20 years ago - RIP Owen Hart

[sarkerpolseng]

I never thought of it until I heard that podcast. That ring was a crime scene. Should have not been used after.

[TheDieselTrain]

Sad sad day. But glad to see him getting love on Twitter today. I was in full mark mode during the attitude era and was on my senior trip out of the country when it happened and was doubly upset that I couldn’t watch RAW the next night before I even knew what happened.

As a guy who has an older twin brother same age but I’m still younger and we obviously had comparisons so I related to Owen more than Bret.

Sucks that Blazer/Godfather didn’t really even get any build up for their match.

I still jam out to Blue Blazers theme and his nation theme.

Since his contract wasn’t up till sometime in 2000 supposedly assuming the Game thing wasn’t meant for him I always imagained him since as the Blazer he wanted to clean up the WWF how could he not be the leader or RTC

RIP

[BRAINFADE]

The worst wrestling tragedy of all, something that happened to such a good guy that absolutely could have been avoided.

I know that talking about what he could have done in the ring is a bit trivial given the circumstances, and I know by all accounts he was planning on retirement soon after, but man, imagine if he had stayed around for another year and worked with some of the talent they brought in? Owen vs. Benoit, Owen vs. Eddie, Owen vs. Jericho, Owen vs. Angle. He would have been great in that mid card mix in 2000.

[Perfect Timing]

I remember going to school the next day and feeling sad. He always entertained me, really won me over during his Bret feud and the win at Mania. His tag team with Bulldog was pretty good and of course the whole slammy thing was funny. He really didn't need to be doing the Blazer gimmick at the time, you could see he was slowing down a lot but it just seemed random and was a on and off thing since late 98. The team with Jarrett could of easily contined until Jarrett departed.

[auph10imitated]

20 years. My god I remember like it was yesterday. I finished high school the previous Friday and was going in to do my final exams the Monday following, I watched this Monday morning before I left and boy did it play on my mind. I’d only just got internet access a month prior so I had only just got access to the news sites.

It’s crazy to think he was only 34 and thinking of retiring. Even crazier to think I’m only 35 now, one year older than he was when he died.

[salz4life]

May 23, 2019 10:20:57 GMT -5 Tiger Millionaire said:

I know it's become hipster to say this, but Owen was always my favorite Hart. I loved him, in the same way I loved a guy like Angle, Piper, Regal, guys who could be ass kickers, but could also do comedy.

Owen stories will never get old to me. His ribs are legendary to me. The one with his dad where Owen was pretending to be Reg Parks and trying to get his dad to come to the hotel lobby to fight him is HYSTERICAL to me.

[salz4life]

I remember I didn't get the PPV but happened to jump on AOL to see if I could find out what was happening and that's how I found out.

[ayumidah]

Yeah, I'd been watching WWE about four months at that stage. We didn't order PPVs in those days but we could hear them and KIND OF see stuff through the scrambled channel, so I came home and Dad told me what happened. It was really sad, that and the memorial show the next night.

One of WWE's former photographers posted this on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156445031359503&set=a.72260294502&type=3

[Derk!]

I was only 15 at the time, but i still remember it like yesterday. So many "what ifs" all because of a stupid stunt.

As a fan, I miss him as a performer. But I can't even fathom how much he is missed by his family and friends.

RIP To the King of Harts.

[Perd]

I always think about what must’ve been going through his mind during those final( awful moments. Knowing that he didn’t want to do the stunt. Such a needless tragedy.

[MrElijah]

May 23, 2019 12:12:52 GMT -5 salz4life said:

May 23, 2019 10:20:57 GMT -5 Tiger Millionaire said:

I know it's become hipster to say this, but Owen was always my favorite Hart. I loved him, in the same way I loved a guy like Angle, Piper, Regal, guys who could be ass kickers, but could also do comedy.

Owen stories will never get old to me. His ribs are legendary to me. The one with his dad where Owen was pretending to be Reg Parks and trying to get his dad to come to the hotel lobby to fight him is HYSTERICAL to me.

The best one wasn't even a rib but ending up with Jim Cornette telling Stu Hart that Bruce Pritchard is a f***ing pervert.

[fw91]

May 23, 2019 13:49:15 GMT -5 MrElijah said:

May 23, 2019 12:12:52 GMT -5 salz4life said:

Owen stories will never get old to me. His ribs are legendary to me. The one with his dad where Owen was pretending to be Reg Parks and trying to get his dad to come to the hotel lobby to fight him is HYSTERICAL to me.

The best one wasn't even a rib but ending up with Jim Cornette telling Stu Hart that Bruce Pritchard is a f***ing pervert.

Some may think it’s cruel, but loved the one where he pretended to be a representative from the tonight show over the phone and convinced Ahmed Johnson he was booked

[adamclark52]

May 23, 2019 9:54:24 GMT -5 thecrusherwi said:

It was just so damn unnecessary. Even if it was executed perfectly, it basically adds nothing to the show. Would anyone even remember that stunt today? What a damn shame. It still makes me angry. Always will.

It was probably to make Sting and WCW look silly and Vince would’ve remembered it

[chronocross]

May 23, 2019 9:54:24 GMT -5 thecrusherwi said:

It was just so damn unnecessary. Even if it was executed perfectly, it basically adds nothing to the show. Would anyone even remember that stunt today? What a damn shame. It still makes me angry. Always will.

It definitely wouldn't have added anything to the show, he actually does the stunt on the 11/15/98 Sunday Night Heat before Survivor Series and Steve Blackman beats him up while he's strapped in the harness and I doubt anyone remembered that once the PPV went off the air that night.

[MiLB Fan]

I ordered the show that night, but thanks to my shitty cable company it didn’t come on until about halfway through. So I missed the promo when the accident happened, but I did see Jim Ross making the announcement that Owen died. I had school the next day, so my dad taped the replay for me.

So yes, that means that my video collection includes a copy of Over the Edge as it happened. I have only watched it once, when I converted all my WWE and WCW tapes to DVD.

I first saw the Blue Blazer character on a Coliseum Video of WrestleMania V; my fandom was still relatively new so I loved it. I was a big fan of futuristic-type gimmicks such as this and Max Moon, probably because this was back when everyone was thinking “whoa, the year 2000! What’s that gonna be like?!”

Twenty years ... damn.

[hbkid718]

I didn't watch PPVs live. My neighbor watched them and recorded them and then gave me the tape to watch. NBC was airing a movie about Jesse Ventura and during a commercial for the news that was coming on at 11, the news anchor mentioned something about a wrestler falling to his death. A little while later, my neighbor came across the street and told me what happened. I couldn't believe it. I was in my senior year in a High School. The next day, was our last day of finals. One of my friends came to school with an arm band on his arm, with "OH" written on it. The teachers made him take it off.

My favorite memory of Owen Hart took place at a live event at Nassau Coliseum in the Summer of 1997. Steve Austin just got his neck broken by Hart. A scheduled tag team match between Austin & Dude Love VS Hart & The British Bulldog was canceled, so it was Dude Love VS Hart in a Long Island Street Fight with Austin & Bulldog in their respective corners. Love found a bag of popcorn under the ring and hit Hart with it. Owen sold it like it was a steel chair and stayed down for a long time, while everyone else was cracking up. I will never forget that or Owen as long as I live.

[ben:friendship frog]

Crazy to think it's been 20 years. Crazier to think WCW thought throwing Kanyon off a triple cage in the same arena less than a year after was a good idea.

20 years later and it's still as senseless and unbelievable as it was then.

[Can you afford to pay me, Gah]

Can't believe it's already been 20 years. Still can't believe he is gone and how much I miss him. One of my favorite workers of all time. Great guy from what I have read about him and deserved so much better.

[Deleted]

it's sad he saved so much money for a retirement he never got to see

[RI Richmark]

I think that was one of those days where every wrestling fan remembers where they were when it happened. I didn't watch the PPV that night as I would only order the big 4 back then. With the others I would wait until 11:00 then go online to find out what happened.

While I was waiting I watched that God awful NBC Jessie Ventura movie (remember that?). The local news was coming on next and they said they we're going to have a piece about the popularity of wrestling. I was interested so waited for that. Just as they were about to air the piece the anchorwoman said "in fact NBC News has reported and the WWF has confirmed that wrestler Owen Hart, known as the Blue Blazer, has died following an accident in the ring." There was nothing after that. They aired their piece (which mostly covered a local indy promotion) and went on with the rest on the broadcast.

I was in shock. The idea of a wrestler dying in the ring was just so inconceivable to me.

I tried to go online but my family had this weird setup back then in which the entire family shared one account and if one person was online if you tried to go on from another computer you were locked out. It turned out that my brother, who was in college at the time, was using the computer to do research for a paper so I couldn't get on. In fact my repeated attempts to log on had knocked him offline and he called wondering what was up. I told him about it and while he understood, his paper was too important so I had to wait.

While waiting I flipped around all the news and sports channels trying to find any more news but none of them were covering it. I finally got online around 12:30 and stayed on almost all night getting any news and reactions I could.

The next day there was a lot of coverage of the accident on the local sports talk shows. Most of it was condemning Vince for letting the show go on.

I still remember Raw that night. In fact I still have a tape of it somewhere. It was far different than any Raw before. And that's where I first learned of the true Owen Hart. Remember back then the internet was still relatively new. There was no Facebook, no Twitter. Wrestlers' lives weren't as open as they are now. I mean I knew Owen Hart wasn't the villain he portrayed on tv but I never knew what a fun loving pranksters he was. I never knew how much his fellow wrestlers loved him.

And it wasn't just Owen. In those vignettes we didn't hear from Triple H, Chyna and Road Dogg. We heard from Paul Levesque, Joan Laurer and Brian James. It wasn't the wrestlers we were hearing from, it was the very real people behind those wrestlers.

I wish I had something more profound to finish this. It's tragic that Owen's gone. I feel for his wife and kids who had to grow up without him. I feel for his brothers, colleagues and friends who still miss him. They're all in my thoughts tonight.