Screwed: The Bret Hart Story - Lost Wrestling Media

In 2005, Bret Hart and Vince McMahon decided to put their differences aside and work together on a DVD set celebrating The Hitman’s legendary career. Hitting shelves on November 15 of that year, the three-disc Bret Hart: The Best There Is, the Best There Was, the Best There Ever Will Be marked the first time Bret had appeared on camera in anything related to WWE since the 1997 Survivor Series, when Hart’s time in the company came to an infamous end with the Montreal Screwjob. 

Though the DVD that was ultimately released was a glowing retrospective of an all-time great, it was originally going to be anything but. WWE filmed material for an alternative DVD set to be called Screwed: The Bret Hart Story, but that project ended up never seeing the light of day. 

What exactly would Screwed have been? Why was it made? Why was it shelved? And will we ever get to watch this piece of lost wrestling media?

The Post-Montreal Screwjob Relationship

Bret Hart had a great WWE career, working for the company from August 1984 until that fateful night in Montreal on November 9, 1997. A hard-working and loyal soldier who was in the trenches during some tough times, the Excellence of Execution worked his way up the card and went from tag team specialist to singles star, winning the Intercontinental Title twice and the WWE Title five times. 

After the Screwjob, Bret headed to WCW and his career ended for good in early 2000 after Hart suffered a number of concussions following an errant kick thrown by Goldberg in their WCW World Heavyweight Title main event at Starrcade 1999. 

Though gone from the company at the time, Bret did meet with Vince McMahon in secret in a Calgary park around the time of Owen Hart’s funeral in May of 1999. 

Regarding that meeting, Vince told Michael Landsberg during an appearance on TSN’s Off the Record not long after:

"Bret carried the entire conversation. I really thought he wanted to talk about Owen. He mentioned Owen one sentence and the rest of it was about Bret. All that he wanted to talk about was himself, nothing to do with his brother. It was looking into the eyes of a skeleton, in some respects. It seemed like he wasn’t human. It was a very weird experience."

At the time, Bret was legally unable to talk about his brother due to pending legal action, something McMahon was well aware of.

WWE continued to take shots at Hart in the coming years, whether it was repeatedly replicating the Montreal Screwjob as a match finish - including once in front of Bret’s father Stu, who was sitting front row - or mocking his exit in the ‘Lonely Road of Faith’ desire video. Bret, for his part, also continued to bash the company in interviews and through his regular article in the Calgary Sun newspaper.

Then, on May 25, 2002, the new kayfabe-breaking, behind-the-scenes show WWE Confidential premiered. The first episode mostly focused on Shawn Michaels, who was preparing for an in-ring return after a four-year absence, which led to a discussion about the Montreal Screwjob from Michaels, Vince McMahon, and Gerald Brisco. In it, Michaels admitted for the first time that he had prior knowledge of the screwjob, having vigorously denied it since it happened in 1997.

The Confidential piece almost appeared to be a sneak peek at what Screwed might have been, with Michaels and everyone involved in the Screwjob portrayed as the gutsy heroes, while Bret was the ingrate refusing to follow through with the ‘time-honoured’ tradition of the business. 

In another episode of Confidential focused on the death of WCW, Hulk Hogan tried to blame the fall of that multi-million-dollar company on Bret’s WCW contract, which was considered a deep stretching of the truth, even for Hogan.

Regardless, it was clear that WWE had no time for The Hitman and would take any opportunity to disparage his name and reputation in the early 2000s.

Then, just weeks after the Montreal Screwjob episode of Confidential aired, Bret Hart suffered a stroke after taking a bad fall while out riding his bicycle. 

It was a serious situation, and one of the first people to reach out to Hart by phone while he was recovering in the hospital was his former boss. Bret described receiving the call from McMahon, saying on Confessions of the Hitman:

"[McMahon] called me up in the hospital, and I remember I was very stunned that he called me in the hospital. Maybe it was Day 3 of my stroke and I was in pretty rough shape still. I could hardly talk and I couldn't sit up or anything. I was pretty frail, and when you have a stroke, you're pretty messed up. But he gave me a very heartfelt pep talk.

"'You’re a fighter. You're going to beat this. You're going to show everyone you're going to get through this. It really meant a lot to me.'"

The two men also discussed working on a project together to celebrate Hart's career, something Bret had wanted to do for years, stretching back to his time as a wrestler in WWE when he wanted to release a VHS of his best matches.

Hart had always wanted to be remembered for the positive contributions he’d made to the business. The project was also further inspired by a young fan that Bret met in the dentist’s office who had a Bret Hart action figure, but had never seen any of Bret’s matches and only knew him from video games. 

Speaking to New Zealand pro wrestling news site NZPWI in May of 2003, Bret said about the mooted compilation:

“I always told Vince McMahon that I wanted to be remembered and respected for what I contributed. He understood that, I think we have an understanding and something’s going to be in the works there, but I’ve learned that sometimes what people say, unless you have it written down, people have a way of forgetting what they promised.”

A Hitjob on the Hitman

There wasn’t much progress on the project in the two years that followed, though WWE did try and tempt Bret into making an appearance at WrestleMania 20, which he declined. Then, at some point in the spring of 2005, Vince called The Hitman and told him that they were going to release a DVD called Screwed: The Bret Hart Story.

The company were already planning to release The Self-Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior, which not only detailed the trials and tribulations of Jim Hellwig’s alter-ego, but featured many of his former co-workers trashing not just the character and his career, but the man himself. That DVD would result in subsequent legal action and more bitter feelings between Warrior and WWE, something that would persist for close to a decade after. 

Bret, when talking about the similarities between Screwed and The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, said that he felt it was hard to feel sympathy for Hellwig as a person, but that he deserved better than what he got and was entitled to his fair place in wrestling history.

When Bret heard of Vince’s plan, he kindly reminded the WWE Chairman that this wasn’t what they had discussed when it came to chronicling Hart’s career and that they should do something more positive. According to Bret, when Vince had pitched Screwed, he was laughing on the phone, which upset Hart. 

When Bret countered that he was promised something more dignified than a documentary predominantly focused on the events of the Montreal Screwjob, Vince did a total 180 and told Bret he could basically be in charge of the project and have creative control of it. What Bret didn’t know, but would soon find out, was that Screwed had already been filmed and was, in fact, nearly complete. 

"The title of the DVD was to be Screwed and when Vince called me to partake in it, I said that I would never be a part of it. When I eventually saw it, it was nearly complete, and it was right up there with the Ultimate Warrior’s DVD. I told Vince that my career was never about what had happened at Survivor Series or about Owen’s death," Bret told Slam Wrestling in 2006. 

Hart also told The Sun while promoting The Best There Is, Best There Was and Best There Ever Will Be that what he had seen of Screwed wasn’t very good and featured a lot of people he had personal issues with, including Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan, and Jerry Lawler, who all spent time calling him a bad businessman and overrated wrestler. Hart has since patched things up with Michaels and Lawler, but at that time they were absolutely towing the company line when it came to their Bret-bashing. 

Following McMahon’s invitation, though, Bret became heavily involved in the DVD. Gone were Michaels, Lawler and Hogan and in were Bret’s friends and allies in Steve Austin, Chris Benoit, and Roddy Piper. Bret also chose the matches and made editorial decisions about how things like the Screwjob and Owen’s death would be handled. 

The finished project was a triumph, the first of many such sets dedicated to Bret’s career. Before the documentary portion played, Vince McMahon gave a short address thanking Bret for putting aside their differences in order to make the DVD a reality. Bret would later say during an appearance on WWE’s internet show Byte This! that Vince "bent over backwards" to make sure that things were done right with the DVD, and he appreciated the effort. 

Hart did also say that he felt Screwed was a way to "strongarm" him into coming back and working with WWE. Regardless of how and why it happened, it was the first major step in the ice thawing and led to Bret being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in April of 2006.

Does Screwed Exist and Will It Ever Be Seen?

So what happened to the original product? Does Screwed: The Bret Hart Story actually exist and will it ever be seen? 

Since WWE likes to have a copy of everything they ever do, the odds are the footage is sitting in an archive or warehouse somewhere. There is really no reason for it to be seen, though, since WWE and Hart are on much better terms today and The Hitman’s legend has only continued to grow.