12 Biggest WWE Storylines Ever (And How You Never Saw Them Coming)
8. Screwed By Shawn Michaels, The Boy Toy. Screwed By The World Wrestling Federation.
Despite what absolute icon and all-round class legend Kevin Nash seems to believe to this day, the Montreal Screwjob wasn't a work, but WWE inadvertently did a masterful job in setting up the circumstances that led to Bret Hart's landscape-shifting 1997 exit.
'The Excellence Of Execution' shifted gears not long after returning to a very different WWE than the one he left. By the end of 1996, he found himself incessantly hassled by an uncompromising ruthless 'Rattlesnake' in Stone Cold Steve Austin whilst still trying to push back the challenges of WWE Champion Sid, perennial rival Shawn Michaels, fellow company cornerstone The Undertaker and fresh new threat Vader.
Far from getting back to the top of the mountain, he'd been unfairly shunted down amongst an avalanche of debris hurtling in the same direction. Snapping just before his industry-altering WrestleMania 13 brawl with Austin, Bret cut one of the best promos in wrestling history in the direction of a physically and emotionally floored Vince McMahon. Frustrated wasn't the g*ddamn word for it, this was bullsh*t. He'd been screwed by absolutely everybody and wasn't provided with justice or vindication - a brand new type of whining heel for McMahon to book. It was the missing piece of a puzzle McMahon had been trying to solve for some time, and the match would realise a shifting philosophical approach to his product of which there was no way back.
It was incredibly prescient, come to think of it. Montreal wasn't a work, was it?