Canadian wrestler (1965?1999)
Owen James Hart
(May 7, 1965 ? May 23, 1999) was a Canadian-American
professional wrestler
who worked for several promotions including
Stampede Wrestling
,
New Japan Pro-Wrestling
(NJPW),
World Championship Wrestling
(WCW), and the
World Wrestling Federation
(WWF). He received most of his success in the WWF, where he wrestled under both his own name and the ring name
The Blue Blazer
.
A member of the
Hart wrestling family
, he was born in
Calgary
,
Alberta
, the youngest of twelve children of Stampede Wrestling promoters
Stu
and
Helen Hart
. Among other accolades, Owen was a
one-time
USWA Unified World Heavyweight Champion
, a
two-time
WWF Intercontinental Champion
, a
one-time
WWF European Champion
, and a
four-time
WWF World Tag Team Champion
, as well as the
1994
WWF
King of the Ring
. He headlined multiple
pay-per-view
events for the WWF
, and was widely regarded as one of the company's best in-ring performers.
[8]
Hart died on May 23, 1999, during his entrance from the rafters of
Kemper Arena
in
Kansas City, Missouri
, United States. The equipment that was lowering him to the ring malfunctioned and he fell to his death in front of a live audience and live on Pay Per View during WWF's
Over the Edge
event.
Early life
[
edit
]
Owen was born on May 7, 1965, in
Calgary, Alberta
the youngest of 12 children to Canadian-born father Stu and American-born mother Helen Hart of the
Hart wrestling family
.
[9]
His siblings entailed: Ellie, Georgia, and fellow wrestling familials;
Smith
,
Bruce
,
Keith
, Wayne,
Dean
, Ellie, Georgia,
Bret
, Alison,
Ross
and
Diana
.
[10]
Hart's family background was
Greek
descent through his maternal grandmother and Irish through his maternal grandfather.
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
His father was mainly of
Scots-Irish
descent, but also had Scottish and German ancestry.
[15]
[16]
Hart maintained dual American-Canadian citizenship.
[17]
[18]
Professional wrestling career
[
edit
]
Early career (1983?1988)
[
edit
]
Hart first gained wrestling experience in the amateur wrestling division at high school, through which he met his wife,
Martha
.
[19]
Hart continued amateur wrestling for the Dinos at the University of Calgary. He placed 4th at the 1984 Canada West championships in the 76 kg weight class.
[20]
Wrestling was not Hart's first choice for a career; as Martha explained in her book
Broken Harts
, Owen tried numerous times to find a profitable living outside of wrestling.
[21]
Owen is quoted as saying, in the WWE Home Video "Owen Hart of Gold" that "during his time in the University, he wrestled incognito (under a mask) as the original British Bulldog. Then, after he graduated from the University, he wrestled as "Bronco" Owen Hart at
Royal Albert Hall
in
London
,
England
. As those attempts were unsuccessful, Hart was trained in his father's
Hart Dungeon
and worked for his father's federation,
Stampede Wrestling
and in England for Max Crabtree's
Joint Promotions
in matches that got broadcast on
ITV's
World of Sport
.
[22]
He remained with Stampede for the next couple of years while honing his skills. During 1986, Hart teamed with
Ben Bassarab
and won the Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Championship.
[23]
The success of the team and Hart's in-ring skills earned him
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
'
s
Rookie of the Year Award
in 1987. After he and Bassarab lost the tag team title,
[23]
he feuded with
Johnny Smith
and
Dynamite Kid
.
In 1987, Hart branched out to Japan where he wrestled for
New Japan Pro-Wrestling
(NJPW) on several tours. In NJPW, he wrestled Keiichi Yamada,
[24]
both before and after he debuted the
Jushin Liger
gimmick
. On May 27, 1988, Hart defeated
Hiroshi Hase
for the
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship
, becoming the first non-Japanese wrestler to win the title.
[23]
His reign would end nearly a month later, as he lost the title to
Shiro Koshinaka
on June 24, 1988.
World Wrestling Federation (1988?1989)
[
edit
]
Hart's success in Japan and Stampede's working relationship with the
World Wrestling Federation
led to Hart signing with the company in the summer of 1988. Instead of promoting Owen as
Bret Hart
's younger brother, the WWF decided to create a masked "
superhero
" type gimmick for him which played to his high-flying style. He broke into the WWF as The Blue Blazer (initially The Blue Angel), with his early appearances seeing him defeat the likes of
Terry Gibbs
,
Steve Lombardi
and
Barry Horowitz
. The Blue Blazer made his pay-per-view debut at
Survivor Series '88
, teaming with
The Ultimate Warrior
,
Brutus Beefcake
,
Jim Brunzell
and
Sam Houston
against
The Honky Tonk Man
,
Greg Valentine
,
Outlaw Ron Bass
,
Bad News Brown
and
Dangerous Danny Davis
. The Blazer was eliminated by Valentine, but his team went on to win the match.
[25]
He continued to wrestle in the midcard, defeating
enhancement talent
but often falling short against other name talent; he lost to
Ted DiBiase
on the March 11, 1989
Saturday Night's Main Event XX
[26]
and was defeated by
Mr. Perfect
at
WrestleMania V
.
[27]
Various promotions (1989?1991)
[
edit
]
Shortly after WrestleMania, Hart left the WWF to tour the world both with and without the Blue Blazer gimmick. He also returned to Stampede, until it shut down in December 1989. In 1991, Hart lost the Blue Blazer mask in a
mascara contra mascara
match against Mexican wrestler
El Canek
, and would not utilize the gimmick again until 1998.
[28]
He also returned to
New Japan Pro-Wrestling
(NJPW). In 1990 he went to
Germany
and worked
Catch Wrestling Association
.
Hart debuted in
World Championship Wrestling
's self-titled TV show on March 16, 1991, the first of five TV matches he competed in, all of which were against preliminary talent such as
Mark Kyle
. One of the bouts saw him team with
Ricky Morton
.
[29]
Return to WWF (1991?1999)
[
edit
]
The New Foundation and High Energy (1991?1993)
[
edit
]
Hart had been engaged in contract discussions with WCW but the deal was never struck, as Owen was not willing to move himself and his family to the company's headquarters in Atlanta.
[21]
Instead, he signed with the WWF for a second time. In the WWF the popular
Hart Foundation
, composed of his brother Bret and real-life brother-in-law
Jim Neidhart
, had split up; Bret set out on a singles career while Neidhart was used sparingly. When Neidhart returned from a storyline injury, he joined Owen to form a team known as The New Foundation. Owen and Neidhart first feuded with the
Beverly Brothers
. They then had their only pay-per-view match at the
Royal Rumble
in January 1992 where they beat
The Orient Express
.
[30]
Neidhart left the WWF shortly afterward, and Hart set out on a very short run as a singles wrestler, including a victorious match at
WrestleMania VIII
when he faced off against
Skinner
.
[31]
Shortly after WrestleMania, Hart was teamed up with
Koko B. Ware
to form the duo known as High Energy. They had only one pay-per-view match as a team, at the
Survivor Series
where they lost to
The Headshrinkers
.
[32]
The team was quietly dropped at the start of 1993 with Hart starting a singles career. Owen suffered a knee injury on April 17, 1993 in a match taped for Superstars, against
Bam Bam Bigelow
, which kept him sidelined for nearly two months.
Feud with Bret Hart (1993?1995)
[
edit
]
Owen's feud with his brother
Bret
won the
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Feud of the Year award and garnered praise from the
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
for their steel cage match at
SummerSlam
In the middle of 1993, when Bret Hart's feud with
Jerry Lawler
ignited, Owen stood by his brother's side and fought against Lawler in the
United States Wrestling Association
where most of the WWF talent were considered the
heels
. Owen won the
USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship
from
Papa Shango
.
[23]
Owen's participation in the WWF vs. USWA feud was cut short when he suffered a knee injury in the summer of 1993 and was forced to take some time away from the ring.
Hart returned to the WWF ring in the fall of 1993, at a time when Bret's feud with Lawler was temporarily sidetracked. Bret, along with Owen and their brothers
Bruce
and
Keith
, were scheduled to face Lawler and his team at
Survivor Series
. However, Lawler was unable to make it to the show, and as a result could not appear on WWF television. Lawler was replaced with
Shawn Michaels
. During the match Owen and Bret inadvertently crashed into each other, causing Owen to be eliminated from the team. Owen showed up after the match and had a heated confrontation with Bret, while Keith, Bruce and Stu tried to calm things down. This confrontation resulted in Owen leaving the ring to boos while his brothers and father watched in dismay and mother Helen cried at ringside. The following night Owen adopted the pink and black tights, sunglasses and Sharpshooter finisher to send a message to his brother. Owen, angry with being in Bret's shadow, challenged his brother which Bret declined. Instead the brothers seemed to reunite by the holidays.
Owen adorned his attire with the nickname The King of Harts after winning the
1994 King of the Ring
Bret tried to make amends with Owen, teaming with him on a regular basis. Bret even secured the two a shot at the
WWF Tag Team Championship
. They faced
the Quebecers
for the title at the
Royal Rumble
in January 1994. Initially everything was fine between the brothers, but when Bret hurt his knee (
kayfabe
) and was unable to tag Owen in for a long period of time, the younger Hart got frustrated. When the referee stopped the match due to Bret's damaged knee, Owen snapped; he kicked his brother in the knee and then walked off, berating Bret on the Titantron shortly after as Bret was being helped backstage. This started his run as a
heel
.
[33]
After the act, an infuriated Owen accused his brother of being selfish and holding him down. Owen admitted that it felt good to take out his brother. The two brothers faced off for the first time at
WrestleMania X
, where Owen cleanly pinned his older brother. Later in the evening, Bret won the
WWF Championship
against Yokozuna while Owen stood by and watched in anger and jealousy as Bret celebrated in the ring.
[34]
Owen won the
1994
King of the Ring tournament
turning back Razor Ramon in the finals with an elbow drop to the back and with an assist from Jim Neidhart.
[35]
After the victory, Owen dropped "The Rocket" nickname and took the nickname "The King of Harts."
Owen and Bret feuded throughout the summer of 1994, clashing many times both in singles and later in tag team matches (with Bret joined by the returning
British Bulldog
). Two prominent matches took place in this feud: first, their
steel cage match
in the co-main event of
SummerSlam
for Bret's WWF Championship, which Bret won.
[36]
[37]
This match later received a five-star rating from
Dave Meltzer
. The second was a
lumberjack match
on August 17 that Owen initially won and was announced as WWF Champion; Bret won the match after it was ordered to continue due to interference.
[38]
At the
Survivor Series
, Owen struck the most damaging blow against his brother as he conned his own mother Helen to throw in the towel for Bret. The ploy cost Bret the WWF Championship to
Bob Backlund
.
[39]
Owen also prevented Bret from regaining the WWF Championship at the
Royal Rumble
in 1995 when he interfered in the match between Bret and new champion
Diesel
.
[40]
In the weeks after the Royal Rumble, Bret and Owen clashed again with Bret soundly defeating his brother, thus putting an end to their feud for the time being.
Camp Cornette; Tag Team Champion (1995?1997)
[
edit
]
Hart making his entrance to the ring in 1995.
Owen rebounded from the loss to Bret by winning the WWF Tag Team Championship from
The Smoking Gunns
at
WrestleMania XI
.
[23]
Owen, who was joined by a "Mystery Partner", had challenged the Gunns to a title match; the partner turned out to be former world champion
Yokozuna
.
[41]
[42]
After the victory Owen took
Jim Cornette
and
Mr. Fuji
as his managers, who already managed Yokozuna. The team defended the title for five months until they lost them to Shawn Michaels and Diesel at
In Your House 3
. They would briefly hold the title a second time when the belts were handed back to them
[43]
before the Smoking Gunns regained the title.
[23]
Owen 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 turned heel and joined the Camp Cornette stable. 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.
[44]
Owen also won a Slammy Award for injuring Shawn Michaels and began using the nickname "Slammy Award Winner" and the "King of Harts," though this nickname was rarely used. Owen was also a color commentator for the
1996 King of the Ring
(exhibiting clear partisan support for Vader and Smith) and during this time wore a
cast
on his right forearm for several months, feigning a nagging injury to subsequently use his cast as a weapon during his matches.
In September 1996, Bulldog and Hart earned a pay-per-view shot at the tag team titles at
In Your House 10
.
[45]
Owen and Bulldog left with the gold after defeating the Smoking Gunns.
[23]
[46]
They also left with a new manager as
Clarence Mason
had conned Jim Cornette into signing over the contracts of the new champions. Signs of dissension, however, slowly started to show. One occasion where this was evident was at the
Royal Rumble
when Hart accidentally eliminated Bulldog.
[47]
After the Rumble, they had miscommunication in matches against
Doug Furnas
and
Phil LaFon
and Bulldog fired Mason after losing a match to
Crush
who was also managed by Mason, something which did not sit well with 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.
[23]
After retaining the tag team title against
the Headbangers
by disqualification on the edition of March 24, 1997 of
Monday Night Raw
, the tension between the two bubbled over. An incensed Hart demanded a shot at Bulldog's European title the next week.
[48]
The match was booked for March 31; on the night, the two went at it with such intensity that many thought the tag team champions had finally gone their separate ways. Then in a shocking moment, the recently turned heel Bret Hart appeared at ringside and stopped the match. Bret appealed to both Owen and Bulldog, talking about the importance of family.
[49]
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
.
Hart Foundation (1997)
[
edit
]
Hart in September 1997
After forming the Hart Foundation, Owen quickly gained singles gold of his own as he pinned
Rocky Maivia
to win his first
WWF Intercontinental Championship
.
[23]
[50]
This meant that the Hart Foundation held every WWF title except the WWF Championship, cementing their dominance over the federation. It was not all success for Owen, though, as he and the British Bulldog lost the WWF Tag Team Championship to
Stone Cold Steve Austin
and
Shawn Michaels
on May 26, 1997.
[23]
He began feuding with Austin shortly thereafter.
Owen and Bulldog got a second chance at regaining the tag team titles after Michaels vacated his half of the championship due to an injury. On the edition of July 14, 1997 of
Raw
the two entered a tournament and won to face Austin and a partner of his choice that evening for the vacant titles. That partner turned out to be
Dude Love
, who declared himself to be Austin's partner and helped him defeat Hart and Bulldog for the tag team championship.
At
SummerSlam
in August, Hart was to defend his Intercontinental Championship against Austin in a "Kiss My Ass" match, where Hart put the title up against Austin having to kiss his buttocks if he lost. During the match, Hart
botched
a piledriver and dropped Austin on the top of his head, injuring his neck.
[51]
Austin won the title from Hart that evening,
[23]
but due to the injury was forced to vacate the title. Although the entire situation was an accident, the WWF decided to make it part of the storyline as Owen began wearing a T-shirt patterned after Austin's that read "Owen 3:16/I Just Broke Your Neck". Hart was then entered into a tournament to crown a new champion.
Hart fought his way to the finals of the tournament to crown the next Intercontinental Champion and was set to face
Faarooq
at
Badd Blood: In Your House
. Owen beat Faarooq with Austin's help.
[52]
Afterward, Austin explained that he wanted to beat Hart for the title when he returned and would not allow Faarooq or anyone else to beat him. After Hart retained the title twice by disqualification between Bad Blood and
Survivor Series
in Montreal, Austin got his wish and defeated Hart for the Intercontinental Championship again.
[23]
[53]
Later that night, the
Montreal Screwjob
took place. Bret left the WWF after Survivor Series and both the British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart were granted quick releases from their contracts to jump to WCW. This left Owen as the only Hart family member remaining in the WWF, due to his contractual obligations.
The Black Hart; Nation of Domination (1997?1998)
[
edit
]
Hart was not seen or mentioned on WWF programming until he made a surprise appearance after Shawn Michaels retained his title following a disqualification loss to
Ken Shamrock
at
In Your House: D-Generation X
where he attacked Shawn Michaels. Now a fan favourite, but with a new edgy, antisocial attitude, Hart became known as "The Lone Hart" and also "The Black Hart".
[54]
Owen had a feud with
D-Generation X
(DX) and challenged Shawn Michaels for the WWF Championship on the December 29, 1997 episode of
Raw Is War
: Hart had Michaels locked in the Sharpshooter when
Triple H
interfered in order to save Michaels' title, giving Hart the victory by disqualification.
[55]
He later won the European title from Triple H, although not directly.
[56]
Goldust
dressed up as Triple H in an attempt to
swerve
Hart, but
Commissioner Slaughter
considered him to be a legitimate replacement.
[23]
[56]
Hart later suffered a
kayfabe
ankle injury during a match against
Barry Windham
involving Triple H. When Hart joined the commentary at ringside, Triple H managed to draw Owen into an impromptu title match and regained the title.
Chyna
interfered while the referee wasn't looking and while Triple H was distracting the referee, she struck Hart behind the left knee with a baseball bat, picked him up and threw him back into the ring where Triple H put Hart in a reverse ankle lock to his injured right ankle to win the European Championship under referees discretion in controversial fashion.
[23]
Four weeks after WrestleMania, during a tag team match with Ken Shamrock against
Mark Henry
and Rocky Maivia (later known as
The Rock
), Hart turned on Shamrock, "snapping" his ankle and "biting his ear" in the process, and becoming a heel once again.
[57]
After the attack on Shamrock, Hart became the co-leader, with
The Rock
, of the Nation of Domination, claiming that "Enough is enough and it's time for a change". The Nation's first big feud after Hart joined was against DX. It was during this feud that D-Generation X parodied the Nation of Domination. The imitation was complete with an actor dressing up as Hart and uttering the phrase "I am not a
nugget
"; this was in response to Shawn Michaels referring to Owen as a nugget of feces in a toilet bowl that, no matter how many times Michaels flushed, he was unable to get rid of. "Nugget" became a derisive term that followed Hart for the rest of his career. Hart's participation in the DX feud was sidetracked when Shamrock returned from injuries dead set on getting revenge on Hart. The two split a pair of specialty matches on pay-per-view,
[58]
[59]
but nothing was ever conclusively settled between them.
Teaming with Jeff Jarrett; the Blue Blazer (1998?1999)
[
edit
]
Hart remained with the Nation throughout the year until the stable slowly dissolved. After
SummerSlam
, he teamed with
Jeff Jarrett
. Hart and Jarrett had Jarrett's manager
Debra
in their corner. During this time a storyline was proposed that Hart was supposed to have an on-screen affair with Debra, something which Owen turned down.
[21]
After a match in which Hart "accidentally injured"
Dan Severn
, Hart seemingly quit the WWF.
[60]
Playing off the legitimate injury Hart had inflicted on Austin the year before, the angle blurred the lines between reality and "storyline." Yet as soon as Hart "quit," the Blue Blazer appeared in the WWF claiming to in no way be Hart despite it being very obvious who was under the mask. Unlike the first run of the character, the Blazer was now an overbearing, self-righteous heel who treated the edgy
Attitude Era
WWF with disdain. Hart and Jarrett ended up making the storyline comical. To prove that Hart was not the Blazer, he showed up beside the Blue Blazer, who was a masked Jarrett. In a later attempt to prove that neither Hart or Jarrett was the Blazer, they both appeared next to a man in the Blue Blazer mask; however, it was obvious that a black man was under the mask (Hart's former tag team partner
Koko B. Ware
).
[2]
On January 25, 1999, in the midst of the Blue Blazer angle Hart and Jarrett defeated Ken Shamrock and
The Big Boss Man
for the WWF Tag Team Championship.
[23]
[61]
The pair successfully defended the belts against Test and D'Lo Brown at
WrestleMania XV
. They lost the titles to the team of Kane and X-Pac on the (pre-taped) episode of
Raw
that aired on April 5, 1999. However, Hart and Jarrett continued to team together until Hart's death in May during the
Over the Edge
pay-per-view event.
Personal life
[
edit
]
Hart met
Martha Joan Patterson
in 1982. They married on July 1, 1989, and had two children together: Oje Edward Hart (born March 5, 1992) and Athena Christie Hart (born September 23, 1995).
[62]
[63]
On May 28, 2011, Hart was inducted into the Legends Pro Wrestling "Hall of Fame" by Jack Blaze in Wheeling, West Virginia at their "LPW Hart & Soul Tour" event. The award was accepted by his brother-in-law Jim Neidhart, who was also inducted that night.
[
citation needed
]
Death
[
edit
]
Death
[
edit
]
On May 23, 1999, Hart fell to his death in
Kansas City, Missouri
, during the
Over the Edge
pay-per-view event.
[64]
Hart was in the process of being lowered via
harness and grapple line
into the ring from the rafters of
Kemper Arena
for a booked
Intercontinental Championship
match against
The Godfather
. In keeping with the Blazer's new "buffoonish superhero" character, he was to begin a dramatic entrance, being lowered to just above ring level, at which time he would act "entangled", then release himself from the safety harness and fall flat on his face for
comedic effect
?this necessitated the use of a
quick release
mechanism. It was an elaboration on a Blue Blazer stunt done previously on the
Sunday Night Heat
before
Survivor Series
in 1998.
[60]
While being lowered into the ring, Hart fell 78 feet (24 m), landing chest-first on the top rope (approximately a foot from the nearest
turnbuckle
), throwing him into the ring.
[65]
Hart had performed the stunt a few times before. Hart's widow Martha has suggested that, by moving around to get comfortable with both the harness and his cape on, Hart unintentionally triggered an early release. Television viewers did not see the incident. During the fall, a pre-taped vignette was being shown on the pay-per-view broadcast as well as on the monitors in the darkened arena. Afterward, while Hart was being worked on by medical personnel inside the ring, the live event's broadcast showed only the audience. Meanwhile, WWF television announcer
Jim Ross
repeatedly told those watching live on pay-per-view that what had just transpired was not a wrestling angle or storyline and that Hart was hurt badly, emphasizing the seriousness of the situation.
[66]
Hart was transported to
Truman Medical Center
in
Kansas City
. While several attempts to revive him were made, he died due to his injuries. The cause of death was later revealed to be
internal bleeding
from
blunt force trauma
. The impact severed his aorta, resulting in Hart bleeding to death just minutes later; he was 34 years old.
Aftermath
[
edit
]
Grave of Owen Hart at Queen's Park Cemetery in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
WWF and Vince McMahon drew controversy when the company chose to continue the pay-per-view event after Jim Ross announced Owen Hart's death on the live broadcast.
[67]
[68]
Over the Edge
was never commercially released on
WWF Home Video
, although it was available on the
WWE Network
in 2014 for the first time since its original air date. Other than a short memorial that was added before the show began, all footage and mention of Hart was edited out.
[69]
A special episode of
Raw Is War
that aired on May 24, 1999, the night after Hart's death, was dubbed
Raw Is Owen
. It was broadcast live from the
Kiel Center
in
St. Louis
.
[70]
The tribute show scored a 7.2
Nielsen rating
, making it the highest-rated
special episode
in
Raw
history and the third highest-rated episode of
Raw
overall.
[71]
The next day, WWF taped the episode of
Raw
for May 31, 1999. During that show,
Jeff Jarrett
defeated The Godfather to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship,
[23]
the title Hart was booked to win for a third time at Over the Edge. Celebrating his victory, Jarrett screamed Hart's name.
[72]
On October 4, 1999, five months after Hart's death, Bret Hart faced
Chris Benoit
on
WCW Nitro
in a tribute to his brother. The match took place in the same arena in which Hart had fallen to his death.
[73]
After a lawsuit that lasted over a year and a half, a settlement was reached on November 2, 2000, which saw WWF pay the estate of Owen Hart US$18 million with the help of
Pamela Fischer
.
[74]
[75]
[76]
The manufacturer of the harness system was also a defendant against the Hart family, but they were dismissed from the case after the settlement was reached.
[77]
[74]
Owen Hart's widow
Martha
used some of the settlement to establish the
Owen Hart Foundation
.
[78]
In 2001, Hart's sister Diana released her first book named
Under the Mat
which discussed the Hart family. The book was written partially in response to Hart's death.
[79]
Martha Hart pursued legal action, stating that the book was "filled with distortions, misstatements and unjustified slurs that attempt to destroy the reputation of my family and me, and undermine the memory of Owen."
[80]
[81]
[82]
In 2002, Martha wrote a book about Hart's life called
Broken Harts: The Life and Death of Owen Hart
.
[21]
In June 2010, Martha filed a lawsuit against WWE over its use of Hart's name and likeness as well as personal photos of Hart's family in the WWE
Hart & Soul
DVD, as well as the failure to make royalty payments. The matter was scheduled to go to trial in June 2013 before the settlement was reached in April 2013 for an undisclosed amount.
[83]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Hart was widely regarded as one of the best in-ring performers in the WWE;
Fox Sports
dubbed him a "genius".
[8]
He would go on to be considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time by many industry colleagues.
[84]
WWE released
Owen: Hart of Gold
on DVD and Blu-ray on December 7, 2015, in the United Kingdom, with the United States release the day after.
WWE wrestler
Kevin Owens
named his son after Hart and incorporated the name into his own ring name as tribute to both of them.
[85]
On September 20, 2021,
All Elite Wrestling
(AEW) announced the
Owen Hart Cup
Tournament, in partnership with the Owen Hart Foundation, wherein the winner will receive a trophy called "The Owen".
[86]
The company also announced production and distribution of original Owen Hart merchandise and Hart as a character in AEW's console game,
AEW Fight Forever
.
[87]
Championships and accomplishments
[
edit
]
Hart won every major championship in the
WWF
, except for the
WWF Championship
he is seen holding here
Luchas de Apuestas
record
[
edit
]
Winner (wager)
|
Loser (wager)
|
Location
|
Event
|
Date
|
Notes
|
El Canek
(mask)
|
Blue Blazer (mask)
|
Naucalpan, Mexico State
|
UWA show
|
May 29, 1991
|
[113]
[114]
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See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Awarded to Shawn Michaels for collapsing, but Hart accepted the award for himself for claiming to have made Michaels collapse.
- ^
After he presented the Award, Hart never awarded it to any of the possible candidates and instead stole it for himself.
References
[
edit
]
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Further reading
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Owen Hart
.
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