Bret Hart: ‘Vince McMahon can rot in hell’
Bret Hart says the sweetest punch he’s ever thrown was when he knocked out Vince McMahon backstage at the 1997 Survivor Series.
Hart was a guest on The Attitude Era podcast recently and did not hold back when asked about the Montreal Screwjob. He says he has no regrets about his actions that night.
Hart said:
“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, like I think Undertaker said it a few days ago that they had to do what they were going to do because there were no other options or something – bullshit, I had another six weeks left on my contract, there was a million things that could have bee done. It was a case of liars and cheaters and backstabbers and guys that made that moment all happen, Shawn, Triple H, Vince McMahon and I wish I’d knocked them all out. I have no regrets, it was the single greatest thing I ever did.”
“I was never a hothead, I wasn’t a guy who acted out and just punched everybody that he wanted to. I was a guy that if you were in my shoes that day, Vince was calling my bluff, he was going to confront me and he wanted me to back down and take the high road. And it was a gamble that he made and then he thought he was going to try and get into a little altercation with me and he wanted it to be like a pull-apart and everybody pulls us apart and then he can 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 is going to confront me.’ I didn’t charge him or anything, we actually walked up to each other and locked up like a wrestling match and then I knocked him out with one punch and it was the greatest punch I ever threw. It was an absolutely beautiful uppercut right between his arms, I lifted him about a foot off the ground, broke my hand, but it was the sweetest punch I ever threw. And I wouldn’t change anything about it and Vince McMahon can rot in hell.”
The Montreal Screwjob is covered extensively in the November 17 & 24, 1997 editions of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, two of the most requested back issues we’ve ever published.
“It will go down in history as the single most famous finish of a pro wrestling match in the modern era. Twenty or 30 years from now this story, more than any famous wrestler jumping promotions, more than any prominent death, and more than any record-setting house, will be remembered vividly by all who watched it live, and remembered as legendary from all who hear about it later,” Meltzer wrote 27 years ago.
Some of Hart’s old matches from Maple Leaf Wrestling in the early 1980s have recently been published online by the newly relaunched brand, Maple Leaf Pro. So far this month, Hart vs. Ludger Proulx from April 30, 1984, and a match against Leo Burke have been posted to the channel.
Other topics discussed during Hart’s interview with The Attitude Era podcast include his WM13 match vs. Steve Austin, the origins of Hart’s “Hitman” moniker, and his feud with his brother Owen Hart. The full episode is available below: