What is said about the Montreal Screwjob in “Mr. McMahon”?

One of the biggest controversies in wrestling history is back in the spotlight in the Netflix series “Mr. McMahon”: the Montreal Screwjob.

As most wrestling fans know, in 1997 at the Bell Centre, Bret Hart defended the WWF Championship against Shawn Michaels. During the match, Michaels used the sharpshooter on Hart—Hart’s signature move—and Vince McMahon ordered referee Earl Hebner to end the match early, even though Hart didn’t tap out, and declare Michaels the winner. This infamous moment was met with a lot of backlash, but also some doubt as to whether Hart knew it was coming, or if he was genuinely upset about giving up the title.

With a docuseries focusing on all the major moments of McMahon’s rise to power, WWE founder Michaels and Hart all got another chance to talk again about what happened that night.

What do they say about the Montreal Screwjob?

Before the match, Hart and McMahon discussed how “The Hitman” was going to leave WWE for WCW. With their champion about to leave, McMahon wanted Hart to drop the title in his final appearance. The only problem was that Hart didn’t want to drop the title to Michaels because the two had a legitimate rivalry against each other.

“Bret, I want you to do the honors for Shawn tonight, because we need someone to cover for you. And Bret said, ‘Well, I don’t want to do that,'” McMahon recalled.

Current WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque said he then told McMahon that if Bret didn’t want to give up the title, he should do it for him. McMahon then told Hart that the plan was to end the match by disqualification. But when Michaels put Hart in the sharpshooter, McMahon said he ordered the match to end, and that he was in the ring voluntarily.

“I wanted to be in the ring so Hart would know what happened, and I took back what was mine. Bret obviously didn’t like that,” McMahon said.

Hart later spoke of his anger about this, with the idea that he was unaware of the ending.

“It’s hard for people to imagine how angry you can be when you’re betrayed like that on national television and ridiculed in so many ways,” he said. “I couldn’t have given more to a man than I gave to Vince McMahon. None of that made sense when Vince screwed me that day in Montreal.”

Was anyone else involved in the Montreal Screwjob?

No one else has confirmed that they knew about the Montreal Screwjob, including Michaels, who told Hart after the match that he didn’t know about it. But Levesque made it seem like he at least knew what was going to happen.

“Vince was so adamant that we had to swear that we knew nothing about it. He said, ‘No matter who asks you, you can lie to them outright and say, ‘I didn’t know anything about it. It was a call from Vince McMahon,'” he said.

Hart and McMahon met in the locker room after the incident, and the WWE boss said he knew he was going to get hit. When they confronted each other, McMahon said Hart hit him so hard “right in the temple” that he knocked him out.

“He was completely unconscious,” Hart said. “It was probably the best thing I ever did, and he deserved it.”

McMahon concluded by looking back on the incident saying he didn’t regret doing it at all.