SuperBacon Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 I definitely* remember watching the PPV live and if I had watched it live, I would've 100% have taped it, but I don't have the VHS anymore.  *even this isn't guaranteed as I'm certain around this time we didn't even have Sky so am desperately trying to rack my brains as to how and where I was living at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted May 22 Paid Members Share Posted May 22 19 minutes ago, Mr Kennedy said: Taker’s latest podcast is worth a listen as him and Mark Henry spend a little while telling some really good Owen Hart stories. Do any of them compare to "I'll tell them Test said to cancel the show"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted May 22 Paid Members Share Posted May 22 19 minutes ago, Mr Kennedy said: Taker’s latest podcast is worth a listen There's a first time for everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uklaw Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 I’ll always remember. I was 14 years old, and had gone to bed a little under the weather, rather than staying up like I would have. So I taped the event. Woke up well enough to go to school, and it wasn’t until I got there that I was told that Owen Hart had died. I initially thought it was a weird angle to play out, even with all the Ministry of Darkness shenanigans. But then it became clear this was real. One of my classmates who had watched the show, decided to use an Action Man figure (don’t ask) to ‘demonstrate’ what happened by dropping it onto a cabinet, making sure the head snapped back. I didn’t watch the taped VHS for days, even though I knew that the actual fall did not take place on air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uklaw Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 (edited) Deleted. Duplicate Edited May 22 by uklaw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chili Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 You have never seen a happier looking bloke than Owen Hart making his entrance at One Night Only. Getting a proper hero's ovation as his grins like a silly little prick, even tousled a fan's hair. He's so delighted to be playing the underdog hero. That match with Vader is a great bit of business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 22 Paid Members Share Posted May 22 I found out via GMTV on the Monday morning while I was getting ready for school. I had the show taped off Sky ready to watch later when I came home and was hit with that news while I was half asleep. Like everyone else, I was in shock. 4 hours ago, air_raid said: With my workrate hat on, his matches that are most worth of a rewatch are mostly famous - his Kid match from King of the Ring always gets love but there's an Action Zone/Coliseum match that is longer and as good in a different way. His forgotten Raw match with Mankind is a rewarding heel vs heel match, the European title final with Bulldog is not as lauded as the matches either had with Bret, his fiery underdog performance against Vader at One Night Only isnt talked about enough, and him and Pillman playing it for laughs in their ICT quarter final on Raw, I adored. Absolutely this. I was gonna throw in an additional shout for Owen vs Vader if you left it out, should’ve known better than to doubt you. I love that match. One of Vader’s best during his WWF run as well. One of the rare times he actually looked like Vader from WCW, with Owen basically playing the role Sting used to in 92-94. Great match. I’d throw in his matches with Shawn Michaels as well. Always thought they were great together. The ‘concussion match’ on Raw in late 95 is really good, as is the In Your House match a few months later. And they had a fun Raw match in the summer of 96 as well as the two in late 97. It’s a shame they never did more. Especially when Owen came back as the ‘Black Hart’ after Montreal. But Shawn wasn’t around much longer anyway. I think the Owen/Anvil vs Orient Express match from Royal Rumble 92 was my first time seeing Owen. In fact I’m sure it was because Rumble 92 was one of the first WWF PPVs I owned on VHS and the ones I had before didn’t have him on. I can’t even remember if they mentioned that Owen was Bret’s brother on the commentary for that match with the Orients but I’d already seen Anvil teaming with Bret on SummerSlam 89 and one or two other tapes, so I was already half onside when the New Foundation were making their entrance. Then the moment I saw this… I was 100% sold. Not even in a workrate perv way, I was probably 8 years old at most when I saw this. But it was just something I’d never seen before and it blew my little mind. Similar to when I got the WCW Superbrawl 2 tape (around this same period) and saw Liger vs Pillman for the first time. Loved Owen. I couldn’t stand him in the feud with Bret in 94 but that was because he was so good at being such a horrible little shit. And I think part of it was that when he came in and teamed with Bret just before the heel turn, I was loving them as a team. I wanted to be a fan of him and he ruined it! Always thoroughly entertained me though, even if I didn’t realise it at the time when I was rooting against him. Stuff I hated at the time like his turn at ringside at Survivor Series 94 during Bret vs Bob Backlund, looking back he was fantastic in that. The MVP of that match for me. And just made him even more detestable in my eyes. As the years went on I grew to grudgingly appreciate him and by the time he was teaming with Bulldog in 96 (combined with his stuff with the cast on his arm) I couldn’t help but like them both. The Hart Foundation reunion in 97 and the next probably 6 months after were brilliant and provided so much good TV with them opposite Austin, Shawn, LOD, Shamrock and whoever. You’ll always get people who say he should’ve had a run as WWF world champion but I disagree. Not that he wasn’t talented enough, just that there was never a right time during his WWF career to do it. They were never gonna go with him over Bret, Diesel, Shawn etc during that New Generation period. And the Attitude era? Forget it. As much as I love Owen, he was never getting a look in with both Austin and Rock soaring in popularity plus Mankind getting hot, Taker, Kane, DX etc. What a character though. It’s weird but, even as much as I liked him as a wrestler back then, I think I became even more of a fan of him after he died and we started hearing all the stories about the kind of person he was outside the ring. Watching the Dark Side Of The Ring episode on his death, it was really moving how well and how classy Martha came across, and the kids. It’s fucking heart wrenchingly sad that they were robbed of all the years they should’ve had with him. Can’t believe it’s been a quarter of a century! 👑🩷 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted May 22 Paid Members Share Posted May 22 1 minute ago, wandshogun09 said: I can’t even remember if they mentioned that Owen was Bret’s brother on the commentary for that match with the Orients They definitely did. Monsoon never neglected to mention it. 2 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said: As much as I love Owen, he was never getting a look in with both Austin and Rock soaring in popularity plus Mankind getting hot, Taker, Kane, DX etc. Funny you should mention that, there are some cracking forgotten matches from early Heat where Owen and Rock are tagging, IIRC one where they have a shot at Kane & Mankind and one where it's the massive four way of Austin & Taker vs Kane & Mankind vs Rock & Owen vs Outlaws. Might be getting confused with some Raw matches but either way, Owen & Rock actually going for the tag titles was a fun diversion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted May 22 Paid Members Share Posted May 22 One of my favourite Owen moments was when he beat the shit out of comedy impersonator Jason Sensation. Owen really sold it like he was genuinely pissed off by the impressions of him and it made the angle feel a lot more real and believable than most wrestlers could have. The beatdown was really violent and turned a comedy bit into something dramatic very quickly. Brilliant performance from Owen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBacon Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 The way he came back at the DX In Your House was absolutely thrilling, and so real looking. He absolutely clatters Shawn off that apron. Also 12yo me wasn't "ooooh shoot bro kayfabe bro shoot brother brother" clued up yet so I absolutely thought it was real. IMO they messed up not making that a more prominent feud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted May 23 Paid Members Share Posted May 23 13 hours ago, SuperBacon said: IMO they messed up not making that a more prominent feud. Timing, innit. They were about to pull the trigger on Stone Cold, virtually anyone else would have got lost in the shuffle. Steve was so protected around the time that when they were going to have The Rock win the ICT from him at the aforementioned IYH:DX, he put it to Vince that it might not be best to have him pinned on PPV right before he wins the Rumble, and Vince agreed with him. Imagine, a mere one month after Montreal, a wrestler displays reluctance to lose a title in the ring and Vince agrees? Fin Martin wrote at the time after the Shawn/HHH Euro title debacle words to the effect that between Shawn, Rock and Hunter there were three singles champions walking around that didn't win their belt in the "time-honoured tradition" of the business. Japes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEGIT Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 I was 9 at the time. We taped every WWF PPV but by chance the VCR broke and we didn't tape this one. It remains I think the only WWF PPV from the 80s/90s that I've never seen. School being school the speculation was rife. Ranging from it was fake, it was real and Undertaker cut the rope, it was real and a man in disguise cut the rope, that the fall was shown in full on TV. Even years later a lot of my friends who remained wrestling fans after they'd grown up insisted they'd seen the fall live on PPV. Don't think they were bullshitting but just misremembering what they saw. As for Owen, I hate using the term 'story arc' in wrestling, but his slow heel turn, various feuds with Bret throughout years, and then reuniting in the Hart Foundation was as good a long story arc in wrestling as you get. For me and a lot of others I saw it as Owen turning face again by reuniting with Bret as opposed to Bret turning heel. But yeah, universally praised by fans and other wrestlers as a great wrestler and even better guy. Such a tragic loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted May 23 Paid Members Share Posted May 23 19 minutes ago, LEGIT said: For me and a lot of others I saw it as Owen turning face again by reuniting with Bret as opposed to Bret turning heel. I felt that way too, in part because they'd really done a good job babyfacing Smithers with his Euro title win, mini feud with Stone Cold where he seemed to be tentatively at truce with Bret (aborted plan for Austin vs Bulldog for Mania 13 et al) and definitely the goodie in the simmering tension with Owen - plus the two of them had been wrestling an awful lot of heels lately anyway. And partly because to young raid, Bret was still the hero in his rivalries with that dirty stinking hyena Steve Austin, and the face of pure evil, Shawn Michaels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 23 Paid Members Share Posted May 23 (edited) Just watched the clip of the coverage from Over The Edge 99 on Twitter (the wide crowd shots with JR talking and finally announcing Owen had died) for the first time since around the time of the show. It’s no news flash to anyone but the fact the show went on after that is probably the most dirty, shameful and ghoulish thing in the history of wrestling by far. The whole ‘show must go on’ thing is fine if we’re talking technical issues, production problems or someone no showing. A man plummeting nearly 80ft into the ring and then being scraped up and carried out so they can get the next match underway? That’s just indefensible. There’s absolutely zero argument to justify the show continuing for me. Edited May 23 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted May 23 Paid Members Share Posted May 23 16 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said: Just watched the clip of the coverage from Over The Edge 99 on Twitter (the wide crowd shots with JR talking and finally announcing Owen had died) for the first time since around the time of the show. It’s no news flash to anyone but the fact the show went on after that is probably the most dirty, shameful and ghoulish thing in the history of wrestling by far. The whole ‘show must go on’ thing is fine if we’re talking technical issues, production problems or someone no showing. A man plummeting nearly 80ft into the ring and then being scraped up and carried out so they can get the next match underway? That’s just indefensible. There’s absolutely zero argument to justify the show continuing for me. The saddest bit for me (which is a fierce battle, to be fair) being that when they haven't quite figured out what to do over the course of the next couple of matches, Jeff Jarrett has to look into the camera and say "We're pulling for you, buddy" when he already knows Owen has died. Then he has to go out there, masking his grief a hell of a lot better than Debra managed - a truly depressing image, boobs hanging out like always, trying to force a smile, tears obvious in her eyes. Pretty powerful "Vince regime" metaphor there, I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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