Vince Russo's 10 Insights Into The Montreal Screwjob

9. "Unknown" Three Way Phone Call

Once Vince laid out to Jim and I what was going down with Bret, we began to come up with many different ideas of how we could solve this problem by making both Bret content, and making sure the WWE Title went to Shaw as planned. I believe at the time what we had come up with was Bret actually losing the title to Shawn at a US house show prior to the Survivor Series. The Survivor Series would then be the rematch, where Shawn would successfully defend the title. Remember at that point we were under the assumption that Bret just didn€™t want to €œDROP THE BELT€ to Shawn in Canada. So once we came up with that game plan, Vince excused himself then called me into another room. Vince told me that he was going to call Bret to pitch our idea to him, but that he needed me on the phone as a third party witness without Bret knowing. I understood the situation, and that there could possibly be some legal issues involved once this was all said and done---so I told Vince OK. During his conversation with Bret, Vince laid out what we had come up with. Bret, however, at that point made it clear that it wasn€™t about just €œdropping the title€ to Shawn in Canada, it was about €œjobbing€ to Shawn in Canada . . . and he wasn€™t going to do that. I remember at that time Vince threw a few more ideas Bret€™s way€”can€™t remember specifics€”but, I do remember that Bret didn€™t like any of them. So, Vince hung up the phone getting nowhere, and the three of us went back to the drawing board.