WWE legend Bret Hart’s WWE career saw one of the most controversial moments, the Montreal Screwjob. But according to ‘The Hitman’, the groundwork for his exit was being laid well before that fateful night.
Speaking with Inside the Ropes, Hart looked back on the months leading up to Montreal and made clear he believes Vince McMahon was working against him long before Shawn Michaels ever locked in Hart’s own Sharpshooter to win the title in Montreal.
Hart explained that his heel turn as a Canadian antagonist had actually worked too well, generating real momentum with the crowd.
According to Hart, that success seemed to backfire on McMahon, who he says gradually pulled back the creative support behind his character. Hart described arriving at TV tapings with no direction and being handed thin, uninspired material — like being told to simply insult Triple H on the mic — that left him confused about the purpose behind it.
This whole thing about me turning into this Canadian heel had backfired on Vince. It was too good of an idea. I could never understand because it had so much momentum at first. But I noticed every week, after a few weeks, that they kind of cut the power.
Vince just cut everything. Suddenly I get to the TV and it’s like, ‘What am I saying today? What do you want me to do?’ And it’s like, ‘Well, we want you to go out there and call Triple H gay.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s not really — why am I doing that?’
Adding to his frustration was WWE’s decision to turn Shawn Michaels heel as well, which Hart felt undercut the entire point of his own turn. Hart said his goal in turning heel had been to eventually work alongside Michaels as a babyface, not to end up in renewed competition and friction with him.
Vince just kind of cut the power. Suddenly they had no more ideas for me. I’m just going out to the ring and saying the same thing that I said last week about Canadians. I remember going, ‘They cut the power.’ There were no more creative juices being put into my character and my storyline.
Hart also pointed to his booking around that stretch as another red flag, noting he was positioned as a heel working against a face Vader despite Vader’s significant size advantage, while Michaels got a marquee program against The Undertaker in Hell in a Cell.
Piecing it all together, Hart came to believe the pattern was deliberate — an effort by Triple H, Michaels, and McMahon to diminish him, and a sign that his time with the company was numbered no matter how well he performed.
I just remember going, ‘This is intentional to make us look bad or to kill us off,’ which is what Triple H and Shawn and Vince were all planning or plotting out together. I remember going, ‘This is not good business. These guys have bad intentions.’ That was the start of realizing that Vince — it didn’t matter if I had a great match. It was time for me to go. He was going to destroy me until I left.
Hart wouldn’t return to WWE in any capacity until 2005, when he partnered with the company on a DVD documentary about his life and career. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame the following year, and made his return to WWE programming on Raw in January 2010.
