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OWEN HART 10 YRS. AGO: Torch Newsletter #550 cover story on Owen Hart's death (PART TWO) - May 23, 1999
May 23, 2009 - 5:14:11 PM |
Torch VIP members have access to past Torch Newsletters, including the Torch's in-depth coverage of Owen Hart's death ten years ago today when a stunt during the WWE "Over the Edge" PPV went wrong. Printed below is Torch editor Wade Keller's five-page cover story on Owen's death.
Torch Newsletter #550 - cover dated May 29, 1999
By Wade Keller, Torch editor
OWEN HART'S CAREER
Owen Hart began wrestling at age 21 in 1986 for his father's Calgary Stampede promotion. He won his first title, the British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title, from Les Thorton on Oct. 25, 1986 in Edmonton, Alb. He captured the Calgary Stampede North American Hvt. Title from Makhan Singh (Mike Shaw) on Jan. 19, 1987 to begin the first of two title reigns. He held the Calgary Stampede tag team titles with Ben Bassarab and even once with his father Stu. He quickly became an international phenom for his innovative flying moves. He was regarded as the most dynamic, sensational athlete to enter the North American wrestling scene in years. His ring style was innovative, yet silky smooth. He became a junior heavyweight star for New Japan in the early years of his career while also wrestling in Germany, England, and Mexico. In 1988 the WWF hired him, but he didn't have the size that the WWF at that time looked for in a main eventer. He also lacked the traditional charisma and interview skills that were expected of a top star. He was given the Blue Blazer gimmick, but was mainly an opening match wrestler. Many saw the WWF's use of Owen as a complete misuse of a potential superstar, but Vince McMahon disagreed. Owen was lost in the shuffle of bigger wrestlers who were better talkers. At his first Wrestlemania appearance in 1989, he lost in five minutes to Curt Hennig. He took two years off from the WWF, wrestling in Europe and briefly for WCW. His wife says he spent a lot of that time travelling with her.
Owen eventually returned to the WWF without his mask. He teamed in 1991 with Jim Neidhart as "The New Foundation." In 1992 after Neidhart left the WWF, he teamed with Koko B. Ware as "High Energy." In 1993 Owen, then nicknamed "The Rocket," became a singles wrestler. He still didn't receive a significant push. He lost to Papa Shango at the King of the Ring that year. Later that year, though, for the first time in his career Owen began to be marketed as a distinct personality. He began complaining about "big brother Bret" hogging his spotlight. He threw a tantrum after bumping into Bret and getting pinned at the Survivor Series. Two months later, at the Royal Rumble in 1994, he teamed with his older brother Bret, who after the departure of Hulk Hogan and in the midst of the WWF's steroid scandal, was on the verge of becoming the WWF's top star. The size of the WWF's main eventers was smaller than ever. For the 5-10 Owen Hart, that opened main event possibilities.
Owen and Bret had their first professional match against each other at Wrestlemania X in a match regarded as one of the best Wrestlemania matches ever. It was the opening match on the card, going just over 20 minutes. Owen Hart pinned Bret Hart in an upset victory that elevated him to a main eventer for the first time in his career. It didn't hurt that he won the King of the Ring tournament three months later, pinning Razor Ramon in the tournament final. Bret vs. Owen finished in third place in "TORCH Match of the Year" reader balloting in 1994. Bret vs. Owen headlined house shows much of the rest of the year. Their feud was voted "TORCH Feud of the Year."
At Wrestlemania XI in 1995 Owen & Yokozuna beat The Smoking Gunns to capture the WWF Tag Team Titles. In 1996 Owen formed a tag team with brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith, capturing the tag titles from The Smoking Gunns in September. They feuded with the Road Warriors in 1997. They finally lost the tag titles to Steve Austin & Shawn Michaels on May 26. Owen captured the Intercontinental Title from Rocky Maivia, but lost the title at SummerSlam to Austin. A month earlier Owen had pinned Austin in a July 6, 1997 PPV main event ten-man tag team match when he teamed with his brother Bret, his brothers-in-law Davey Boy Smith and Jim Neidhart, and the honorary Hart Foundation member, the late Brian Pillman. Owen regained the IC Title in a tournament pinning Faarooq on Oct. 5 on PPV. Austin regained it the next month at Survivor Series in a short match. In 1998 he had a six week reign as European Champion, beating Goldust and losing to Hunter Hearst Helmsley. He and Jeff Jarrett held the tag team titles this year, beating Ken Shamrock & Big Bossman and losing to X-Pac & Kane.
CONTROVERSY WITH AUSTIN, BRET
At SummerSlam '97 in an Intercontinental Title defense against Austin - who was on the verge of superstardom - Owen almost ended Austin's career. Owen delivered a piledriver late in the match. Austin's head was sticking too far down between his legs and the impact severely compressed Austin's neck. Austin suffered temporary paralysis. Austin was barely able to improvise a quick finish - rolling up Hart from behind. Austin spent the next several months seeing neck specialists, some of whom told him to retire or risk permanent paralysis. Five months later, after seriously considering retirement, Austin returned at the Royal Rumble '98. He went on to capture the WWF Title and become in the year that followed the biggest wrestling star in the country. Austin, though, never fully forgave Owen for the miscue. It weighed on Owen's mind that Austin blamed him for the injury. For the most part, Owen and Austin avoided each other (although they were on the same tag team a few times). Owen knew there was no main event run against Austin in his immediate future. Austin wouldn't approve it.
Austin went on-record with his hard feelings toward Owen in a Rolling Stone interview last year. "When you do something as dangerous as the piledriver, you gotta be careful," he said. Did Austin think Owen acknowledged his mistake? "I guess," Austin said, "but I don't think he really did. Finally he called me at the house once or twice. But I'll tell you what - if I damn near paralyzed someone, I'd have called them every damn day and said, 'Hell, I'm sorry."'
The WWF exploited Owen's reputation for injuring Austin's neck. Just weeks after the SummerSlam injury, Owen began wearing a t-shirt that read: "Owen 3:16, I just broke your neck." The WWF taking that approach didn't make sense since Austin had made it clear he would not agree to feud with Owen if he were able to return from his neck injury. In addition, the WWF risked offending Austin as he decided whether to return to the ring.
At the end of 1997, life got even more complicated. His brother Bret left the WWF under controversial circumstances. After the Survivor Series swerve finish, Owen, Smith, and Neidhart refused to appear at their scheduled WWF dates. Eventually the WWF granted Smith and Neidhart releases from their contracts so they could follow Bret to WCW. The WWF, though, wouldn't let Owen out of his contract. They valued him too much. While they believed Bret was physically slowing down in the ring, Owen at seven years Bret's junior had many years of strong in-ring work left in him. The WWF gave Owen a raise from his estimated $300,000 downside guarantee in part to help lessen his reluctance to return to action.
Owen, some friends of his contend to this day, wasn't eager to follow Bret to WCW anyway. Owen wasn't as offended as many assumed he was by McMahon's swerving of Bret in the finish of the Survivor Series. Owen confided with friends in the WWF that Bret had a tendency to take himself and his wrestling career too seriously. Owen was known over the years for rolling his eyes at Bret's idiosyncrasies. As a member of the Hart Foundation, the top heel group in the WWF in 1997, Owen remained in Bret's shadow. There was a chance with the rest of the Hart Foundation gone from the WWF that Owen would be free of Bret's shadow for the first time in his career.
Also, Owen's personality was such that he didn't thrive on controversy. He was content to stay in the WWF where he had spent his entire career since 1988 and see what would happen. He, Shawn Michaels, and Undertaker had the most tenure of anyone in the WWF. The WWF was home. He wasn't happy that Bret and Vince had a blow-up, but he didn't take a strong vocal stand for either side. The thought in the WWF locker room was that Owen might get a huge push for agreeing to stay in the WWF without a big fuss despite the controversy with Bret.
At the end of 1997, after being off TV for a few weeks out of respect for his brother, Owen returned to TV. He interfered in a Dec. 7 PPV match and on a Dec. 8 Raw match by attacking Michaels, then retreating into the crowd. Ostensibly Owen wasn't officially with the WWF; he was seeking revenge on Michaels for what happened to Bret at Survivor Series. Some gasped that Owen would "betray Bret" by participating in an angle that played off of the Survivor Series finish. It was seen as Vince McMahon's ultimate power trip. He got Bret's younger brother to play into an angle that made money off of his betrayal of Bret just weeks earlier.
Owen and Bret weren't especially close considering they were brothers. They rarely if ever travelled together while in the WWF. There were significant age and personality differences. Bret was pretty serious while Owen was a prankster. Bret was self-important while Owen was self-deprecating. Bret worried about his public image while Owen was concerned mainly with saving enough money to retire in his mid-'30s to provide for his family.
The WWF, though, apparently didn't think Owen had what it took to be a top star in the WWF, or else politics (perhaps including Austin's hard feelings toward him) led to Owen's push decreasing early in 1998. Any momentum he had from the Bret Hart storyline ended when he joined The Nation heel group. He had a nondescript gimmick which included him dressing up basically like a road sign and yelling, "Enough is enough and it's time for a change." As a member of The Nation his career didn't gain any momentum. He went from being a potential top-tier replacement for Bret Hart to just a mid-card wrestler.
OWEN'S LIFE GOALS
Despite Owen's lack of main event matches after his brother's departure, he didn't get upset. Owen was content to be a role player earning a good six-figure living during a boom period for wrestling. He was planning to finish off his current WWF contract, which expired in three years, and perhaps retire then. If the money was right and wrestling was still booming, he was open to wrestling past age 37. He was determined to retire before age 40. He liked wrestling, but much more important to him was being smart with his money so he could retire early and live at home before his kids entered their teenage years.
He had taken steps to make that happen. He was frugal on the road, getting the cheapest hotel rooms available, eating as inexpensively as possible, and splitting transportation costs with other wrestlers. Although he didn't brag about it, he was two or three weeks away from moving with his family into a lakeside dream house which he built and paid cash for. He had a physical-education teaching degree and could have eventually settled into a job at a school. His wife, Martha, was close to also getting a college degree.
After the PPV the night of his death, wrestlers got together and talked about their memories of Owen. As became clear by the testimonials by his fellow wrestlers the next day on Raw (see pg. 2), Owen was a prankster. He was also well-liked. When a wrestler dies, often colleagues feel a sense of obligation to "be polite" and express insincere compliments. The praise on Raw for Owen's personality and integrity and dedication to his family was sincere. The wrestlers said on the air the same things they say off the air (with the possible exception being "how hard he worked every night to please the fans"; he was known for shifting into cruise control at house shows). The wrestlers who cried on the air for him were crying in the locker room the night of the PPV and the next afternoon before the Raw event. One prevailing feeling was that Owen was a wrestler who least deserved to die. ("With all the pieces of sh-- in this business, why him?" asked one.)
Owen didn't drink much and didn't do drugs. Many wrestlers deal with the stress of long stretches of time on the road by partying. Owen coped with life on the road by pulling practical jokes. He amused himself and the rest of the wrestlers with his creative ribbing. No death of a wrestler in recent years has had the devastating emotional impact on fellow wrestlers that Owen's death has had.
MEDIA COVERAGE
The news of Owen's death was on most local late night newscasts Sunday night. CNN Headline News ran a brief story on his death as one of their top stories throughout the night. It was the lead story on morning news programs. MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN all covered his death in-depth the next day. USA Today ran a page-two news item. Local newspapers across the country also featured wire service reports on the accident on Monday and Tuesday; some papers put the story on the cover.
Monday night all three major broadcast news networks ran stories on Hart's death. NBC News questioned whether Owen's death was a sign that wrestling needs to pull back from its "can you top this" approach. McMahon defended the stunt in an A.P. article. "Stunts like this are performed at major sporting events on a routine basis in Hollywood," he said. "We compete with Hollywood for entertainment." McMahon did say the rappelling stunt will never be done again in the WWF, but other stunts will continue.
ABC News examined the possibility that young eyewitnesses could be seriously affected by seeing the death in front of their eyes. Peter Jennings concluded the ABC report by saying Kansas City Police believe Owen accidentally pulled the release on the cable that was holding him.
Tom Brokaw concluded the NBC Nightly News report: "After Mr. Hart's body was carried from the ring last night, the show went on." Dan Rather concluded the CBS Evening News report, "The WWF event for pay TV resumed making money about 15 minutes later after Hart was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead." Both conveyed a sense of condemnation toward the WWF in their voices.
"Entertainment Tonight" lead their Monday show with the Owen story. One fan at the arena said, "His head was loose on his neck and he turned blue."
CNN's Larry King Live dedicated the first 15 minutes of the show Monday night to the story. Eric Bischoff and Jesse Ventura were interviewed on the show. Bischoff defended the WWF. "Unfortunately, accidents like this happen," he said. "They happen at construction sites, they happen in everyday life, and they do happen in our line of work. Fortunately they don't happen on a regular basis. Literally thousands and thousands and thousands of events take place without something as tragic as this taking place, so it's not an everyday occurrence. It certainly doesn't minimize the significance of this tragedy."
Bischoff also defended the WWF's decision to continue the PPV. He said he thought a lot about what he would have done in that position. He said he doesn't know what he would have done, but he said there would have been criticism either way.
Ventura said both WCW and the WWF try to outdo each other with more acrobatic moves. "Eventually you'll see it take its toll on the performers themselves," he said. "Their longevity won't be what it was in days gone by." Bischoff retorted Ventura. "Let's keep one thing in mind," he said. "This accident didn't happen as a result of the style of wrestling that we see a lot of today. This accident took place because of a spectacular entrance that had been set up. As a matter of fact, Blue Blazer was a very traditional wrestler in terms of his ring style."
Ventura said last year he rappelled from the rafters of Target Center in Minneapolis before a Timberwolves game, but pointed out that he trained as a Navy Seal and was comfortable with that situation. "Maybe some of these guys aren't that comfortable at doing it. There's the pressure of the business. It is still a business that still has no union, nothing that offers any type of collective bargaining for people involved in it. It is still backward in many of its business dealings today. There is the pressure for these guys to perform, to make the money on their big contracts."
Bischoff again retorted Ventura's comments. "I don't know for the life of me what collective bargaining and pay have to do with a tragedy like what happened last night," Bischoff said. "It seems as though Gov. Ventura can't help but be political when given the opportunity."
Ventura said there is a stuntman union in the film industry that requires certain safety precautions to be gone through. "It has nothing to do with politics," Ventura said. "It has to do with the business of wrestling and the control factors that still exist over all the promotions involved in it and not allowing wrestlers to unionize."
Bischoff said Ventura is assuming there wasn't a stunt coordinator on site at the PPV. Ventura said he is just basing his comments on what wrestling was like a few years ago when he was involved.
The Hart Family, including Bret, Martha, Stu, and Helen, made talk show appearances on Tuesday to condemn the circumstances of Owen's death.
FAMILY REACTION
Bret Hart found out about Owen's death while flying from Calgary, Alb. to Los Angeles, Calif. for a Monday night "Tonight Show" appearance. One of the pilots got word of the tragedy and handed a note to Bret. "It said it was an emergency and I should call home," Bret told the Calgary Sun. "Up in the air there was nowhere to go and no one to help you. It was awful." Bischoff met Bret at the airport and filled him in on more details. Bret flew back to Calgary on the next available flight.
Bret complained about the circumstances of Owen's death. "I see these rabid fans frothing at the mouth, looking for the next thrill," he said. "Sometimes wrestling fans can be so cold. They did not deserve my brother's last seconds. What was Owen doing up there? That's what hurts the most."
"It's a dangerous sport in more ways than you know," Owen's mother, Helen, told the Calgary Herald. "I can't believe my Owen is gone. I used to have nightmares about one of my sons getting crippled from wrestling, but not this. I can't believe it. He was my little baby, so clever and fun. He was the light of our lives."
Father Stu, who along with the rest of the family first became aware of the tragedy from watching the PPV, said Owen was the favorite of his brothers and sisters. "He wanted to follow in the footsteps of me and his brothers. He wanted to be the best he could. I know he achieved what he wanted. But even more than what he did in the ring, you knew what Owen was about by the fact that he had no real enemies. He was everyone's friend and a good family man. I couldn't be more proud of a son."
Stu said Vince is culpable. "It's his show and somebody miscued," he said. "He's the captain of the ship and you blame the captain when the Titanic goes down."
"I told him I didn't think he should do it," his wife Martha said. Martha and Owen were high school sweethearts, married for nearly ten years. "I didn't think it was safe. What would we do if anything happened to him?... He was just an outstanding person altogether - the absolute best father on earth. I'm just in such shock. I can't even believe it. I'm waiting for someone to call and say it's not true."
"This whole family has been driven by this profession," said Smith Hart, the oldest of the Hart brothers. "Now (wrestling is) such a black spot, I don't know if as a family we'll ever find any fun in it." Smith said Owen was sacrificed - albeit not intentionally - to "enhance ratings."
The Hart family says they will look into suing the WWF for wrongful death. The investigation regarding Owen's fall is still underway and many more questions need to be answered regarding his fatal fall before blame can be fairly assessed.
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