Shawn Michaels won the WWF Championship at Survivor Series 1997 after the Montreal Screwjob. He defeated Bret Hart at the Bell Centre in Montreal on November 9, 1997.
The match was contested under Hart’s submission stipulation, and Michaels applied Hart’s own Sharpshooter. Although Hart did not submit, referee Earl Hebner called for the bell after WWF owner Vince McMahon instructed him to signal the finish. The decision awarded Michaels the championship.
Hart believed the match was supposed to continue and had not agreed to lose by submission. The incident became one of professional wrestling’s most discussed controversies and helped inspire Hart’s later “Bret Hart: Hitman” stories and the phrase “screwed Bret.”
Michaels’ victory also marked the beginning of the first major WWF title reign of the D-Generation X era. The event remains distinct from the subsequent Montreal-based storyline, which used the controversy as a central part of Hart’s WWE presentation.