WWE: 10 Most Inventive Big Match Match Finishes Ever

5. Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart - Montreal Screwjob

Event: Survivor Series 97 The Finish: Bret Hart, refusing to lose the title to Shawn Michaels in Canada, hears the bell ring and Michaels announced the victor while Shawn has him in his own Sharpshooter. Shawn scurried out of the ring into a waiting limo with his newly 'won' WWE Championship as Bret stands in the ring confounded before he realizes what happened and begins to tear the place down and spit in Vince's face. This was non-scripted. A shoot. It wasn't supposed to happen, and Bret had no idea it was going to. With Bret refusing to lose, and headed for WCW, and Vince having seen WWE Superstar after WWE Superstar appear on WCW Nitro, Vince (or Triple H if recent information is true) decided that necessity is the mother of invention, and came up with one of the most 'inventive' finishes in pro-wrestling history.

The Impact: None really. Not much came of it. Look, if you don't know the long-term and short-term implications of this event on the landscape of all things sports entertainment, I'd like to rent the cave that houses the rock you've been living under. The Montreal Screwjob simultaneously exposed the business as 'fake' while propelling the WWE, Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels, and guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mankind further into the spotlight. Oddly, of all the people directly involved in the conspiracy, it's ironic that the only person no longer in the good graces of the company is the trigger man, Earl Hebner, which if "Bret Hart: Wrestling With Shadows" is to be believed, lied to Bret's face about whether he'd screw Bret in the match. This ending has also been parodied to death, often times in Canada, and once to screw Mankind of the title and usher in the era of 'Corporate Champion', The Rock.