The closing moments of the match up saw Shawn Michaels lock the Sharpshooter, Bret Hart's very own finishing move, onto the Hitman, referee Earl Hebner signaled for the bell in a mere matter of seconds and most notably when Bret was in the process of reversing the hold, the official announcement claimed that Bret had submitted to his own maneuver. Earl and the new World Champion Shawn Michaels made a rather quick exit from the arena, Bret on the other hand spat down at Vince McMahon and proceeded to destroy the monitors at the announce tables and make out the letters of the WWF's biggest rival, the WCW, rumor even has it that Bret punched Vince backstage, this little incident has gone down as the Montreal screw job. Leading up to this night Bret was asked to drop the World Title to Shawn in the middle of the ring, the most obvious reason is because Bret was on his way to the World Championship Wrestling promotion, the last thing Vince, or any promoter for that matter, wants is a former star to leave his employ on a high and go onto give the competition an immediate boost. Vince also at this time had determined that Bret's main event standings were coming to an end, the times where changing and soon we'd see the era of Attitude hit the World Wrestling Federation and Bret, in Vince's opinion, just wasn't cut out for the direction his product was headed. Of course Bret had refused to do the job to Shawn and Vince took matters into his own hands.

We've heard all sides to the story, Bret claiming he was screwed, Vince claiming it was Bret who screwed Bret, and Shawn Michaels playing dumb like he no idea about the whole set up, until recently anyway. So who really did screw whom in this situation?

From the get go I wish to make it very clear that I am in no way a fan of Vince McMahon, but yet I am not a Bret Hart fan either, both men were/are extremely talented, Vince in a business sense and Bret in the wrestling talent sense and I don't plan on taking those things away from either man in this article, I just plan on giving what I hope is an unbiased opinion on the subject.

Wrestling is still a business and it employs a lot of people for different roles, Vince of course is the owner and Bret was one of his employees, I'm making this point, as obvious as it is, because what we seen each week on Raw and Smackdown! seems to cloud people's perceptions of the wrestling business, in reality the talent don't consistently beat the crap out of Vince McMahon and his officials, wrestlers don't get arrested on a weekly basis and show up again for work in a mere matter of days, Wrestling is a business and like most business' it is the boss that has the final say in the matter, and if one of it's employees decides to challenge that decision then he will usually suffer the consequences of his actions. This is exactly how it was with all parties involved in this incident, Vince is the owner of the company and has not only the last say, but the power to make or break you, Earl Hebner is a referee who has little pull in the company and should he have refused to go along with the plan I'm sure he would have been shown the door as I'm sure Vince would have no trouble finding himself a new head referee, Shawn didn't like Bret on a personal level, so what would it matter to him if Bret was pissed off, it's not like he was screwing over a friend to keep his top spot in the company secure, and of course Bret, who decided to challenge the boss' ruling and paid for it.

I'm not trying to shift all the blame on to Bret here, but lets face it, he is just as guilty as Vince is, before anyone jumps down my throat about this I want to ask how many of you can honestly say that you flat out challenged your boss' decision on a work matter. Part of Bret's job as a wrestler is to not only entertain the crowds and bring in the ratings, but to job to men in the ring, whether it would be an up and coming rookie or someone who he did indeed despise in the locker rooms after the show, it was a request that is part of Bret's job and he refused to do it, so Vince made sure things went the way he wanted it to.

Vince as well could have done this a little more tactfully, I mean this guy could very easily have caused a riot that night and definitely did lower the respect the fans and wrestlers had for him, not to mention the credibility of a company that employs god only knows how many hundreds of people that all need to earn a wage to feed their families. This whole thing can still be argued back and forth, but before you argue about it think of it from a realistic point of view, not a wrestling one, but a REALISTIC one. None of us go around and give our employers a Stone Cold Stunner, none of us flip off our managers when they ask us to do something that is entirely within reason of our professions and it really shouldn't be any different for wrestlers as the promoters need to do what is in their best interest to make sure they keep their company in check and at the top of it's game. When looking at something like this you need to step away from the fantasy world that is shown to us on a weekly basis and look at it based on the structure of your employing company and how it works.

In the end I will say that Vince did go about it in a sneaky and deceptive way that not only backstabbed one of his workers, but the fans who expected so much more that night, but in the end it was Bret Hart's final decision that came back and kicked him in the ass. November 9th will mark the 7 year anniversary of this night, don't you think it's about time it gets laid to rest and let go permanently?

by Robbie C Extreme