10 Real Life Events That Forced WWE Title Changes (2)

2. Shawn Michaels And Bret Hart At Survivor Series 1997

Bret Hart was the WWE Champion heading into Survivor Series in Montreal. He was also somebody that had signed to leave WWE to go to World Championship Wrestling. The reason that Vince McMahon gave him is he couldn’t afford to keep him anymore. What he wanted from Bret on his way out was to put over Shawn Michaels for the WWE Title. The problem with that was Bret had a very personal rivalry with Shawn that led to him refusing to put Shawn over in Canada.
The reason Bret didn’t want to put Shawn over was they legitimately hated each other by that point. They each made personal comments about the other while also engaging in a backstage fight several months earlier. Due to the competitive nature of the business, their egos were too strong to allow them to do business the right way.
Bret was told that the match would be a DQ finish. Vince had other plans as he devised a secret plan involving Shawn, ref Earl Hebner and a few others. In Vince’s mind, he had to get the WWE Title off Bret because he was worried that he might leave Survivor Series and take the championship with him on WCW Nitro. If that happened it would have been a huge blow to WWE. Maybe Vince was paranoid to think Bret would do that, but at the height of the Monday Night Wars it wasn’t a crazy thought either.
Looking back on it, obviously they all would have liked things to be different. However, on that night November night in Montreal, Vince had to do what he thought was best for his company. Because of that, ref Earl Hebner rang the bell even though Bret had not given up and Shawn left with the WWE Title.
There will likely never be another situation similar to this one. It’s one of the most famous matches ever, but it was also something that WWE wishes never happened.