WWE Hall Of Famer Jake Roberts has claimed that he was so frustrated with both Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels that he told Vince McMahon to fire both men.
Throughout 1996 and 1997, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were at war both inside and outside of the ring. At the time both men shared very different views on wrestling and were remarkably different personalities.
The feud which occasionally spilled over into physical violence backstage finally came to a head at Survivor Series in 1997 with the infamous Montreal Screwjob. Desperate not to let Bret Hart head to WCW with the WWE Championship, Vince McMahon concocted a plan which saw Michaels win the title, despite Hart never submitting while trapped in the Sharpshooter.
The real-life tension between Hart and Michaels and McMahon simmered for another decade before they eventually made peace. One man who had a front-row seat to all of the chaos was Jake Roberts. The WWE Hall of Famer returned to the company in 1996 and worked behind the scenes as well as wrestling, until being released in early 1997.
Speaking during an appearance on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, with Chris Jericho, Roberts revealed that he told McMahon to fire both Hart and Michaels as they had become too much trouble:
“I used to have to sit when we were writing television when Shawn and Bret were throwing their p*ssy fights against each other. We would be trying to write television, and Vince would get on the phone for three hours with those two cats. Trying to get them to wrestle each other,” he said. “I said, ‘Vince, what are you doing? Fire the motherf**kers, man, tell them to hit the f**king road.’”
Following the events of Montreal, Bret Hart made his way to WCW while Shawn Michaels’ time in WWE was cut short due to injury with his final match in the company at the time coming at WrestleMania 14 in 1998. Michaels maintained an on-screen presence with the company before eventually returning to the ring at SummerSlam in 2002.
h/t to Wrestling Inc.