Owen Hart

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Owen James Hart
Statistics
Ring name(s) Owen Hart
The Blue Blazer,
The Rocket,
The King of Harts
Billed height 180 cm (5 ft 11 in)
Billed weight 103 kg (227 lb)
Born May 7, 1965
Calgary, Alberta
Died May 23, 1999
Kansas City, Missouri
Trained by Stu Hart
Debut May 30, 1986

Owen James Hart (May 7, 1965 – May 23, 1999) was a Canadian-American professional wrestler.

He was born in Calgary, Alberta, the youngest of 12 children, all of whom were involved with wrestling in some way; the most famous of his brothers being Bret Hart. His father was wrestling promoter Stu Hart.

Contents

[edit] Stampede Wrestling

Owen entered wrestling by working for his father's Stampede Wrestling. Wrestling however was not Owen's first choice for a career; as Martha Hart, his widow, would explain in her book Broken Harts, Owen tried numerous times to find a profitable living outside of wrestling. Those attempts were unsuccessful, and Owen began his first WWF stay as The Blue Blazer in late 1988. Even though Owen wrestled and didn't have much personal time, he liked to keep in touch with his friends. They called themselves the EastSideShockers or ESS for short. He said these friends aided in keeping him grounded through all his years as a pro-wrestler.

[edit] World Wrestling Federation

The Blue Blazer was at that time a generic masked wrestler gimmick who was a high flying technician. The most notable match for Owen as the Blazer came at WrestleMania V, when he was narrowly defeated by Mr. Perfect. Owen/Blazer quickly left soon afterwards to wrestle worldwide and in 1991, the Blue Blazer lost the mask versus the Mexican wrestler El Canek in a mask vs mask duel.

Around this time, Owen wrestled briefly for World Championship Wrestling in 1992, and was in the process of contract discussions, but was not willing to move to Atlanta, the company's headquarters. Following the breakup of the WWF's popular The Hart Foundation tag team of his brother Bret and real-life brother-in-law Jim Neidhart, Owen returned to the WWF and formed the 'New Foundation' with Neidhart. Famed more for their bizarre 'baggy pants' attire than anything else, the team disbanded within a few months. Owen would later team alongside Koko B. Ware as High Energy.

In late 1993, with rumors circulating that Owen was on the verge of leaving the WWF due to a lack of success, he was eventually pushed as a 'heel' singles competitor and feuded with his brother Bret. They competed in the opening match at WrestleMania X and later in a memorable steel cage match for the WWF Championship at SummerSlam 1994. They are both considered two of the greatest matches of the 1990s. Owen combined high flying and technical mat skill for a very sound style.

He was also quite adept at playing a sneaky, smarmy heel, as evidenced by his King of Harts gimmick (he took the nickname after winning the 1994 King of the Ring). One example of his character came during the 1994 Survivor Series, where — during Bret Hart's WWF Championship match vs. Bob Backlund, fought under "submission match" rules — he feigned concern over Bret's physical condition after Bret became trapped in Backlund's crossface chickenwing. He convinced his mother, Helen, to throw in the towel, thereby costing Bret the match and title. Owen celebrated gleefully after the match ended and, during a post-match interview, declared that he had "tricked" his mother into throwing in the towel.

Owen's WWF career included winning the Intercontinental, Tag Team and European championships; he teamed with the 600-pound Yokozuna; brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith, the British Bulldog; and Jeff Jarrett at various points in his career. He was also infamous at this time for an errant piledriver at 'SummerSlam 1997' which injured Steve Austin, and lead to Austin's temporary retirement in 2003. When his brother Bret lost his WWF Title in controversial fashion at the 1997 Survivor Series in Montreal, Smith and Jim Neidhart, another Hart brother-in-law, responded by joining Bret in WCW. At the time, all were a part of the new Hart Foundation stable in storylines, along with Brian Pillman. Owen tried this as well, but elected to stay put in the WWF when faced with breach of contract issues. This caused friction between the brothers for a brief time, though they would reconcile shortly before Owen's death.

Owen returned at the pay-per-view (PPV) following Survivor Series, running out to attack Shawn Michaels during his world championship match, turning face and adopting the "Black Hart" gimmick in the process. Over the next few months, Owen developed a rivalry with both D-Generation X members at the time (Michaels and Triple H), and won the WWF European Championship from Triple H (who did not officially lose the title in the ring, instead having Goldust sub for him). Owen would later have a ankle injury (kayfabe), and during a match involving Triple H in which Hart joined the commentary at ringside, Triple H regained the title in a controversial fashion, with Hart submitting to Triple H in an impromptu match.

Owen continued his rivalry with DX for a while after that, but Shawn Michaels' departure from the company after WrestleMania XIV, coupled with DX's face turn shortly thereafter, left Owen floundering in midcard.

Four weeks after Wrestlemania, during a tag team match with Ken Shamrock taking on D'Lo Brown and The Rock, Owen Hart turned on Shamrock, "snapping" his ankle and "biting off his ear" in the process. He joined the Nation of Domination with Brown and Rock, and stayed there through the rest of the year, when the Nation broke up. Hart would go on to wrestle Shamrock twice that summer, with an even record. He and the Rock also contended for the WWF Tag Team Championship, losing to then champions The New Age Outlaws once. They were scheduled to be in a fatal four way main event RAW match with the Outlaws, Kane & Mankind, and Austin and Undertaker (who were the current champs), but a returning Shamrock attacked Rock with the anklelock and took him out of the match. D'Lo replaced him, but the Nation team proved unsuccessful.

In early 1999, Owen began teaming with Jeff Jarrett and again captured the WWF tag team title. This included a storyline involving the revived Blue Blazer character, which would regularly appear alongside goofy denials from Jarrett and Hart that it was actually Hart under the mask.

[edit] Death

Hart fell to his death in Kansas City, Missouri, at the age of 34, on May 23, 1999, during the WWF Over the Edge PPV event. He was being lowered into the ring from the rafters of Kemper Arena for a scheduled WWF Intercontinental Championship win over The Godfather.

In keeping with the Blazer's new 'buffoonish superhero' character, Owen was to be lowered to just above ring level, at which time he would release himself from the safety harness and then comically fall flat on his face. He had performed the stunt only a few times before, and was worried about performing the stunt at Kemper Arena due to the height involved (Owen had a fear of heights).

Owen performed a practice stunt earlier in the day, and the stunt went forward on the show as scheduled. His wife Martha has suggested that, by moving around to get comfortable with both the harness and his cape on, Owen unintentionally triggered an early release and fell 78 feet (24 m) into the ring, smashing his chest on a padded, but still tough, ring turnbuckle.

TV viewers at home did not see the incident or its aftermath, as the WWF was transmitting a promotional video package for the match, and only showed the audience while Owen was being worked on by medical personnel inside the ring while WWF television announcer Jim Ross repeatedly told those watching live on pay-per-view that what just transpired was not a wrestling angle or storyline and that Hart was hurt badly.

Owen was transported to the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The cause was later revealed to be internal bleeding from blunt chest trauma. The WWF chose to continue the event, which drew a great deal of criticism over the following weeks, especially as the main event of the evening involved The Undertaker (also known as the "Deadman") winning the WWF Title.

The next night on Monday Night Raw in St. Louis, Missouri, a two-hour televised tribute was broadcast (see RAW is Owen), in which WWF wrestlers and officials paid tribute to Hart. The Over the Edge event name was retired.

In the weeks that followed, much attention focused on the harness Owen used that night, especially on the "quick release" trigger and safety latches. When someone is lowered from the rafters in a harness, there are backup latches that must be latched for safety purposes. These backups may take some time to unlatch, which would have made Owen's stunt difficult to perform smoothly. Therefore, it was apparently decided that it was more important not to have the safety backups, because it would be easier for Owen to unlatch himself.

In addition to not having safety backups, the harness Owen used was designed for sailboats and required only six pounds of weight to trigger the quick release mechanism; Owen weighed about 225 pounds. An out-of-court settlement between Owen Hart's family and the WWF has prevented the release of any information about the harness. The WWF, however, decided to ban stunts of a similar nature from this point on to avoid a similar event from occurring.

Owen left a widow, Martha, and two children, Oje Edward and Athena. Martha Hart settled her wrongful death lawsuit against the WWF for approximately $18 million[citation needed], and used the funds to establish the Owen Hart Foundation. Martha wrote a book about Owen's life in 2002 called Broken Harts.

Owen's last match was on May 22, 1999, in Chicago, Illinois. He and Jarrett won a tag team match against Edge and Christian.

On the October 4, 1999 edition of WCW Nitro, Owen's brother Bret Hart wrestled Chris Benoit in an Owen Hart tribute match at Kemper Arena.

[edit] In wrestling

  • Finishing and signature moves
  • Nicknames
  • "The Rocket"
  • "The King of Harts"
  • "Slammy Award Winner"
  • "The Black Hart"
  • "Nugget" (derisively given by Shawn Michaels)
  • "The Blue Blazer"

[edit] Managers

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

  • PWI ranked him # 66 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the PWI Years in 2003
  • PWI ranked him # 84 of the best tag teams of the PWI Years with Davey Boy Smith
  • PWI Rookie of the Year Award (1987)
  • PWI Feud of the Year Award, versus Bret Hart (1994)
  • PWI Editor's Award (1999)
  • 2-time Stampede Wrestling North American Heavyweight Champion
  • 1-time Stampede Wrestling British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Champion
  • 1-time Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Champion (with Ben Bassarab)
  • 1987 Best Flying Wrestler
  • 1988 Best Flying Wrestler
  • 1997 Feud of the Year (with Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart, Davey Boy Smith and Brian Pillman vs Steve Austin)
  • 5 Star Match: vs. Bret Hart (WWF SummerSlam 1994, August 29, 1994: Steel Cage match)

[edit] Trivia

  • At his funeral, there was a WWF logo made entirely out of yellow flowers. Martha Hart immediately asked for it to be removed and replaced with Owen's initials.
  • Triple H claims that the The Game nickname was originally to be used for Owen Hart.
  • Owen was a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.
  • According to his brother Bret, Owen was notorious for his pranks and jokes he would pull on other wrestlers backstage- his most common form of pranks were usually phone calls in which he would disguise himself as someone and completely antagonise whomever he called. Many of those he pranked was Jim Duggan, his father Stu Hart and his brother Bret. Bret told of this during his induction to the WWE Hall of Fame 2006.
  • The video game WWF Attitude on the Nintendo 64 and the Playstation was dedicated to the memory of Owen Hart.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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