For the first pick of Round 10,
Team Malfunction Junction selects, in the
Storyline category:
Screwjob Aftermath - the birth of Mr. McMahon and the Attitude Era.
Prior to Survivor Series 1997, Vince McMahon had always played two roles in the WWF...Off camera, he was the owner and driving force behind the company. On camera, he was the lead announcer and head cheerleader to the faces.
That duality changed after the infamous "Montreal Screwjob", where McMahon called for a quick bell and hurriedly rushed Shawn Michaels out of the arena as he clutched his newly awarded (but not won) World Championship belt.
In the aftermath of "Montreal", McMahon had to face the anger of both his employees and his fans. Mick Foley refused to work the Raw show the night after Survivor Series, and Rick Rude (who had been a member of D-X) walked out of the company and joined WCW, which gave him the unique distinction of the being the only performer (prior to the WWF's purchase of WCW) to appear on an episode of Raw and an episode of Nitro on the same night (the following week's Raw was prerecorded, and Rude walked out between that taping and the next live Nitro broadcast).
At first, fans thought that the screwjob was just another wrestling storyline, and expected Hart to get his revenge on Michaels the next night on Raw. When Hart never appeared, the fans wanted answers...and Vince McMahon (still sporting the black eye received from Hart) gave them his side of the story in an exclusive interview with Jim Ross, where he uttered his soon to be famous line "Bret screwed Bret".
Prior to Montreal, Raw had been frequently losing the Monday Night wrestling ratings to Nitro, and Vince had started to introduce new, more risque storylines and characters (such as wrestling porn star, Val Venis) to the WWF, in an effort to gain viewers who wanted "shock television" (which was popular on shows like Jerry Springer at the time).
Bret had made his displeasure with this direction the company was taking well known to Vince. On the other hand, Shawn Michaels and Triple H had embraced the new "WWF Attitude". It's no surprise who it was that Vince thought was expendable.
As 1997 drew to an end, the WWF introduced its new "scratch logo", a variation of which (after they got "the F out") is still in use today, and fully embraced what it was now calling "WWF Attitude".
Vince realized that the negative fan reaction he faced after the screwjob could be turned in his favour. Vince left the announcer's position and fully embraced his bad side, becoming "Mr. McMahon", the evil owner of the WWF. The added bonus was that if he was the company's top heel, he knew he'd never have to worry about losing his top heel to WCW.
McMahon fully established himself as the heel owner, during the lead-up to Wrestlemania 14, when he tried to do everything in his power to prevent Steve Austin from winning the WWF title, including hiring Mike Tyson to be the "special enforcer", who was supposed to be aligned with Shawn Michaels and DX. Tyson aided Austin at 'Mania, allowing Austin to win his first World Title, and the stage was set for the epic feud between Austin and McMahon, and for the WWF to win the Monday Night Wars.
The Raw episode that aired the week after Wrestlemania 14 was the first episode of Raw to defeat Nitro in the ratings in nearly 2 years. Starting with the first week of November 1998 (nearly one year after the Montreal Screwjob), Raw won the Monday Night War every week until Nitro was eventually canceled and the WWF purchased WCW.