25 years ago, the infamous Montreal Screwjob took place when Vince McMahon came to ringside and implored the bell to ring as Shawn Michaels had Bret Hart in the sharpshooter.
The "screwjob" happened due to fear that Bret would take the WWE Championship with him to WCW after he didn't agree to lose to Michaels at Survivor Series. Hart had agreed to drop the title in some capacity at a later date, but McMahon orchestrated the screwjob in Montreal.
The match lasted 12 minutes before the screwjob occured, and Hart believes they would have had a classic if things went as planned.
“We had another 25 minutes,” Hart told Justin Barrasso of Sports Ilustrated. “The match was already good, and we hadn’t even hit our stride. Even when we didn’t get along, Shawn and I always had great chemistry together in the ring. When we worked together, we wanted to be flawless, and we didn’t get along, and that added to the intensity. When I clothesline Shawn over the top rope and we brawl and fight outside the ring, I could tell it was going to be a really special match. It was very competitive. That match was just starting. All the brawling was done just to set up the actual match. It was going to really get going after I reversed his sharpshooter. We pictured the crowd standing up and going crazy. That was going to be the moment when it took off.”
As Bret was set to reverse the sharpshooter, McMahon and referee Earl Hebner asked for the bell to be rung and for Michaels to be awarded the match by submission.
Bret, stunned at what happened, spit at McMahon from inside the ring. The screwjob is arguably the most infamous incident in wrestling history with the fallout impacting WWE and WCW in a variety of ways including Bret's introduction to WCW, the birth of the Mr. McMahon character on WWE TV, and more.
