Owen Hart

Owen James Hart (May 7, 1965 - May 23, 1999) was a Canadian professional wrestler who was most known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation. Owen was born in Calgary, Alberta, the youngest of 12 children to wrestling promoter Stu Hart and Helen 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 his widow Martha would explain in her book Broken Harts, Owen tried numerous times to find a profitable living outside of wrestling. As those attempts were unsuccessful, 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, Stampede Wrestling. He would remain with Stampede for the next couple of years while honing his skills. During 1986, Owen 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 fan voting). After Owen & Bassarab lost the tag-team titles, Owen 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. In NJPW, he’d wrestle Keiichi Yamada both unmasked and when he adopted the legendary Jushin Liger gimmick. On May 27, 1988, Owen Hart defeated Hiroshi Hase for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. Owen became the first westerner to hold that coveted 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 ring skills.

Owen’s success in Japan and Stampede’s working relationship with the World Wrestling Federation lead to Owen Hart signing with the company in the fall of 1988. Instead of promoting Owen as Bret Hart’s younger brother, the WWF decided to create a masked “Super Hero" type gimmick for Owen Hart known as The Blue Blazer. The Blazer caught the attention of fans with his unique look and exciting aerial maneuvers, but he didn't achieve much success against upper-card talent, being eliminated at Survivor Series 1988, losing to Ted DiBiase on the March 11, 1989 airing of Saturday Night's Main Event , and being defeated by Mr. Perfect at WrestleMania V . Shortly after WrestleMania V, 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, thus bidding farewell to the Blue Blazer gimmick.

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

The New Foundation
Owen 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. Instead, Owen signed with the WWF for a second time. In the WWF the popular Hart Foundation, comprised of his brother Bret and real-life brother-in-law Jim Neidhart, had split up, Bret Hart setting out on a singles career while Neidhart was used sparingly. Jim Neidhart was “injured" (Kayfabe) by the Beverly Brothers and put out of action for a while. When Neidhart returned from his "injury" he joined Owen Hart to form a team known as The New Foundation, who became instantly recognizable for their bizarre attire - baggy pants 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
Jim Neidhart left the WWF shortly after the PPV, and Owen set out on a a very short run as a singles wrestler, including a match at WrestleMania VIII against Skinner. Shortly after WrestleMania, Owen was teamed up with Koko B. Ware to form the duo known as High Energy. To show team unity, Koko would also adopt the trademark brightly colored baggy pants and they’d add checkermarked suspenders to make the look even more distinct. While the team was exciting and certainly “Kid friendly", it was never pushed as a serious threat to the tag-team titles. This was illustrated by the fact that they had only one PPV as a team, at the 1992 Survivor Series where they lost to The Headshrinkers . The team would be quietly dropped in the start of 1993 with Owen Hart starting a singles career, ditching the baggy pants look.

In the middle of 1993, when Bret Hart’s feud with Jerry Lawler ignited, Owen Hart stood by his brother’s side and fought against Jerry Lawler. The fight with Lawler did not take place on WWF television but mainly in the United States Wrestling Association where Bret, Owen and most of the other WWF talent were considered the heels (bad guys). Owen Hart 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 was forced to take some time away from the ring. At the time, rumors circulated that Owen was on the verge of leaving the WWF due to a lack of success. Whether the knee injury was just a way for the WWF to explain his absence or not isn’t quite clear.

Brother Vs Brother
Owen returned to the WWF ring in the fall of 1993, at a time when Bret’s feud with Jerry Lawler was temporarily sidetracked. Bret, along with Owen and their brothers Bruce Hart and Keith Hart, were scheduled to face Jerry Lawler and his team at Survivor Series 1993. However, Jerry Lawler was facing some legal trouble (he was legitimately charged with statutory rape but was later cleared of the charges), and as a result could not appear on WWF television. 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 looked on in anger. The (kayfabe) tension between the two brothers had reared its ugly head for the first time.

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 titles at the Royal Rumble 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 Bret lost the match due to his knee damage, Owen snapped, kicking his brother in the injured knee and then walking off]].

Afterwards Owen commented rather infamously that he “kicked the leg out from under the leg" of Bret Hart because Bret was "selfish". It was about this time that Owen began being looked upon as a heel.

The two brothers faced off for the first time at WrestleMania X, where Owen Hart shocked the world by cleanly pinning his older brother. Later in the night, when Bret Hart won the WWF Title, Owen Hart stood by and watched in jealousy 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). After the victory Owen 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 joined by recently returned Davey Boy Smith). Two matches stand out in this feud: first, their Steel cage match at Summer Slam 1994 which Bret won after a hard fought match. The second was a lumberjack match on August 17, 1994 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. Owen was at his most manipulative and insincere as he pleaded with her to think of his brother's well-being. The ploy cost Bret 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 between Bret and new champion Diesel ]]. In the weeks after the Rumble Bret and Owen clashed again with Bret resoundly defeating his brother, thus putting an end to their feud for the time being.

Camp Cornette
Owen rebounded from the loss to Bret Hart by winning the WWF tag-team titles from the Smoking Gunns at WrestleMania XI. Owen had challenged the Gunns and said he was bringing a “Mystery Partner", the partner turned out to be former world champion Yokozuna . After the victory Owen Hart took Jim Cornette as his manager since he already managed Yokozuna. 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 turned heel and joined Camp Cornette. 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 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 two. Signs of dissension slowly started to show between the two (again only an angle, not in real life). One occasion was the 1997 Royal Rumble when Owen would accidentally eliminate Bulldog and Owen generally tended to try to steal the spotlight. After the Rumble, Bulldog fired Clarence 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, hard fought match.

The Hart Foundation re-formed
After retaining the the tag-team titles against the Headbangers by Disqualification on Monday Night Raw March 24, 1997 the tension between the two bubbled over. An incensed Owen Hart demanded a shot at Bulldog’s European title the next week. The match was booked for March 31, 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 appeared at ringside and stopped the match. Bret appealed to both Owen and Bulldog, talking about how important family is. 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 singles gold of his own as he pinned Rocky Maivia to win his first WWF Intercontinental title. This meant that the Hart Foundation held every WWF title except the World title, cementing their dominance over the federation. It was not 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. The team would also 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 botched piledriver ended up injuring Steve Austin’s neck. The injury was so bad that Austin’s neck never fully recovered and was part of the reason Austin was forced to retire in 2003. Owen also lost his Intercontinental title to Steve Austin that night : Because of the neck injury Austin was not allowed to compete so he was stripped of the title. Although it was an accident the WWF decided to make it part of the storyline as Owen Hart began wearing a t-shirt patterned after Austin's that read "Owen 3:16/I Just Broke Your Neck".

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. This was 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. Afterwards Austin explained that he wanted to beat Owen Hart for the title when he returned and not Faarooq or anyone else. His wish came true when Austin returned to action at Survivor Series 1997 from Montreal. On the undercard Owen lost his title to Austin once again and then watched in shock as the infamous Montreal Screwjob took place.

The Lone Hart
Bret Hart left the federation after the Montreal Screwjob and both the British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart were granted quick releases from their contracts to jump to WCW. This left Owen Hart as the only Hart family member to remain with the WWF, due to his contractual obligations. Unlike Bulldog & Anvil, Vince McMahon did not grant Owen a released from his contract but was forced to remain with the company.

Owen was kept off the air for a while. He was 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" status. Owen had a very heated, very emotional feud with D-X and 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 regained the title in a controversial fashion . With time the Owen Hart / D-X feud turned into Owen Vs HHH, 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 friend X-Pac as well as the New Age Outlaws. The four formed a version of D-X that slowly became increasingly 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 Rocky Maivia (later known as The Rock), Owen Hart turned on Shamrock, "snapping" his ankle and "biting his ear" in the process. After the attack on Shamrock, Owen joined the Nation of Domination, claiming that “Enough is enough and it’s time for a change".

The Nation’s first big feud after Owen joined 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 as D-X parodied the Nation of Domination. The imitation was 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 split a pair of specialty matches on PPV but nothing was ever conclusively settled between them.

Teaming with Jarrett
Owen Hart would remain with the Nation of Domination throughout the year until the stable slowly dissolved, leaving Owen without much direction in the WWF. Owen was seldom seen after Summer Slam 1998 until he teamed with Jeff Jarrett. Owen and Jeff were long time traveling companions and real life friends, a fact that was reflected in their teamwork as they gelled from day one. The two had 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. Instead a different angle was born, or more like reborn.

After a match in which Owen “accidentally injured" Dan Severn, Owen seemingly quit the WWF . Playing off the injury Owen had inflicted on Steve Austin about two 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 who was under the mask. The gimmick was seen by many as punishment for Owen refusing the love-triangle storyline proposal but Owen and Jeff made it work in such a comical fashion that it was turning both of them face in the process. 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 (he was under the mask). In a later attempt to prove that neither Owen nor Jeff was the Blazer they both appeared next to a man in the Blue Blazer mask; however, it was obvious that an African-American was under the mask (Owen’s former partner Koko B. Ware wore the Blazer mask that night).

On January 25, 1999, in the midst of the Blue Blazer angle Owen and Jeff defeated Ken Shamrock and The Big Boss Man for the tag-team titles.

Death, Controversy and Lawsuit
On May 23, 1999 Hart fell to his death in Kansas City, Missouri, during the Over the Edge 1999 pay-per-view event. He was 34 years old. Owen was in the process of being lowered 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, Hart was to be lowered to just above ring level, at which time he would release himself from the safety harness and fall flat on his face for comedic effect. It was an elaboration on a Blue Blazer stunt done on the Sunday Night Heat before Survivor Series 1998 where the Blue Blazer had come down from the rafters but was attacked when he was unable to release himself from the harness (that is how the stunt was supposed to go, not a malfunction). Owen 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 which triggered the early release mechanism. Owen fell 78 feet (24 m) into the ring, smashing his chest on a padded, but still unforgiving turnbuckle, throwing him into the ring. He died from his injuries less than an hour later.

Owen had performed a practice stunt earlier in the day 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 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 had just transpired was not a wrestling angle or storyline and that Hart was hurt badly, emphasizing 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 arena. 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 (nicknamed the "Deadman") winning the WWF Title. While the show did go on, it has never been released commercially by WWF Video and to this date no footage has ever been released of Owen Hart falling.

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, and used the funds to establish the Owen Hart Foundation. Martha wrote a book about Owen's life in 2002 called “Broken Harts: the life and death of Owen Hart".

In his DVD set The Bret Hart Story, Bret comments that, despite the bad blood between himself and Vince McMahon, he wishes he had been with the WWF the night Owen's accident happened.

RAW is Owen
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 Owen's death 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. 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 Nation of Domination 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, although he also said his son didn't quite understand that "nugget" was not a term of endearment. Bradshaw talked about how Owen spent less money on the road than most wrestlers because he wanted to retire early and spend time with his family.

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, 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)
 * Hart driver II (Over the Shoulder Belly-to-belly piledriver)
 * Tombstone 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
 * Dragon sleeper


 * 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 this nickname was originally 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!"
 * "I don't need you with a bad leg doin it Bret, you're too damn selfish! And that's why you're sitting there with a bad leg, and that's why i kicked your leg... outta your leg!"


 * 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 (2), 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.
 * 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. Bret had asked that he be allowed to put Benoit over with a victory, but the bookers insisted that Bret win the match.
 * ECW also preformed a smiliar tribute to the WWF, by having all talent come to the ring, while the bell tolled 34 times.