WWE Survivor Series: Ranking the 10 Greatest Matches

1) Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWE Championship (1997)

Yes, the very infamous “Montreal Screwjob” that was considered one of the biggest moments in professional wrestling history. Going into the match, there was a lot of excitement since it was expected to be a chance for Michaels to, in many ways, take the torch passed onto him from Hart.

The Hitman was planning on making the jump to WCW and Hart was finishing out his run as the WWE Champion at the time. The only request that Hart had was to not lose the belt to Michaels at the Survivor Series pay-per-view in his home country of Canada. There was an understanding between the two parties backstage, as seen in the Wrestling with Shadows television movie that came out in 1998.

The two had real-life issues in the past that included a backstage fight that gave Michaels a two-month suspension. But it looked as if both were willing to be professional. During the final moments of the match, Michaels put Hart in the Sharpshooter and before anyone blinked, the referee Earl Hebner called for the bell and claimed that Hart had tapped out.

Next: WWE Survivor Series: 3 Obvious Match Results

Sure, there might be some people who question giving a match with such a controversial ending a high ranking. But there’s no denying how this match had created so much buzz that was held over for nearly two decades with it being brought up. This story does have a happy ending after there were years with both having strong words and moving on to their separate paths – HBK in WWE and Hart in WCW. Both Hart and Michaels finally made amends years later on a 2010 episode of Raw.