Remembering Owen Hart (1965-1999)

In memory of: Owen Hart (1965-1999)

It was 10 years ago to the day on Saturday (5/23/99) when wrestling superstar Owen Hart passed away. He was not only known in the ring as Owen, the brother of Bret the Hitman Hart, but also went by several other aliases such as The Blue Blazer, Owen James, The Rocket, and the King of Harts.

Owen's death was one of the most tragic occurrences in the history of WWE as it happened at a live Pay-Per-View event in Missouri back in 1999. The "Over the Edge" Pay-Per-View was the event, and Owen was supposed to make a special entrance from up above in the rafters. His match was an Intercontinental Title match against The Godfather. While lowering down in an attempted Blue Blazer stunt, things took a turn for the worse. Unfortunately an equipment malfunction occurred which sent Owen Hart falling 78 feet to his death in the ring. The live audience were witnesses to the tragedy while viewers at home saw a vignette instead, and then were reminded by Jim Ross that what was going on with Owen Hart was not part of the show.

Fans were in shock as were the superstars of the WWE after this happened. Owen's WWE had spanned a lengthy 10-11 years time. He always played his roles well, and especially memorable was his feud with his brother Bret, who Owen was always trying to prove himself better than. He was of course trained by Stu Hart, just like many other legends including Bret, Jim Neidhart, and some current rising stars, Tyson Kidd and David Hart Smith. Owen's title reigns are impressive on his resume. While never a WWE champion, he was involved in several battles for the belt. His resume is impressive, having won the Intercontinental title twice, the European Championship once, and the WWE Tag Team Titles 4 different times (partners were Yokozuna twice, British Bulldog and Jeff Jarrett once each). Owen was also 1994 King of the Ring. His steel cage match against his brother Bret at Summerslam 1994 was considered a classic by wrestling analysts. Owen also spent time as part of the Nation of Domination as it feuded with DX in some classic spots on Raw.

In a special tribute to Owen Hart, the Monday Night Raw episode which aired one night after his tragic death was named "Raw is Owen". It featured just about every WWE wrestler along with several of the McMahons, standing on the ramp together to start the show with a 10 bell salute. During the show, various wrestlers gave interviews and their emotional thoughts regarding what Owen meant to them and how tough a loss it was.

Owen was nicknamed "Nugget" during his career and often took offense to the term. While WWE will be trying to belittle the Denver Nuggets on the 05/25/09 episode of WWE Raw, there's no diminishing the career of the most famous and respected nugget in all of WWE history.