5 Stars Vince McMahon Fought Then Made Amends With

#1 Bret 'Hitman' Hart

Vince McMahon and Bret Hart prior to the Montreal Screwjob

Every wrestling fan knows the reasons for Vince McMahon's eight-year falling out with one of his longest tenured superstars ever, Bret 'Hitman' Hart.

Prior to the 1997 edition of Survivor Series, from Montreal, Quebec, Hart and McMahon had been at loggerheads as to how WWE Champion Hart would lose the Championship before he left the company for rivals, WCW.

Hart had never wanted to leave and one year earlier had signed a 20-year contract extension. However, McMahon cited financial pressure as a reason he could not afford to pay Hart any longer and encouraged him to secure a deal with WCW.

Hart reluctantly acquiesced but requested that he lose the title somewhere else other than Canada, given his hero status in his homeland.

Unbeknownst to Hart, McMahon was privately seething that one of his employees was dictating to him, how and when he would lose his own Championship.

Bret Hart and Vince McMahon bury the hatchet in 2005

At the urging of Shawn Michaels and Triple H, McMahon decided to screw Hart out of the title for real at the Survivor Series event. Michaels and Triple H convinced McMahon that Hart may show up in WCW with the WWE Championship, forcing him to panic at the thought of his Champion denigrating the title on the opposition's television show as his former Women's Champion, Alundra Blayze/Madusa had done.

However, the situations were completely different. McMahon had fired Blayze and had no interest in the Women's division, scrapping it on terminating Blayze's contract. He was so unconcerned that he didn't even bother to take the title belt back off her before she was released. Hart had been a loyal member of team McMahon since the early 1980s. He was not going to burn his bridges in that manner.

Despite that fact, even if Hart did want to stick it to McMahon, legally he couldn't. Hart's contract lasted through November. The Survivor Series event took place on November 9. It was never going to happen.

However, McMahon had convinced himself it would. So, at the Survivor Series, Hart entered the main event, believing he would retain the belt via a Double Disqualification but unbeknownst to him, McMahon and his inner circle had plotted to screw Hart at a point in the match when Michaels had him locked in a Sharpshooter submission.

The rest, as they say, is history. Hart left and he and McMahon did not speak again until Hart's younger brother, Owen's funeral in mid-1999.

The hatchet was finally buried in 2005, when McMahon invited Hart back to the company to record an interview and select matches for a "Best of" DVD.

Five years later, the pair played out their former feud on television where Hart gained onscreen revenge, defeating McMahon in a featured match at WrestleMania XXVI.