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Montreal - 20 years


garynysmon

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I know the anniversary was a few weeks ago now, but I still find it amazing that 20 years have now passed since the Survivor Series. That makes me feel old as hell....

screwjob-696x392.jpg

Yes its been done to death, but its still the most controversial moment in pro wrestling, certainly in our lifetimes.

But having been listening to a few podcasts noting the anniversary, including Bruce Pritchard's and the myriad by The Lapsed Fan, there's still a part of me that thinks there's more to it than meets the eye.

So Montreal, was it a work or a shoot?

Sean Waltman's point of view is one I feel has to have at least some merit, though it certainly doesn't explain everything.

 

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Aside from deaths, probably still the saddest thing I've seen in wrestling. I had no clue going in that this was on the cards so seeing the match we'd waited 18 months for ruined and my hero humiliated was pretty upsetting.

Such a rotten end to a brilliant year for the company too. 

It still seems so uneccesary but if the end result was Bret leaving regardless then I was never going to be happy. In fact, had he stayed, he was so opposed to the direction they were going in that all of the wet dream matches I can imagine through to 2000 and maybe beyond might never have come off anyway.

I bought Wrestling with shadows on DVD years ago and it's still in the wrapper. I can't bring myself to watch it or the PPV again. It's still so gutting.

Bret was completely innocent by the way. Vince, Michaels and Triple H are cunts. :)

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I think Wrestling with Shadows and the two issues that Dave Meltzer did in the Observer covered all the bases so to speak. Vince had to get the belt of Bret (IIRC he was going to drop it the night after on Raw) but surely if his deal was up he could have worked something out beforehand so he wasn't even holding the belt coming into Montreal. That aspect of it, knowing Bret was going to WCW was set in stone so Vince and WWE management should have had The Hitman lose the championship as soon as that deal was finalised. Having your champion jumping to the opposition with a belt was a definite no-no had Eric Bischoff tried to bin the WWE world title on Nitro. I doubt Bret would have let that happen but say it did it would have been a huge knock to WWE. That was what the main catalyst of the "screwjob" was, get the title off Hart by any means necessary.

Do I think Bret would have dropped the belt cleanly the next night on the way out - yes. Had it been Shawn back then him dumping it in the bin is definitely possible. Bret was Team WWE all the way so even on WCW I don't think he'd have done anything to knock Vince and co. If he did he'd be making a mockery of his career and legacy. So I think that aspect doesn't make sense I highly doubt Bret would have gone back on his word and took the belt to WCW.

As for the "work" aspect, the only person to really benefit from it was Vince as it was the start of the transition into the Mr McMahon character. Shawn was gone afterWrestleMania XIV and Bret in WCW never matched his heights in the WWE. There was no real buzz from it either as a pissed off Bret shooting on Vince on Nitro would have been the talk of the industry if they'd have gone that route. So if anything Montreal imploded on itself it was an work as they could have turned it into something huge like a possible WCW vs WWE showdown with Vince in Shawns corner and Eric in Brets. 

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It was Vince's moronic decision to keep the belt on him while actively forcing him out the company at the same time. Bret was sticking around until the December PPV and cleared a verbal contract extension with all sides to work that PPV before the week of Survivor Series. It was only when the story got out the week of the show that Vince wanted the belt off Bret all of a sudden, and Bret, knowing he was given the $2.8 million a year largely (at least in theory at the time, didn't play out this way) based on his value in Canada, didn't want to lose there, and had every right not to because Vince let him have it. There's very little blame on Bret's shoulders for what happened. He was more difficult than he needed to be, but he was being forced out of the company he loved and still dealt with everything better than the other assholes in the equation.

As for it being a work, I think that's perhaps the dumbest point anybody could ever make in wrestling. It makes no sense for it to be a work in any avenue, and the argument falls apart with 10 seconds of rational thinking.

 

 

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Bischoff would have been in the legal shit if that WWF title had appeared on Nitro. It would have been a coo, but he would probably would have been fired for it because a big law-suit would be coming because of it.

ADDED: Bruce Pritchard said something nutty that if Vince just told Bret to lose to Shawn that Bret would do it, it was only because Shawn said to Bret he wasn't losing to him first, he went all huffy.

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Even though logic and rational thinking told me otherwise, I was sure it was a work based on the fact that we were able to release Wrestling With Shadows at Cleat Vision. I couldn't imagine a world where as a WWE licensee we could release a DVD that painted Vince in such a bad light. It wasn't under the Silver Vision label, but the WWE still had a pretty big part to play in what we did. We only got away with selling UFC because that deal started years before WWE perceived them as some sort competition.

I remember a few years ago when at the bizarrely named Gold Ant Entertainment*  we'd decided to do another run of the DVD to coincide with the WWE Owen Hart DVD, but the finances were so badly managed that it was replicated but not paid, so it sat in the replication warehouse until many months later, and missed the window of opportunity completely.

 

*The company that came from the ashes of Clear Vision started as Red Ant, but the ill suited guy in charge decided that as gold was better than red, that should be the name. He did so with no research and when he told us the first thing I did was a Goggle search, to find sex pills from China as the top result. Kids titles such as my Little Pony were our main properties at the time! He still kept the name.

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What always kept it from being a work in my eyes was Bret being able to discuss Montreal and Owen's death in the same breath. Whatever you think of Bret, and I know some are pretty cynical of him, I don't believe he'd have actively upheld a worked shoot while criticising the same company's role in his brother's recent untimely demise.

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3 hours ago, bAzTNM#1 said:

Bischoff would have been in the legal shit if that WWF title had appeared on Nitro. It would have been a coo, but he would probably would have been fired for it because a big law-suit would be coming because of it.

ADDED: Bruce Pritchard said something nutty that if Vince just told Bret to lose to Shawn that Bret would do it, it was only because Shawn said to Bret he wasn't losing to him first, he went all huffy.

I thought that Bret didn't want to lose the title in Canada, which is why he was happy to drop it on Raw the night after, or at the following PPV? Wasn't it meant to be some 4 way where they managed to get the belt onto Austin. If that'd happened imagine how differently things could have turned out. I have a friend who's convinced that it's a work, and that on his death bed Bret is going to confess to it.

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Does anyone know what HBKs contract looked like at the time. Did he mave much longer left?

Just imagining an upside down world in which it backfired, they double crossed HBK and he fucked off over to wcw to join Hall and Nash. What would the consequences have been regarding the WAR. Could HBK have saved the demise and had a better showing than Bret? 

At least the could have revamped a proper 3 man outsiders with him as the lead mouth. Would people have been much more likely to tune in and watch another NWO group of it was Hall, Nash, HBK?

Would WWF have been as hot without Shawn? Would Bret have been able to help the raise the WWF viewership? 

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3 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

I thought that Bret didn't want to lose the title in Canada, which is why he was happy to drop it on Raw the night after, or at the following PPV? Wasn't it meant to be some 4 way where they managed to get the belt onto Austin. If that'd happened imagine how differently things could have turned out. I have a friend who's convinced that it's a work, and that on his death bed Bret is going to confess to it.

Raw the next night was in Canada. He would have been happy to surrender the belt the next night but not lose it in the ring.

The scenario Vince "sold" to Bret to stay involved a fourway at the December ppv in Springfield with Bret v Shawn v Undertaker v Shamrock where he would lose the title to Shawn with Undertakers help. Then they'd work at the Rumble with Shawn winning again, but Bret would put his career up the next night on Raw in a ladder match, win title number 6 and overtake Hogan before dropping the belt to Austin at Mania. According to Meltzer.

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I've always been Team Bret on this issue. Say what you want about Bret, but he was a good employee for Vince, and if anyone deserved a good send off it was Bret. It's the fact they had come up with a couple of plans after Survivor Series for Bret to drop the belt, but decided to instead do what they did - it's proper scummy. WWE know as much, hence the amount of lying and false narratives they've thrown out there since it went down.

Another shitter is it robbed us of a probably great Bret v HBK match. According to Bret, the match was only about half way done by the time he was in the Sharpshooter.

Mental looking back now, when you consider how they treat wins and losses, and their belts.

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2 hours ago, ColinBollocks said:

 

Mental looking back now, when you consider how they treat wins and losses, and their belts.

Absolutely and it's not for the better. If Montreal was happening in 2017, Bret would have dropped the title anywhere they asked, under whatever conditions, just so long as he could go play video games after. 

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5 hours ago, ColinBollocks said:

Another shitter is it robbed us of a probably great Bret v HBK match. According to Bret, the match was only about half way done by the time he was in the Sharpshooter.

Eh? There wasn't much time left in the ppv. The finish as planned was Hebner goes down (as happened), Shawn puts Bret in the Sharpshooter, Bret grabs his leg and reverses it with Earl still down. Hunter runs in, the Foundation runs in, Earl comes around and throws it out. Thats how he tells it in his book.

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