Earl Hebner Looks Back at Montreal Screwjob, Says He Went Along With It Because Of Gerald Brisco

Earl Hebner was a big part of the Montreal Screwjob, and he recently looked back at the infamous match with Gerald Brisco and JBL. Hebner, who was the referee for the Survivor Series 1997 match that saw Bret Hart legitimately screwed out of his WWE Championship, appeared on Stories With Brisco and Bradshaw and talked about the whole sequence of events — particularly his conversation with Brisco, who was the person that told him about the plan before the match. You can see highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:

On his reaction to being told about the finish: “When Brisco gave me the news … I told my brother to get my s**t together [to put in our car]. When Brisco was talking to me, he laid it out, and I go ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ [On] this arm, Brisco grabbed me. ‘What do you mean you don’t know? He’s got a $3 million contract down there [in WCW]. Is he gonna give you any of it? What are you gonna do?’ I go ‘I don’t know, Jerry.'”

On being asked by Hart not to count him out: “He goes ‘You won’t count me out?’ I go ‘No.’ I didn’t count him out, if you go back and look!”

On believing that Hart would screw WWE over: “I felt like, honestly, after talking to you [Brisco] and you talking to me, he was robbing the roster. He didn’t care about nobody, in a sense, from what he wanted to do and what he could have done, and he was hurting everybody.”

On Brisco’s impact on his decision to go along with it: “I don’t think anybody [else] there could have told me what you told me and I’d have went along with it. Because truthfully, in my heart, you were the person that was picked for this, as far as making up my mind to do what I did, because any other agent? I don’t think I would have taken it to heart to do it.”