Bret Hart reflects on the Montreal Screwjob and says Vince McMahon can rot in hell.
Bret Hart’s first run in the WWE ended with the Montreal Screwjob, as Vince McMahon had referee Earl Hebner ring the bell before Hart tapped out during his world title match against Shawn Michaels. That night, Hart punched McMahon backstage.
Speaking on the Attitude Era Podcast, Bret Hart was asked about the Montreal Screwjob.
“I think the Montreal Screw Job and all the lies and the things that they did to me, I have so much respect for what I did because it’s really hard to explain, but if you were in my shoes, after everything that I did for them, for them to do what they did to me, and I always hear this crap, ‘They had to do what they were gonna do because there was no other option,’ bullshit. I had another six weeks left on my contract.
“There was a million things that could have been done,” he said. “It was a case of liars and cheaters and backstabbers and guys that made that moment happen. Shawn, Triple H, Vince McMahon. I wish I knocked them all out. I have no regrets. It was the single greatest thing I ever did. Jimmy Snuka came up to me about three years after the Montreal Screwjob, and he shook my hand. He goes, ‘I want to shake the hand of the man that knocked out Vince McMahon.’ He said, ‘Everybody talked about doing it, he lied and screwed over so many guys. The only guy that ever did it was you.’”
Bret Hart Recalls The Punch
Bret Hart continued by noting that he was not a hothead, but he was in a position where Vince McMahon was calling his bluff. He noted that McMahon was going to punch him. Hart then said that the punch he hit McMahon with was the best one he ever threw.
“I think it says more about my real personality,” Bret Hart said. I was never a hothead. I was never a guy that just went off and punched everybody that I wanted to. If you were in my shoes that day, Vince was calling my bluff. He was gonna confront me, and he wanted me to back down and take the high road. It was a gamble that he made, and then he thought he was gonna try to get into a little altercation with me, and he wanted it to be a pull apart, and everybody pulls us apart, and he can sort of act like he stood his ground against me.
“In those fleeting seconds of having to think about this, like, I can’t believe Vince McMahon’s actually gonna confront me. We walked up to each other and locked up like a wrestling match, and I knocked him out with one punch. It was the greatest punch I ever threw. Absolutely beautiful uppercut. I lifted him up about a foot off the ground, broke my hand, but it was the sweetest punch I ever threw. I wouldn’t change anything about it. Vince McMahon can rot in hell.”
The video can be seen here:
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