Owen Hart

Owen James Hart
File:New Hart Foundation.jpg
Born	May 7, 1965 Calgary, Alberta
Died	May 23, 1999 (age 34) Kansas City, Missouri
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Owen Hart The Blue Blazer The Rocket Black Hart The King of Harts
Billed height	180 cm (5 ft 11 in)
Billed weight	103 kg (227 lb)
Trained by	Stu Hart
Debut	May 30, 1986

Owen 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.

Early Career and first WWF run

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, but those attempts were unsuccessful so he decided to give wrestling a chance and see where it took him. Owen was trained in the legendary Stu Hart Dungeon and made his professional debut in 1986 for his father’s federation, a federation he would remain with for the next couple of years honing his skills. During 86 he teamed with Ben Bassarab and won the Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Championship, the success of the team and Owen in ring skills earned him the prestigious Pro Wrestling Illustrated Rookie of the year award in 1987 (coming out ahead of Ray Traylor and Shane Douglas in the voting). After Owen & Bassarab lost the tag-team titles Owen Hart would feud with the likes of Johnny Smith and Dynamite Kid.

In 1988 Owen Hart branched out to Japan where he wrestled for New Japan Pro Wrestling on several tours where he’d wrestle Keiichi Yamada both masked and when he adopted the legendary Jushin Liger gimmick. On May 27, 1988 Owen Hart defeateded Hiroshi Hase for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship and became the first westener to hold that coverted title, he was also the first of only two Canadians to hold that title (The other being Chris Benoit). Despite holding the title just under a month the fact that he held it at all was a testament to how much faith NJPW had in him and his future.

Owen’s success in Japan and Stampede’s working relationship with the World Wrestling Federation meant that Owen Hart signed with the company in the fall of 1988. Instead of promoting Owen as Bret Hart’s younger brother and Jim Neidhart’s brother in law the WWF decided to create a masked “Super Hero” like gimmick for Owen Hart known as The Blue Blazer. Owen as the Blazer appeared at Survivor Series 1988 and again at WrestleMania V both on the losing side of the match. Shortly after his WM V loss to Mr. Perfect Owen left the WWF to tour the world both with and without the Blue Blazer gimmick. In 1991 Owen lost the Blue Blazer mask in a “Mask Vs Mask” match against Mexican icon El Canek while wrestling in Mexico bidding farewell to the gimmick forever (or so he thought)

In the time between 1991 and 1992 Owen Hart appeared sporadically on World Championship Wrestling shows, usually without that much fanfare and no mentions of his WWF connections.

Second Run with the WWF

The New Foundation

File:NewFoundation.jpg

Jim Neidhart & Owen Hart as “The New Foundation”

In the middle of 1991 Owen was in the process of contract discussions with WCW but Owen was not willing to move himself and his family to Atlanta, the company's headquarters so the deal was never struck. In the WWF the popular The Hart Foundation tag team of his brother Bret and real-life brother-in-law Jim Neidhart had split up with Bret Hart setting out on a singles career. When Jim Neidhart was “injured” by the Beverly Brothers and put out of action for a while Owen Hart signed on to become Neidhart’s partner (the injury was not legitimate but part of the angle)

When Neidhart returned from his supposed injury he had Owen Hart by his side as they formed a team known as The New Foundation, who became famous and instantly recognizable for their bizarre 'baggy pants' attire and bright jackets. The team first feuded with the Beverly Brothers and then had their one and only PPV match at the 1992 Royal Rumble where they beat The Orient Express.

High Energy

Shortly after the PPV Jim Neidhart left the WWF. After a very short run as a singles wrestler Owen Hart was teamed up with Koko B. Ware to form the duo known as High Energy, during this time Koko would also adopt the trademark baggy pants and they’d add checkermarked suspenders to really give them a unique look. The team while exciting and definitely “Kid friendly” was never pushed as a serious thread to the tag-team titles, in fact their only PPV appearance as a team came at the 1992 Survivor Series where they lost to The Headshrinkers. The team would quietly be dropped in the start of 1993 with Owen Hart starting a singles career, ditching the baggy pants look.

When Bret Hart’s feud with Jerry Lawler ignited in the middle of 1993 Owen Hart stood by his brother’s side and fought against Jerry Lawler, not on WWF television but in the United States Wrestling Association where Bret, Owen and most of the other WWF talent were considered the heels (bad guys). Owen Hart even won the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship from Papa Shango but it was never acknowledged on WWF television. Owen’s participation in the WWF Vs USWA feud would be cut short when he suffered a knee injury in the summer of 1993 and is forced to take some time away from the ring. The rumors at the time was that Owen was on the verge of leaving the WWF due to a lack of success, if the knee injury was just a way for the WWF to explain his absence isn’t quite clear.

Brother Vs Brother

When Owen returns to the WWF ring in the fall of 1993 Bret’s feud with Jerry Lawler is temporarily sidetracked when Lawler lands in some legal trouble and is forced off WWF television. Bret along with Owen and their brothers Bruce Hart and Keith Hart was scheduled to face Jerry Lawler and his team at Survivor Series 1993. Lawler was replaced with Shawn Michaels and the match went on, a match that would forever change Owen Hart’s career. During the match Owen and Bret inadvertently crashed into each other causing Owen to be eliminated from the team (the only Hart family member to be eliminated). While Bret, Keith and Bruce celebrated Owen Hart looks on in anger. The tension between the two brothers had reared it’s ugly head for the first time. Bret tried to make amends with Owen, taking to teaming with him and securing the two a shot at the WWF Tag Team Championship. They faced the champions the Quebecers at the Royal Rumble 1994, initially everything was fine between the brothers but when Bret hurt his knee and was unable to tag Owen in for a long period of time the younger Hart snapped, kicking his brother in the injured knee and then walking off, leaving his brother an easy victim for his opponents.

Afterwards Owen commented rather infamously that he “kicked the leg out from under the leg” of Bret Hart because Bret was selfish completing his heel turn. The two brothers faced off for the first time ever at WrestleMania X where Owen Hart shocked the world by pinning his bigger brother cleanly. Later in the night when Bret Hart won the WWF Title Owen Hart stood by and watched jealously as Bret celebrated in the ring. Owen would go on to win the King of the Ring Tournament with Jim Neidhart’s help (turning Neidhart heel in the process) and took the nickname “The King of Harts”.

Owen and Bret would feud over the summer of 1994 clashing many times both in singles and later in tag-team matches (with Bret joining forces with Davey Boy Smith). Two matches stand out in this feud, first their Steel cage match at Summer Slam 1994 which Bret won and then a lumberjack match that Owen Hart initially won and was announced as World champion but then reversed due to interference. At the 1994 Survivor Series Owen struck the most damaging blow against his brother as he conned his own mother Helen Hart to throw in the towel for Bret, costing him the world title to Bob Backlund. Owen also prevented Bret from regaining the title at next year’s Royal Rumble when he interfered in the match. In the weeks after the Rumble Bret and Owen clashed again with Bret defeating his brother, thus at least for a while ending their feud.

Camp Cornette

Owen rebound from the loss to Bret Hart by winning the WWF tag-team titles from the Smoking Gunns at WrestleMania XI with mystery partner Yokozuna at which time Owen Hart took Jim Cornette as his manager. The team would defend the tag-team titles for 5 months until they lost them back to the Smoking Gunns. Owen Hart and Yokozuna would continue to team off and on until the end of the year. In 1995 Owen’s brother in law Davey Boy Smith had turned heel and joined Camp Cornette and during the summer of 1996 the two brothers in law started to team up more and more, sometimes alongside Vader who was also a member of Camp Cornette.

In September of 1996 Bulldog & Owen Hart had finally earned a PPV shot at the tag-team titles at In Your House 10. Owen and Bulldog left with the gold after defeating the Smoking Gunns, they also left with a new manager as Clarence Mason had conned Jim Cornette into signing over the contracts of the new champions. The duo reigned supreme over a relatively weak tag-team division but everything was not well with the brothers in law. Signs of dissention slowly started to show between the two, at the Rumble Owen would accidentally eliminate Bulldog and Owen tended to try and steal the spotlight. After the Rumble Bulldog fired Clarance Mason, something which did not sit well with Owen Hart. Another bone of contention between the two was the newly created WWF European Championship, both men had fought their way to the finals to crown the first champion with Bulldog coming out as the victor after a long, hardfought match.

The Hart Foundation

File:WantedHarts.jpg

The New Hart Foundation

After successfully defending the tag-team titles against the Headbangers on Raw one night in April the tension between the two bubbled over and an incensed Owen Hart demanded a shot at Bulldog’s European title the next week. The match was booked and on the night the two went at it with such intensity that everyone thought the tag-team champions had finally gone their separate ways. Then to everyone’s surprise the recently heel turned Bret Hart appears at ringside and stopped the match to talk some sense to both Owen and Bulldog, talking about how important family is and so on. Bret got through to both of them and they agreed to put their differences aside and join with Bret to form the new Hart Foundation, an anti-American stable that also included Hart in-law Jim Neidhart and Hart Family friend Brian Pillman

After forming the Hart Foundation Owen Hart quickly gained some singles gold of his own as he pinned Rocky Maivia to win his first WWF Intercontinental title which meant that the Hart Foundation held every WWF title except the world title cementing their dominance over the federation. It was all success for Owen though as he and the British Bulldog would lose their tag-team titles to ”Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels and then fail to regain them when Michaels got injured and was replaced by Dude Love. At Summer Slam 1997 the Owen Hart / Steve Austin feud took a nasty turn as a piledriver gone wrong ended up injuring Steve Austin’s neck so bad that Austin’s neck never really recovered and forced him to retire in 2003. Owen also lost his Intercontinental title to Steve Austin that night, but due to his neck injury Austin was not allowed to compete so he was stripped of the title.

Owen Hart fought his way to the finals of the tournament to crown the next Interncontinental champion and was set to face Faarooq at In Your House: Badd Blood, the same day that Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel room casting a shadow over the entire event. Owen would go on to beat Faarooq, surprisingly with Steve Austin’s help but afterwards Austin explained that he wanted to beat Owen Hart for the title when he returned and not Faarooq. His wish came true when Austin returned at the infamous Survivor Series 1997 from Montreal. On the undercard Owen lost his title to Austin once again and then watched along in shock at the infamous Montreal Screwjob took place.

The Lone Hart

After the screwjob Bret Hart left the federation and both the British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart were granted quick releases from their contracts to jump to WCW. The only Hart family member to remain with the WWF was Owen Hart due to his contractual obligations, unlike Bulldog & Anvil, Owen was not released from his contract but was forced to remain with the company.

After the screwjob Owen was kept off the air, not seen or mentioned on WWF programming until he made a surprise appearance after Shawn Michaels successfully defended his title at In Your House: D-Generation-X where he attacked Shawn Michaels. Initially Owen was known as “the Black Hart” as he fought against Shawn Michaels and Hunter Hearst-Helmsley but was soon after changed to “The Lone Hart” as a reflection of his “lone wolf” gimmick. Owen had a very heated, very emotional feud with D-X and even won the European title from HHH, although not directly but through Goldust who dressed up as HHH in an attempt to swerve Owen. Owen would later suffer an ankle injury (kayfabe), during a match involving Triple H in which Hart joined the commentary at ringside, Triple H managed to draw Owen into an impromptu title match which meant that HHH would regain the title in a controversial fashion. The Owen Hart / D-X feud turned into Owen Vs HHH instead, which meant that a much anticipated Owen Hart Vs Shawn Michaels match never happened and when Shawn Michaels retired after WrestleMania XIV that issue was soon forgotten.

The Nation of Domination

After WrestleMania HHH expanded D-X with his old friend X-Pac as well as the New Age Outlaws to form a version of D-X that slowly but surely got more and more popular with the fans turning them face in the process. 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. After the attack on Shamrock Owen joined the Nation of Domination after claiming that “Enough is enough and it’s time for a change”

The Nation’s first big feud after Owen joined with them was against the freshly turned D-X, a feud that was a natural for Owen. It was during this feud that one of D-Generation-X’s most famous skits occurred when D-X parodied the Nation of Domination, complete with Jason Sensation dressing up as Owen Hart coining the phrase “I am not a Nugget”, which became a derisive term that would follow Owen for the rest of his career. Owen’s participation in the D-X feud was sidetracked when Ken Shamrock returned from injuries dead set on getting revenge on Owen. The two spilt a pair of PPV specialty matches but nothing was ever conclusively settled between them.

Teaming with Jarrett

Owen Hart would remain with the Nation of Domination through out the year until the stable slowly began to drift apart, leaving Owen without much direction in the WWF. Nothing much was heard from Owen from Summer Slam 1998 until Owen Hart linked up with Jeff Jarrett on January 25, 1999 to defeat Ken Shamrock and The Bigboss Man for the tag-team titles. Owen and Jeff were long time travelling companions and real life friends, a fact that was reflected in their teamwork as they gelled from day one.

Despite only holding the tag-team titles for 2 months Owen and Jeff would keep teaming after this with Jeff’s manager Debra McMichael in their corner. During this time a storyline was proposed that Owen Hart was supposed to have an on-screen affair with Debra, something which Owen turned down, most likely because Owen was such a family man. In turn a different angle was born, or more like reborn.

After a match in which Owen accidentally injured someone (kayfabe) Owen seemingly quit the WWF, playing off the injury Owen had inflicted on Steve Austin about 2 years before the angle blurred the lines between reality and “storyline” enough to make people notice. But as soon as Owen “quit” the Blue Blazer appeared in the WWF claiming to in no way be Owen Hart despite it being very obvious. The gimmick may have been seen as punishment for Owen refusing a storyline proposal but Owen and Jeff made it work in such a comical fashion that it was turning both of them face. To prove that Owen was not the Blazer he would show up besides the Blue Blazer, figuring that’d put an end to it, until someone asked where Jeff Jarrett was (under the mask). In a later attempt to prove that neither Owen nor Jeff was the Blazer they both appeared next to the man in the blue mask, only problem was: It was an African American under the mask (Owen’s former partner Koko B. Ware wore the Blazer mask that night).

Death, Controversy and Lawsuit

On May 23, 1999 Owen Hart (performing as the Blue Blazer) tragically fell to his death in Kansas City, Missouri, during the WWF Over the Edge pay-per-view event. Owen was in the process of being lowered into the ring from the rafters of Kemper Arena for a booked WWF Intercontinental Championship win over The Godfather. In keeping with the Blazer's new 'buffoonish superhero' character, Hart 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). Something went wrong with the stunt and Owen fell from the catwalk and died from his injuries less than an hour later. Owen Hart was 34 years old

Owen had performed a practice stunt earlier in the day just to calm him down 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 unforgiving turnbuckle and was thrown into the ring.

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, trying to get across the seriousness of this situation.

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. Jim Ross announced the death of Owen Hart to the home viewers during the PPV but not to the crowd in the area. 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. While the show did go on it was never released commercially by WWF Video and to this date no footage has ever been released of Owen Hart falling, the existence of such footage at all has been questioned over and over.

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 behind a widow, Martha, and two children, Oje Edward and Athena. Martha Hart settled her wrongful death lawsuit against the WWF for approximately $18 million[1], and used the funds to establish the Owen Hart Foundation. Martha wrote a book about Owen's life in 2002 called Broken Harts.

RAW is Owen

File:Owen InMemory.jpg

RAW is Owen is the name given to a special live episode of WWF RAW is WAR that aired on May 24, 1999, the night after the death of Owen Hart at WWF Over the Edge. It was broadcast live from the Kiel Center in St. Louis.

According to RAW Exposed (a special that aired before the first WWE Raw airing on its return to USA Network on October 3, 2005), WWF management gave all wrestlers on the roster the option of working or not. It was entirely their choice if they felt like it. Nevertheless, ten matches were booked with no kayfabe or storylines.

The show began with all the wrestlers of the WWF standing on the entrance ramp (with the exception of The Undertaker who had visited his good friend, Owen's brother, Bret). Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon and Stephanie McMahon were at the front of the ramp. Howard Finkel called for a ten-bell salute. Owen's former NOD comrades were emotional, most notably Mark Henry. Then a tribute video narrated by Vince was played on the TitanTron.

Throughout the broadcast, personal thoughts on Owen in the form of interviews with various WWF Superstars were played. Before the first commercial break, such thoughts were aired from Mick Foley and Bradshaw. Foley noted that Owen was his son's favorite wrestler and had proudly gotten a haircut like Owen's. Bradshaw talked about how Owen spent much less money on the road than most wrestlers because he wanted to retire early and spend time with his family.

The next week, WWF taped the episode of RAW for May 31, 1999. During that show, Jeff Jarrett defeated The Godfather to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship, the title Owen was booked to win at Over the Edge for the third time. Jarrett screamed "Owen Hart!" as the belt was handed to him.

In wrestling

• Finishing and signature moves

• Sharpshooter
• Hart Driver (Belly-to-belly piledriver)
• Enzuigiri
• Spinning heel kick
• Northern Lights suplex
• Superkick
• Gutwrench suplex
• Missile dropkick
• Diving elbow drop
• Belly to belly suplex
• Bridging German suplex
• Top rope split-legged moonsault
• Lariat takedown
• Diving headbutt
• Camel clutch

• Nicknames

• "The Rocket"
• "The King of Harts"
• "Slammy Award Winner"
• "2-Time Slammy Award Winner; 2-Time Intercontinental Champion; and One-Half of the WWF World Tag Team Champions"
• "The Black Hart"
• "The Lone Hart"
• "Nugget" (derisively given to him by Shawn Michaels)
• "The Blue Blazer"
• "The Game" (Helmsley says it was intended for Owen)

• Quotes

• "I am the King of Harts"
• "I am not a nugget!"
• "Enough is enough and it's time for a change!"
• "I'm the Black Hart, the sole survivor!"
• "Whoooo!"
• "Owen 3:16 says I just broke your neck!"

• Managers

• Jim Cornette
• Clarence Mason
• Debra
• Bret Hart

Championships and accomplishments

• New Japan Pro Wrestling

• IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• Stampede Wrestling

• Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship (2 times)
• Stampede Wrestling British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
• Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Ben Bassarab

• United States Wrestling Association

• USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

• World Wrestling Federation

• WWF Intercontinental Championship (2 times)
• WWF European Championship (1 time)
• WWF World Tag Team Championship (4 times) – with Yokozuna (4), British Bulldog (1), and Jeff Jarrett (1)
• King of the Ring (1994)

• Pro Wrestling Illustrated

• 1987 PWI Rookie of the Year Award
• 1994 PWI Feud of the Year Award – vs. Bret Hart
• 1999 PWI Editor's Award
• 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

• Wrestling Observer Newsletter

• 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)

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 Hart.
• Owen was a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.
• According to his brother Bret and Mick Foley, Owen was notorious as a practical joker - his most common pranks were usually phone calls in which he would disguise himself as someone else.
• The video game WWF Attitude on the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation was dedicated to Hart's memory.
• Owen pinned Bret Hart for the WWF title in one match, and was pronounced champion. However, the referee later ordered the match restarted and Bret came out on top. Some call this a legitimate title win, much like when Chris Jericho beat Triple H for the WWF title in 2000, but the match had to be restarted and Jericho lost.
• When the Blue Blazer gimmick was first proposed, Owen suggested that his name be the "American Eagle". Vince McMahon, however, did not like the name and opted for the Blue Blazer instead.
• 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.

External links

• Owen Hart's Funeral

• Bret Hart column mentioning he and Owen holding dual citizenship

• Deaths in Sports