18, 1996 issue. That report is useful evidence that plans and expectations could change over time; it should not be treated as a final or authoritative account of the 1997 negotiations.
What McMahon said afterward
On the November 17, 1997 episode of Raw, McMahon publicly defended the decision. WWE’s account of the broadcast records him saying Hart had failed to show proper respect to the organization before leaving and using the line, “Bret screwed Bret.” That was McMahon’s framing of the controversy, not a neutral description of the disputed finish.
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How the rivalry ended—and what did not
On Raw on January 4, 2010, Hart and Michaels met to lay their rivalry to rest, according to WWE’s episode chronology. WWE’s Hart profile describes his return as bringing closure with Michaels while rekindling his unresolved personal conflict with McMahon. The reconciliation between Hart and Michaels therefore did not erase Hart’s separate grievance with McMahon.
The rivalry has two connected histories: the matches and television segments that audiences watched, and the real dispute surrounding the 1997 title finish. The bell ringing in Montreal is established in WWE’s account; explanations of private motives and negotiations depend on later or contemporaneous reporting and should be read with that distinction in mind.
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