With Bret Hart going out of the door and heading for WCW, Vince McMahon needed to get the WWF Championship off of him ASAP. Only trouble was, he wanted Bret to do it in Montreal, Canada and The Hitman refused, which he was allowed to do since he had reasonable a creative control clause in his contract. Vince, in response, decided to screw Bret out of the title, forcing referee Earl Hebner to prematurely ring the bell while Shawn Michaels had the Champion locked in the sharpshooter. It was a vindictive move by Vince, one which would cause tremendous pain for Bret and the Hart family over the coming years.