Wrestling.net.au

Break It Down
By Manny Tsigas

The Death of Owen Hart: Ten Years On

You know those moments where you hear something so shocking that you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard it? The most obvious example is September 11, 2001. I’d just finished watching an episode of Rove Live featuring an interview with none other than Bret “The Hitman” Hart. I went to bed at around 11pm, probably worrying about what the next day of school would bring me. I woke up the next morning and heard a very sombre tone coming from my favourite breakfast radio program. When I realised what had happened, I turned on the TV to see footage of the planes slamming into the buildings plastered on every channel.

A few days later I read an interview with Bret Hart where he thanked the Australian people for approaching him and expressing their deepest sorrow over the attacks. Sure, he was from Canada, but there wasn’t a man alive who didn’t feel something when they heard what took place that day.

Another one of those moments happened to me around two years earlier, which also inadvertently involved Bret Hart. It was May 24, 1999 and I’d just arrived at school. I went upstairs to the library to skim through the newspapers before class when I came across a near full-page photo of Owen Hart in a match with Razor Ramon. I was stunned as I read the article below, describing how Hart plunged to his death while being lowered into the ring during his entrance as The Blue Blazer at the Over the Edge pay-per-view. The plan was to lower Owen from the rafters of the Kemper Arena for his Intercontinental Championship match against The Godfather. But a release mechanism on Owen’s harness was triggered too early, causing him to fall around 25 meters and land chest-first on the top rope near one of the turnbuckles.

No-one at home saw any of this – a taped vignette was shown as he was supposed to make his grand entrance. But between that and a pre-recorded interview with Kevin Kelly, the tone in JR’s voice suggested something went very, very " class="mcevisualaid" target="_blank" title="Owen1">wrong. This was back in the day when Australia didn’t broadcast PPVs, so my brother and I didn’t see the PPV until about a month later (on a tape her used to acquire from “a friend of a friend”). Ten years on, it remains one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to sit through. After the EMTs scrambled to try and revive him, Owen was transported to Truman Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The next edition of RAW was one that’s been burned into my memory. Kayfabe had always been firmly in place within Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation, and with the exception of a few rare instances – including the Montreal Screwjob – it never wavered. But on that night affectionately titled RAW is Owen, the WWF put that all to one side. I remember Mick Foley talking about how his children always referred to Owen by his unflattering nickname, “Nugget” (coined by Shawn Michaels after he compared Hart to a nugget of faeces sticking to the side of a toilet bowl, and no matter how many times Michaels flushed, it just kept sticking around.) Bradshaw mentioned how frugal Owen was with his money. And the man-mountain Mark Henry was reduced to a blubbering mess and he recited a poem he’d written for “the Black Hart”.

While the wrestling world was devastated, some in the media were having a field day. Various news outlets criticised the WWF for continuing the PPV after the accident (and rightly so). Others weren’t so sensitive. I remember Good News Week poking fun at the incident by saying after Owen died in the ring, he went on to receive a Stone Cold stunner. But that was nothing compared to the backlash that came after comments made by Dermott Brereton and Jason Dunstall. In a radio broadcast they joked about how Hart ironically plunged to his death at a PPV called Over the Edge.

Owen was part of one of wrestling’s most decorated dynasties – a student of Stu Hart’s infamous dungeon. He was crowned King of the Ring, and held the Tag Team, European and Intercontinental belts throughout a brilliant career. But despite it all, I’m embarrassed to admit that my fondest memories involving Owen were usually at his expense. The first that comes to mind was when " class="mcevisualaid" target="_blank" title="Owen2">D-Generation X mocked the Nation of Domination, which included a few stabs at Owen’s wrestling attire and the size of his nose.

Another was when he legitimately injured Stone Cold Steve Austin with a " class="mcevisualaid" target="_blank" title="Owen3">botched piledriver – one of the most devastating pieces of wrestling footage you’re ever likely to see.

He lost the best match I’d ever seen him in - Summerslam 1994 against Bret Hart inside a steel cage at the height of their fierce sibling rivalry. Bret, the face, may have retained his title but Owen had the last laugh as he and Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart padlocked the cage, and beat Bret mercilessly until the other Harts could intervene.

Before that there was WrestleMania X, where the brothers put on a wrestling clinic before Owen managed to pin Bret clean. But Owen would then brim with jealousy as he watched the Hitman win the WWF Title in the same night against Yokozuna.

I was 15 at the time of Owen’s death, and while I was a huge wrestling fan I hadn’t paid that much attention to the men and women behind the characters portrayed in the squared circle. It was about a year before I was introduced to the wonders of the World Wide Web, so I was still very much a wide-eyed and innocent wrestling mark. So if there’s one thing I credit Owen Hart with, it was sparking an interest within me to start reading between the ropes. From that point on I wanted to know more about the wrestlers, which led to the politics and the various scandals which have plagued the business since then.

His death also helped me realise the importance of not taking wrestlers for granted. Owen wasn’t the biggest, or the baddest, or the most celebrated wrestler to ever grace the squared circle. But he was always there – a mainstay within one of the most unique forms of entertainment. Regardless of whether you’re the biggest in the business, or a “jobber to the stars” (which is how many people labelled Owen), it takes a special kind of person to walk that isle and set foot in the ring. Commitment. Respect. Grandeur. Courage.

These were the qualities that the King of Harts had in spades.

R.I.P Owen James Hart.

Manny Tsigas is a journalist for SBS World News Australia, and a lifelong wrestling fan. When he’s not watching, reviewing and obsessing over films, he also enjoys music, writing, anime, videogames, stand up comedy and anything to do with the 1980s.

Comments: