During a recent episode of Confessions of a Hitman, Bret Hart sought to clarify the differences between the stories surrounding him punching Vince McMahon after the Montreal Screwjob and what actually occurred. Here’s what he had to say:
The Undertaker had a take on it. His take on it a few months ago – and they always say stuff like, ‘Vince probably said before he walked in that he was going to let me take a shot at him.’ I don’t remember that ever happening and I don’t remember Vince saying anything like that to me in my dressing room that he’s going to let me take one shot at him. There was no one shot [offer]. I took my own shot. I doubt that’s the case. [McMahon] never saw it coming.
I think I knew Vince pretty well, especially at the time. What really was happening, I think, was a case of Vince trying to save face with his talent. I don’t know if he expected there to be such an uproar. There was a real uproar with the wrestlers and the talent where they were probably wondering how many wrestlers were going to show up in the dressing room the next day. That kind of thing. So, it was a grandstand moment for him to confront me in the dressing room and sort of look to my better nature. I’m a pretty easy going guy. I think Vince gambled that I was going to take the high road and say a few words to him, and then I would walk out or grab my stuff, and leave the dressing room, and that would be the end of it, and he could say, ‘at least I confronted him.’
The other angle I think Vince thought is we’ll get into a pull apart. This is what I believe Vince thought was going to happen. ‘He’ll confront me, he’ll stand up to me, he’ll almost provoke physicality with me and I’ll take him up on it, and we’ll come at each other, and we grab each other, and as soon as we’ – because there is about 10 guys in the dressing room and they’re all waiting, including Owen, including Davey Boy. I mean, I think they’re all going to jump in and sort of pull us apart, grown men fighting. I think that’s what Vince thought were the two options.
The Undertaker said something about – and I love Undertaker, and I don’t expect everybody who was there to remember exactly the way I did, but it was not an overhead punch. It was an uppercut, and I turned in. And I think it happened so fast that I don’t think anybody might remember it the way I did, but I know how hard I hit Vince.
I remember Jim Neidhart talking, one time, to somebody else who was talking about The Screwjob when we were in the room, and Jim’s memory of it, which was the opposite of The Undertaker but similar in the sense that people have these different memories of what happened, Jim was right there in the room, as was The Undertaker. But I remember Jim telling somebody I got on top of Vince and just wham, wham, I’m beating the crap out of him. And it’s like, I remember going to Jim, like, ‘I didn’t do that! What are you talking about? I hit him one time!’ And Jim was like, ‘really? One time?’ And I was like, ‘yeah, one time!’
Credit: Confessions of a Hitman. H/T WrestlingInc.