The Tombstone
Owen Hart, where do I begin really? I've been watching him wrestle since I was a little kid. Sometimes in life you can't rely on people who surround you, but you know I always felt I could rely on wrestling, the WWF, almost as an extended family. And from the time I started watching as a 10 year old kid, Owen Hart was there. He was always there, entertaining me, making the day a little brighter with his in ring performances or memorable quotes. Owen Hart has always been a guy that I guess I've taken a little for granted. He has always been a guy who I always felt like he would never leave the WWF, he'll always be there, maybe the tag team partner or the nickname will change, but Owen would always be around. Well, he's not around anymore, and it feels like a piece of the WWF, and even a little piece of me is missing. I still can't believe he's gone. If it had happened where he died in his sleep or something, it might have sunken in by now, but a freak accident, plunging to his death during a live PPV that I was watching, it's hard to comprehend. It's hard to believe it really happened. It's so hard to picture the WWF without Owen Hart, but I have no choice. He's gone. Owen Hart has always been a guy that if he was on a wrestling card, if he was making an appearance, I knew at least part of the show would be watchable.
There's been a big debate on whether the show should have gone on after Owen's fall. Personally, I think the WWF handled things just fine. I don't think Owen would have wanted them to stop the show on his account, and I don't think it would have played out right for them to stop in the middle of a live Pay Per View broadcast and in front of a live audience in the arena and tell everyone to go home, turn off the TV, whatever. I think they needed to finish the show, partly because it's good business, the fans paid for tickets or to order the PPV, and partly because it would have been an even bigger mess if they had just stopped their PPV in it's tracks and not followed through with some of the angles to go down that night. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, there really isn't a good answer. Either way somebody would be complaining about it.
One of my favorite Owen Hart memories is when I was at a house show, and during a dull moment when the arena had grown almost silent with bordem, Owen poked his head out of the curtains and yelled out "I AM NOT A NUGGET!" Of course, before you knew it the whole place was chanting "Nugget!" Owen was a great entertainer. I wish I would have had the pleasure to know him personally, because based off of the RAW segments on Monday, Owen really must have been a great guy. And I have to say, the WWF did a very classy thing on Monday, and the superstars showed a lot of strength and character going out there doing their thing and sharing their emotions with the world. You know, there's so many Owen Hart memories over the years and years I watched him wrestle that it's hard to describe exactly what one was the defining one that made Owen memorable or what defined the way I thought of him. Some of the more memorable moments that are at the top of my head right now are the King of the Ring in 1994, the 1994 Royal Rumble, and the couple of live events I attended that Owen appeared at. He always knew how to get the crowd going. He was a great guy, and I can't begin to describe how much he will be missed. I know his family will miss him so much more than I will as a fan though, which is why it's understandable the way they've been reacting lately.
You know, after Owen Hart died, after it sunk in just a little the next day, and I realized that his brother Bret was to be on the Tonight Show on Monday night, the first thought in my head was "Bret is gonna blame Vince and the WWF for this somehow." Maybe they are partly to blame, because obviously it happened at a WWF show in a WWF angle, but Vince didn't pull the cord that released Owen and Vince didn't push Owen out of the rafters. I understand where Bret is coming from, he lost his little brother in a horrible accident. He is upset, he's lashing out and trying to work through his feelings. Bret has been criticising the wrestling fans, saying that the wrestling fans are out to get the thrill and don't care about the performer, that wrestling fans are cold, and that we've all changed. I think I've heard this speech from Bret before, but let me tell you what I think about it. Yes, wrestling has changed with the times. I'm not sure if it's for the better or the worse, because I was addicted before the change and I'm addicted after it. It entertains me now just as much as it did then, despite the differences. Bret Hart was my favorite wrestler as I was growing up. Kane is my favorite now. So yeah, I can see a change there. A simple guy who wrestles a match with wristlocks and such compared to a guy who makes a pyro filled entrance and wears a flashy costume and uses big power moves to wow the crowds. I don't think that means my morals have changed though. I don't know that I'd admit this to some of my non-wrestling fan friends, but I cried several different times during RAW this past Monday. I cried because this world has lost a great wrestler, a great human being. If that makes me cold and non-caring, then I am guilty as charged. Bret groups us, wrestling fans, together as one big group. I see it as two seperate groups. One group is the fans who have been watching since the days before the big Monday Night Ratings War, since before the RAW IS WAR days, back when it was just RAW. This group of fans includes me, and this is the group that were honestly hurt and upset about Owen's death, and openly so. The second group of wrestling fans are the people who have just jumped on the bandwagon in the last year or two. Only watching wrestling to be "cool" or whatever. These are the people who when you say anything about wrestling that hasn't happened after late 1997 or early 1998, they look at you blankly. These are the people who don't know that Vince McMahon used to be a commentator, or that Jerry Lawler can actually wrestle, not just scream about puppies. These are the people who are relitively unphased by Owen's death. I think that it's great that wrestling is so popular these days. But I think I may have liked it more when it wasn't "cool" to wear a wrestling shirt in public. Because Bret is right in a way, a lot of wrestling fans watch just for the cheap thrill, or to see Sable expose herself again. They don't watch to see wrestling, they watch to see a freak show. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the storylines today as much as I did then, but it does attract a new breed of wrestling fans, and I don't like it.
You know, the main stream media seems to be milking Owen's death for all that it's worth. I knew they would. They are leeches trying to attach themselves to whatever they can feed off of for the longest ammount of time. They call for wrestling to be toned down and taken banned even, all because of what? An accident. That's what Owen's death was, an accident. He wasn't killed by a messed up neckbreaker or a botched piledriver, he was killed when he plunged 50 feet during what would have been a spectacular entrance. Well, what happens if a stunt man on the set of a movie plunges to his death? Or what if on the set of a broadway play someone dies while attempting to fly through the air as some fictional character? Is that any different than what happened to Owen? Not really, except it happened in wrestling, and since wrestling isn't now and probably never will be an accepted form of main stream entertainment, it's a big story. Mostly because no one understands it. They say people fear what they don't understand. I guess that goes for professional wrestling as much as anything else. The media attacks it when something like this happens because they don't understand that it was a freak accident, not caused by common practices in the wrestling industry. It'd be nice to see a reporter come on camera and simply state that the world lost a great human being, he will be missed, case closed, and not try to point the blame.
Whatever the case, I'm sure the crossfire over this issue will continue, and I'm sure that my opinion in the long run isn't really going to matter in the grand scheme of things. But to borrow a quote, the 'bottom line' is that Owen Hart is dead. We can't change that, we can't bring him back, we can't undo that accident. And Owen Hart most certainitly WILL be missed.
It's time to bring this column to a close. If I've left out anything, and I'm sure I have, I apologize. It's hard to gather emotions this raw into an organized public forum. Maybe I'll add more to this later. All I know is that the world lost a great guy, and it's really just beyond words how unfortunate that is.
Goodbye Owen, I'm going to miss you.
