25 biggest pro wrestling ‘what ifs’ of the past 25 years

2. What if the Montreal Screwjob never happens?

There’s a lot of ways to look at this one. Let’s start with the scenario that Bret Hart never signs with WCW in the first place. In my opinion, Bret still had a lot left in the tank and plenty to offer the wrestling business. He was still a great in-ring performer and I would have loved to see him get it on with the likes of The Rock or Kurt Angle or many of the other great talents in WWE during the Attitude Era. Hell, I would have loved another program between The Hitman and Stone Cold. If Bret never goes to WCW, would Owen have ever put that Blue Blazer costume back on? Probably not.

Now let’s look at it as Bret still signs with WCW but agrees to drop the belt to Shawn Michaels in Montreal that night. They have another five-star classic and Bret can leave WWE with his head held high knowing he did the right thing for the business. And just to clarify, yes, I am in the camp that believes that Bret should have dropped the belt on his own that night. There’s a way of doing things in professional wrestling and despite the personal disdain he had for HBK, Bret was considered a true professional and should have gone out on his back like he was supposed to.

What the Montreal Screwjob really did was create the Mr. McMahon character and that’s probably the biggest and best thing to come out of this entire scenario. For years, Vince tried to hide that he was the owner of WWE and was just fine being seen as an announcer. This brought something new to the forefront that couldn’t be avoided and Vince does the “Bret screwed Bret” interview and becomes arguably the biggest villain in wrestling history. Without Montreal, the Austin-McMahon rivalry may have never started and Vince might actually be out of business. But that’s not the only thing that could have put WWE out of business.