Bret Hart Says If Survivor Series 1997 Match Happened As Planned, We’d Be Talking About It More Than Montreal Screwjob

In the latest episode of Confessions of the Hitman (via Wrestling Inc), Bret Hart spoke about his Survivor Series 1997 match with Shawn Michaels and said that if it happened as planned, people would talk about it more than the Montreal Screwjob. Here are highlights:

On his Survivor Series match with Shawn Michaels: “We may not have liked each other that much, but we sure had some great matches together, and we really worked hard to perform together. Like, even the match – The Montreal Screwjob match – before the whole screwjob happened, is a five-star match. We tore an incredible pace. We we were going for 15 minutes before we even got into the ring, and then, we did about 10 minutes in the ring. But we had another 25 minutes of a match that was planned out. If it had ever happened, it could have been one of the greatest matches of all time. And we’d be talking about that more today than the actual Screwjob.”

On Jake Roberts calling him one of the worst World Champions: “I take exception. Jake Roberts is one of those guys who a few months ago said something about– he made a stupid comment about the two worst champions there ever were were Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. And he made some reference that we didn’t draw, which is always– I don’t know if that’s a fair view. If you look at any of the WrestleManias – WrestleMania 12 – you can’t tell me, if you look at the crowd, that I didn’t draw. I mean, it was huge buyrates and it was a packed [arena]. Even Wembley [Stadium] with [The British] Bulldog was over 80,000 fans there. And to try to throw out, ‘hey, you never drew?’ I wrestled in front of 100,000 people in India for [WWE] in 1994. We drew, but maybe in the United States, you could argue that I didn’t draw in the way that Hulk Hogan drew. But, I mean, who did? Who drew like Hulk Hogan did? It was a phenomenon in 1984 when WrestleMania had the whole sort of rebirth of [pro] wrestling happened, and the numbers that happened at that time were unprecedented.”