JBL Says Montreal Screwjob Wasn’t That Big A Deal With WWE Talent

On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, JBL talked about the locker room reaction to the 1997 Montreal Screwjob, stating that most of the talent was not upset about the incident.

JBL recalled the talent meeting held the next day at Raw in Ottawa, where Vince McMahon, sporting a black eye, addressed the wrestlers. You can check out some highlights below:

On McMahon Giving His Side:

“The guys already knew all this. I mean, Vince laid the whole thing out. That was the day when I guess Foley was talked off the ledge. He was wanting to organize a union, or whatever it was. And guys were debating what to do or what not to do. Conrad, it wasn’t that big a deal with the boys. I’m telling you, it was — what are you going to do?

“Take me for example. I’ve got the job of my lifetime. Now I’m about to go to Japan in a day. I’m literally going over there [with] Barry Windham and hoping to get a job over there, because I don’t think I have my contracts going to be renewed. But you take me for example, I got the job my lifetime. And you’ve got a personal conflict between two huge stars, two great stars. Who are making a ton of money, and justifiably so. That doesn’t involve me whatsoever. And I really don’t care what happened. I just want a job, I got bills to pay back in Texas. And no matter what happens between Shawn and Bret I’m thinking, like most of the guys in locker room, ‘It doesn’t affect me.’”

On Not Being There For the Screwjob:

“Oh, God Almighty, [one] the biggest regrets of my life, Conrad. Me and Barry had got the deal to go to Japan. I’ve told you this many, many times. WCW had a deal with New Japan, with Inoki’s group. Vince wanted a deal with Baba’s group to kind of tit for tat. So me and Windham were kind of going over there as an olive branch. And Barry, per JR, was going to be the liaison between Baba’s group and Vince and WWE. We didn’t realize that Laurinaitis had already filled that role, and we didn’t know the dynamic of the office in Japan. And so just a, I guess, mistaken research that didn’t go on very well. So that part didn’t work out. Then when the Montreal Screwjob happened, they offered me a contract which I didn’t expect. So all of that changed.

“Barry and I have got to go to Japan in a day. So back then, you didn’t stay for a lot of the matches. This is one of the biggest regrets of my life. I left when the match started. Because we had to drive either to Ottawa or somewhere else. About a four or five hour — I give her what it was. We had to drive somewhere, I think it was Ottawa. And we had to drive somewhere to get there for the next day. So believe me, I checked because we wondered if something was going to happen. Taker was there, but Taker was there a lot in case somebody got hurt or something happened. I think he was there though in case Bret or Shawn, something blew up. Which, it certainly could have happened. Either Bret walks out or Shawn walks out, or they get in a fight. Somebody gets a hand broken or something and can’t compete, which could have happened.”

On What He Saw Before He Left:

“So I’m sitting there earlier in the day, and I asked Tim White. I said, ‘Hey Tim, anything going to happen?’… He said, ‘No, I don’t think so. Hadn’t heard a word.’ I said, ‘Okay, Tim is pretty honest guy. I think he would have told me if he knew.’ And in hindsight, he didn’t know. But I’m saying that I trusted him to tell me, because he knew that I wouldn’t tell anybody.

“And so then right before we left, the match had just started. We waited for the match to get in the ring, because that’s when you take off and go because that’s when the parking lot is clear. Everybody’s in the ring, waiting to see the main event. And right before it happened, Dave Hebner comes back and gets the bags out of the dressing room. And I said, ‘What’s up, Dave? Something going on?’ And he said, ‘No, no, no. Just getting our bags to the car.’ I didn’t realize at the exact same time frame, by talking to Gerald Brisco that Briscoe had just told Earl that this was going to happen. This was what he needed to do, because he wanted them to get out of the arena for safety. So Earl had told Dave, because Gerald told Earl, ‘Tell Dave [to] get stuff put in your car.’ Earl didn’t smarten up Dave but he did tell him, ‘Get our stuff and get it in the car. We have to go right after the last match.'”

On No One Having An Idea It Was Going To Happen:

“I didn’t think anything of it. And from what I remember, no one in the dressing room thought anything. There was nobody in that dressing room that thought — there was no talk of a screwjob. There was no talk of something crazy happening, there was no talk of nothing.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestle With an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.