I’ve had a number of favorite wrestlers over the years – Randy Savage, Curt Hennig, Chris Jericho – but I do always end back up on Owen Hart as having been my all-time favorite wrestler. While I’ve never gotten the vibe that anyone on this board necessarily loves him as much as I do, I do get the sense that he’s got plenty of respect here. So, especially given the newfound convenience of being able to access every PPV match he ever wrestled, I figured I’d have a go at a thread like this that pays tribute to his career. As long as people find it interesting, I’ll slowly but surely follow it all the way through to the unfortunate end. Even if they don’t, I’m going to go through and watch his career chronologically for my own entertainment, but I thought I’d have fun doing some writing too if it would make for a good thread.

EARLY YEARS (1984-1988)

Owen started off with Stampede and also wrestled some overseas with a UK promotion called Joint Promotions. As a kid I lived close enough to the Canadian border to get Stampede via antenna and watched it occasionally, though I never put together until much later that the Owen Hart I saw in WWF was the same blond dude I watched wrestle on Stampede a few times. After wrestling for a while in Stampede and in the UK, Owen branched out to Japan and wrestled in NJPW before getting his first shot with the WWF.

Various Matches

The earliest match I could find here was from 1984, with Owen Hart and Ross Hart (a Hart brother who I had never even heard of) taking on an unrecognizably young Fit Finlay and Rocky Moran in a 2 of 3 falls match, seemingly a Team Canada vs. Team Ireland thing. Owen was just 18 years old here but give his age was already quite capable. I wasn’t expecting much from this match given Owen’s age and experience as well as the promotion being one that I’d never heard of, but I found myself drawn in by it to the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km7NBGKB6TY

Here’s Owen winning Stampede’s North American title from Makhan Singh, who later wrestled in WWF as Bastion Booger. This match is nothing great really, but I watched a few of his Stampede matches from this time (1987/1988) and none were all that impressive. This one is edited down to a few minutes so it’s watchable. I pretty distinctly remember an angle where Owen’s head got busted open pretty badly after an ambush, and it may have been the one that kicks this clip off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVfUMCs-bfs

In 1988 in Japan, Owen won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title in NJPW from Hiroshi Hase. Per Wiki, he was the first gaijin (foreigner) to win this title. Some great stuff here at the climax of the match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpqgxqbWb7w

This is right before he heads to WWF, a nice match (unfortunately kept short via editing also) against Jushin Liger, without a mask and wrestling under his real name, Keiichi Yamada. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es_Ff9HRAVA

Transition – Owen joins WWF
Owen’s success in Japan, the working relationship between Vince and Stampede, and I would guess Owen’s blood relation to Bret got him signed with the WWF. Obviously as is well known, he was given the Blue Blazer gimmick and off he went.

FIRST RUN WITH WWF

Survivor Series 1988 – Ultimate Warrior, Brutus Beefcake, The Blue Blazer, Sam Houston, and Jim Brunzell vs. Honky Tonk Man, Greg Valentine, Bad News Brown, Ron Bass, Danny Davis

Date: November 24, 1988

How to Watch It: No YouTube link available. On the WWE Network, it’s the curtain-jerker for this PPV so no searching necessary.

Background: Most of the background just lies in the fact that Ultimate Warrior was the newly-crowned Intercontinental Champion after squashing the Honky Tonk Man at SummerSlam. Brutus had a long-standing beef with Honky also. This was Owen’s PPV debut, but he was an unknown at this point and didn’t really have any feuds going; his superhero getup did fit in on an Ultimate Warrior team though.

The Match: This was a solid debut for Owen, as he was made to look pretty strong from a booking standpoint and also got the compliment of not only Gorilla but especially Jesse Ventura putting him over on commentary. Jesse would put over the occasional babyface instead of bagging on them, and I always remember it carrying a fair bit of weight with me as a kid. He gets some good offense in on both Greg Valentine and Ron Bass, before being eliminated after Bass shoves him off the top rope while Valentine was the legal man, kayfabe injuring Owen’s knees and allowing Valentine to force a submission with the figure-four. Match mostly existed to put the Warrior over further and I guess blow off any remnants of Warrior/Honky (even though Honky leaves this match when he and Brutus both get counted out together), because Warrior was onto the feud with Rick Rude by the next PPV.

Rating: Relatively enjoyable little nostalgia piece. I doubt Owen gets more than 3-4 minutes of ring time in his first match, but he was given a nice start here. As I really only started watching wrestling about four months after this, it was fun to go back and revisit this as I think I rented this show one time as a kid and this was probably my only viewing of this match since then. 2 stars out of 5.

Saturday Night’s Main Event XX – The Blue Blazer vs. Ted DiBiase

Date: March 11, 1989

How to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5AMaBDLjKA#t=33m20s

Background: None to speak of (that I know of). This is the only time that Owen ever appeared on Saturday Night’s Main Event in any character. Million Dollar Man seemed to be debuting his Million Dollar Belt here.

The Match: Well first, both wrestlers cut separate backstage promos with Mean Gene. Ted cuts a standard but fun one. Blue Blazer says that while DiBiase will stay firmly on the ground, he’s “going to go airborne. From the top rope, from the ringpost, from the rafters if I have to.” Awkward. This is a fairly short match, as non-main event Golden Era matches tended to be; after recovering from being ambushed upon his entrance, Blazer controls a lot of the offense. He operated with an arsenal rarely seen in the WWF in this time period; he hits a nice suicide dive spot on DiBiase that you just didn’t see out of any wrestlers at all back then. It’s obviously totally standard from a number of wrestlers today. Ted goes over here when Owen attempts a leapfrog while DiBiase was coming off the ropes and DiBiase stops, catches him, and reverses it into a powerslam for the pinfall.

Rating: Not bad. I doubt if it exceeded 5 minutes, and it was easily worth the 5-minute viewing if you’re a fan of either worker (or hopefully both). 2.5 stars out of 5.

WrestleMania V – The Blue Blazer vs. Mr. Perfect

How to watch it: No YouTube link available. This match begins at the 50:45 mark of WrestleMania V on the WWE Network if you don’t have the search bubbles available to just pinpoint skip to it.

Date: April 2, 1989

Background: Again not much. Hennig and Owen came into the company about at the same time, with both getting their PPV debuts at Survivor Series. Hennig had more of a push going though, whereas Blazer had kind of settled in early as a jobber to the stars. To my knowledge, this was just one of those matches “just signed for WrestleMania” with no kayfabe explanation.

The Match: Commentators make it clear that Perfect is the one on the push here, as he gets called as the clear favorite in the bout. This was a lot like DiBiase vs. Blazer except that it took place on the much bigger stage of WrestleMania. Blazer takes a pretty painful-looking bump in mid-match when he goes for a splash off the top rope and seems to go stomach-first into Hennig’s knees with no real way of softening the blow that I can see. After a nice-looking crucifix-pinning combo that gets a near-fall (as a young mark this near-fall really kept the Blazer strong for me), Blazer questions the referees count and gets blindsided by Perfect before being cradled into the Perfectplex for the three-count.

Rating: The young me was very impressed with this match from both ends; it made me a fan of Mr. Perfect and temporarily made me a fan of the Blazer except that he then disappeared from the company for a while, and I had no idea that he was Owen Hart once he returned without the Blazer getup. However, part of what I was impressed by again was a set of offensive moves not seen elsewhere in the company; it’s a bit more generic now, albeit still well done. 2.5 stars out of 5…which honestly, given the rest of WrestleMania V, probably made it like the second or third-best match on the card.

Transition – Owen leaves WWF

Owen didn’t really get any wins during this first run; I found matches of him beating brand name jobbers like Brooklyn Brawler and Danny Davis, but that’s as far as his star rose at this point. After the job at Mania, the only other match I could find of Owen’s was a rematch with Mr. Perfect about a month later at the Meadowlands. After that he went to wrestle again in Stampede and also in Japan.

I'm going to try to follow along with this and maybe it can become a blueprint for similar wrestlers as more content becomes available on the network.

I consider myself to be a pretty big Owen fan, but I'm just not as quick to assume he would have been a World Champion or he'd have done "xyz" if he'd have continued on. With everything I've read and seen about him I do have a hard time jumping to the conclusion that he'd have reached the levels Bret did.

That being said, he was clearly (to me) the more talented of the two. If I were to compare them the only area I would give the advantage to Bret in would be in his technical prowess. Bret had a "crispness" for lack of a better term that I never saw from Owen, but I can't think of another attribute that I wouldn't say that Owen is equal to or better.

Vince actually bought and owned Stampede for a few years in the mid-80's, but I'm struggling to remember why (from the WWF perspective) because he sold it back. I do remember Stu secured deals with a lot of his talent to join the WWF roster in the process, which is why there was such an influx of Stampede talent within that 3-4 year window. I'm not sure if Owen was a part of that or not, but it would explain the short stint he had.

Not a lot to add to the early matches, although I don't think I had seen most of them prior. I do think I see a very heavy influence from Dynamite Kid on Owen's style in these matches though that I never really noticed before. I wonder if that's something that will stick out more later in his career watching his maturation step-by-step that wouldn't have otherwise.

Oh I agree with you about not really knowing what happens if he doesn't die young. For one thing, the accounts all seem to indicate that Owen didn't have a desire for wrestling to be his life and that he was always pinching pennies on the road a la Mick Foley to hopefully reach a level of financial security where he could viably retire. This as opposed to Bret who really embraced the business as his life and acted accordingly.

Even if Owen (died at 34) was going to stick with it to age 40 there were no guarantees; I'll get to it as I get to this point in his career, but certainly the indications in late '97 were there that he was about to get the big main event push. But the Shawn Michaels clique shut him out with political bull****, and Steve Austin (understandably) didn't want to work with him in the ring from what I gather, and Owen seemed to have a ceiling that he wasn't going to break through.

As a big fan of his at the time, seeing his chance to main event Royal Rumble '97 against HBK seemingly vanish into thin air sort of convinced me that he was never going to get his shot. Then from there, the WWE hit the Attitude Era, and it became a lot more difficult to crack the top tier than when it was basically Shawn and Bret (and unfortunately Nash for a time) with no other viable options to run with the ball.

So basically I agree. There's a chance he'd have made it to the top, but I would say that the odds are that he was never going to. I think Bret had more commitment to the industry and had luckier timing, but yes I think that Owen was the more talented brother. Bret had the better look; a rhinoplasty may have been a +EV investment for Owen.

Anyway, world title chances aside, without the ****ty ending we surely would have seen him enter the Hall of Fame. Given his widow Martha's (again, understandable) animus toward the WWE, I don't feel like that's ever going to happen as is. But, rights to his name notwithstanding, he did manage to put together a HOF resume by age 34. And with that, I'm going to resume watching.

HIATUS FROM WWF; WORKING INDIES (1989-1991)

Various Matches – NJPW, Stampede, UWA

Owen shows some pretty obvious improvement from the first clip I posted (the tag match when he was 18) to now, and it's obvious that he can hang with anyone at this point.

I couldn’t find a year on this one from NJPW, but this is Owen taking on Chris Benoit, wrestling under a mask as Pegasus Kid. I notice he actually throws decent hurracanranas that connect in Japan. I swear that every time he went up to do that move in WWF it was countered into a powerbomb. I’ll keep my eyes peeled as I make my way through his career, but I’m relatively sure he never did one successfully in a WWF match that I saw. This one takes a couple of minutes before it hits fifth gear, but it eventually really gets going. Very much enjoyed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBPGUCWvSwc

Here is a no DQ street fight from Stampede in 1989 between Owen and the Dynamite Kid. Whoever this idiot is that Dynamite had in the corner is annoying as **** during this match in a truly X-Pac heat sort of way, but regardless this is a good match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWeOHIsN0pQ

Throwing in this match with El Canek from UWA, mask vs. mask with Owen wrestling as the Blue Blazer, just because of the uniqueness of circumstance. The match didn’t really do it for me like I had hoped, so I don’t promise any high level of match quality if you click on the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=titn8pA1j1U

This is the best match that I could find from Owen’s hiatus from WWF, with Owen circa April 1991 taking on Jushin Liger (with a mask this time) in NJPW. Great stuff throughout. I notice that the tombstone piledriver was definitely a go-to for Owen in Japan, so his terrible botch where he could have paralyzed Steve Austin sure wasn’t for lack of ability to do that move safely. Just a bad botch on a move that you can’t afford to have a bad botch on, I guess. One spot Owen does in this match that he featured once in a long while in WWF was his release belly-to-belly suplex on a running opponent. I always thought he looked great when doing that spot and thought he used it too sparingly. Anyway, here’s the match. If you’re only going to click on one link, make it this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1u7vGXvbo

Owen wrestles a very brief stint in WCW

For a short time in 1991, Owen took his talents to Atlanta, GA and wrestled for WCW. Nothing of significance happened. Throwing out this clip as a rare time capsule where Owen wrestled a jobber with Jim Ross and Paul Heyman on the call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixg6oAeiLaU

It is from 4/28/91. Doesn't get much better than this.

Owen's only real hope at a world title run would have been to hang on until brand separation/two world titles. Do people forget he was playing the role of Blue Blazer when he passed away? Crowds were chanting nugget at the dude. Hardly a sign of pending world champion material.

Meh everyone gets a bad gimmick from time to time. I feel like Owen would have been a good face to feud with HHH during his reign of terror.

But Mick Foley's kids were chanting it as if it was Boo-urns.

Anyway, the story is that the return to Blazerdom was a punishment for refusing to play out an affair angle with Debra because he didn't want to be portrayed as cheating on his wife. The Blazer thing was actually getting over well comedically and he was supposed to be getting the IC title the night he died. I think the gimmick would have been dropped quickly enough.

Not that I'm arguing with your overall conclusion; as stated in my previous post, it seemed like he had very likely hit an upper midcard ceiling even though he had all the talent to be at the top.

The New Foundation

Creative plans early upon Owen’s return were sparse, but since Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart had quietly split up so that Bret could go the singles route, Owen was installed as Neidhart’s partner and got his first acknowledgment in WWF as Bret’s little brother. As I mentioned previously, I was a kid and had no idea that Owen used to be the Blue Blazer (who I liked in his short stint before), so I was no real fan at this point. This thing where the WWF had Owen and the Anvil wear ridiculous colorful oversized pants was uhh a mistake.

I’ll just say that I was a fan of the Hart Foundation for years, and probably could have been cajoled pretty easily into rooting for these guys too, but the clothes left me going “WTF is this ****, these guys aren’t nearly as cool as the Hart Foundation were.” Their finisher was called The Rocket Launcher, which was basically just Owen doing a splash off the top rope but with Neidhart seemingly propelling him by throwing him.

SECOND RUN WITH WWF (1991-1999)

Royal Rumble ’92 – The New Foundation vs. The Orient Express

Date: January 19, 1992

How to watch it: Here’s DailyMotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2c...?search_algo=1. If you have WWE Network, the higher-quality edition is ready to curtain-jerk the Rumble ’92 event for your convenience.

Background: Owen had just returned to the company, Neidhart had nothing to do, so let’s throw them together and make a tag team. Match likely had little more reasoning than “these guys aren’t going to be in the Rumble itself, so let’s give them a match that they can pour themselves into.” There was no feud building this at all.

The Match: Heenan and Monsoon are on the call, and Heenan instantly (correctly) clowns on the Foundation’s ring attire. Owen gets some very fun offense in early, drawing some audible oohs and ahhs from the live crowd. This includes a successful hurracanrana on Kato (Paul Diamond). Well THAT was a quick comeuppance for me after saying that he never got to do that move in WWF. New Foundation controls much of the action until Mr. Fuji turns the tide with a timely cane from the outside. From there the Orient Express double-teams and works Owen over, with Owen occasionally busting out a successful move but then never managing the tag in several chances. He finally does make the hot tag to Neidhart after hitting a double dropkick on Kato and Tanaka coming off the ropes, and then is back in shortly to both get launched outside on a suicide dive at Kato and then to climb to the top to hit the Rocket Launcher on Tanaka for the pinfall.

Rating: This was really good; surprisingly good, actually. It was a great little showcase for Owen, with him performing most of the offense and taking most of the bumps while Anvil was on the outside. The match got a solid 17 minutes, so he got to unleash most of his arsenal, and the team went over clean via their finisher. Reasonably lively crowd who popped well for the finish, fun commentary from the GOAT announce team (even if their primary focus was on fighting about whether Flair was going to win the Rumble that night), very enjoyable all around. I give this 3.25 stars out of 5 and call it Owen’s best WWF match to this point. I see that Meltzer gave it the same rating; I’ll rate all of these before looking to see what he did on any of them.

Okay, no New Foundation

You would think there was a chance that they might have pushed this team given the showcase match with a clean pin on PPV, but Neidhart left the company shortly after and the team never hit PPV again; Owen was back in singles by WrestleMania. I don’t really know what the story was on Neidhart’s departure in this case. He has had his real life troubles but none that made it public this time that I know of.

WrestleMania VIII – Owen Hart vs. Skinner

Date: April 5, 1992

How to watch it: No link available. Don’t worry, you’re not missing anything. And now that I’ve given it that ringing endorsement: it’s at 2:12:55 on the WWE Network broadcast of WrestleMania VIII.

Background: None; just a thrown-together match. At least Owen didn’t get cut due to time constraints like his brother-in-law did (Davey had a match announced against the Berzerker that got scratched due to other stuff running long).

The Match: They get about 90 seconds here. Skinner hits a reverse DDT and only gets a two-count, Owen then scores the quick roll-up for the win.

Rating: Given some time these two could have had a good match, but with no time it’s completely worthless. Still, giving Owen clean PPV wins at the Rumble and Mania, even low-profile ones, was a good indication that they liked him. 0 stars out of 5.

High Energy

With Anvil leaving and with no place to really put Owen in the singles mix, they threw him in with another jobber/Hall of Famer, Koko B. Ware, for a tag team. They doubled down on the stupid clothing and added checkerboard suspenders. TommyLeeJones.jpg. They didn’t make the SummerSlam card this year. Like The New Foundation, they got one PPV appearance…

Survivor Series ’92 – High Energy vs. The Headshrinkers

Date: November 25, 1992

How to watch it: Not very good quality, but here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoKA710n82E. Or you can watch it curtain-jerk this show on the WWE Network.

Background: None. I swear that this feels likely to become a worthwhile category for these matches once we get to the point where Owen is actually relevant, but they were just sort of sticking him wherever on the card to fill space at this point and he wasn’t really feuding with anyone. The Headshrinkers were new to the company and this was their PPV debut.

The Match: I notice right away that High Energy seemed to mark the first that Owen used this theme music, the music we all knew him to use for most of his career. They get a full entrance while the Headshrinkers get a jobber entrance, but that turned out to not be predictive of the result in this case. Not only did High Energy not go over, but they weren’t really made to look like much of a threat here. Owen gets a bit of token offense in late, but he ultimately gets caught in a powerslam, takes the splash off the top rope that I guess was the Headshrinkers tandem finisher (in which one of them executes a move while the other one stands there in the corner and does sign language or something), and does the clean job.

Rating: Nothing doing here. It was basically just Owen and Koko being used as enhancement talent. ½ star out of 5.

Royal Rumble ’93 – Rumble Match

Date: January 24, 1993

How to watch it: Here’s the start of the full match: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4o...?search_algo=1. Owen enters at #28 in the Rumble match. Pinpointed here on DM: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4o...port&start=955. Also at 2:20:55 on the WWE Network.

Background: “HOW IS ANYONE EVER GOING TO THROW AS BIG OF A MAN AS YOKOZUNA OUT OF THE ROYAL RUMBLE??” WTF, this one and only time, that talking point actually translated to the result of the Rumble. This was Owen’s first Rumble match and he had no feuds or angles going.

The Match: For purposes of this tribute, I just looked up when Owen was going to enter the match and fast forward to there. He was in the background for a couple of minutes, barely even being acknowledged upon entry, when Gorilla said, “I like Owen Hart’s chances, brain!” JLawyeahokay.gif. Owen does score one elimination here as he dropkicks one of the Nasty Boys over the top, but then is promptly eliminated by Yokozuna. It’s a wonder that Owen was gracious enough to choose Yoko as his mystery partner at WrestleMania two years later. Owen got eliminated late enough that I stick around and watch the rest so that I can see the ******ed ending, in which Randy Savage drops an elbow on Yokozuna and then tries earnestly to pin him before being summarily thrown off so hard by Yoko that he goes out over the top rope.

Rating: N/A, didn’t watch the whole match or want to.

WWF pulls the plug on High Energy

High Energy never really got off the ground with any wins, but they did challenge Money Inc. for the tag titles on Wrestling Challenge in late February 1993. Koko B. Ware injured himself (it looks to have certainly been a work) in mid-match, which left Owen to fend for himself in a 1-on-2 situation. Money Inc. kept toying with him and pulling him up until the referee disqualified them for not pinning him (???). Bret Hart ran in for the save, with Koko just laying out on the floor injured off-camera. Best as I can tell, that was that; Koko appeared on Monday Night Raw the following week to job to Doink in singles action, but was back to his old Birdman theme and wasn’t using the High Energy theme that became all Owen Hart’s after that.

Thankfully after this, they turned Owen into a singles wrestler and found some direction for him by year's end that started building him toward star status. The New Foundation match at Rumble '92 is recommended; everything else here can and should be skipped.

cant wait to get to WM X. one of my favorite matches of all time.

Thread needs Owen's amazing theme song:

Had it here IMO. Love Owen's theme.

Rest of 1993

Owen didn’t make the cut for the WrestleMania IX card because the powers that be were too busy giving those slots to the likes of Giant Gonzalez. To be fair, Owen seemingly didn’t wrestle any house shows or anything from early March until early May, so perhaps he was hurt or something. I know that he suffered a knee injury at some point early in this run with the WWF, and I’m imagining this as the best candidate to be the time period when it happened. Upon popping back up, Owen’s sibling relationship to Bret was accentuated, with his whole character seeming to revolve around being Bret’s younger brother. I would like to think that this was all long-term booking to lead up to his heel turn, and in this case I could actually believe it. Raw was only an hour long, so I think that long-term booking may have still been a thing at this point.

Owen was only in dark matches at King of the Ring ’93 and SummerSlam ’93, so probably his biggest singles match for a while was against Jerry Lawler in June of ’93 while the feud between Lawler and Bret was heating up. Here’s the match, though I’ll give fair warning that King does so much stupid stall stuff that it renders the match pretty worthless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQqP3z8vhlE

Of course, jobbing to the guy Bret was feuding with so that the guy could naturally build himself up for a PPV match with Bret is the very definition of wrestling in Bret’s shadow, so Survivor Series ’93 happened.

Survivor Series ’93 – Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Bruce Hart, Keith Hart vs. Shawn Michaels and the Knights of the Squared Circle

Date: November 24, 1993

How to watch it: Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atDEbd_oXcA. Or it’s at 36:45 on the WWE Network.

Background: Oh boy. Well you see, Jerry Lawler had spent months feuding with Bret and running down the Hart family, particularly Stu and Helen Hart. Bret and Lawler faced off at SummerSlam, where Bret beat the living crap out of Lawler and made him submit to the sharpshooter, but then refused to release the hold, thus giving Lawler a win by disqualification and not blowing the Hart-Lawler feud off. That led to a match being set up where the Hart brothers would take on Lawler and a few dudes with masks. But Lawler suddenly found himself having to defend himself against criminal charges for rape of a 15-year-old girl (who turned out to be a liar and admitted as much later apparently). Given that Lawler seemed to have a date scheduled elsewhere with the Big Boss Man, they had to cancel his involvement in Survivor Series. They inserted Shawn Michaels at the last minute and simply pretended that he had been the one running down the Hart family all this time. It was awkward and terrible, but to be fair that was a pretty ****ty situation to have to deal with for all involved and there probably wasn’t a great answer to it. By the way, Bobby Heenan was on the call with Vince McMahon here, and it was Bobby’s final WWF PPV on commentary (outside of his WrestleMania X-Seven cameo).

The Match: Upon Owen’s entry into the match, Heenan calls him “the shadow” because “he has been living in the shadow of his older brother Bret.” WTF Bobby, “WHOSE SIDE IS HE ON??” Quit foreshadowing heel turns before they have happened or even really been hinted at. Lawler and Bret had great heat going, but this crowd just absolutely does not buy into this awkward substitution of HBK into the Lawler role. Vince notes that Bruce hasn’t wrestled since 1991 and Keith hasn’t wrestled since 1989. Naturally Keith seems to be in the ring during the whole ****ing match. Owen pins the Black Knight after a missile dropkick. Then he tags Keith in to slowly do whatever for a really long time again. The crowd’s silence gives way to audible “boring” chants before those chants were ever really a thing. Ray Combs, Family Feud host on guest commentary: “this is painful to watch.” Yeah, no **** Ray. Keith finally makes the hot tag to Bret, who forces the Red Knight to tap out. I remember that back when this event came out on tape, I rented it and honestly just started fast forwarding through big chunks of the match because it was so brutal. This time, for completeness, I went ahead and decided to sit through it. Long story short, I was much smarter and wiser 20 years ago than I am today. Owen forces the Blue Knight to tap out to the sharpshooter, and we’re down to all four Hart Brothers against Shawn Michaels.

The match, despite making me pretty much wish that I was watching a Mabel vs. Great Khali ironman match instead, does at least have the big angle that really started Owen off on the path toward stardom. Bret was in against Shawn, and in mid-move Shawn rakes him in the eyes. A seemingly blinded Bret tags Owen in, who hits the release belly-to-belly suplex on Shawn and gets the near-fall. But upon getting up, he heads into the ropes where Bret has wandered up the apron. He runs into Bret, knocking Bret to the guardrail. This distracts Owen who gets rolled up by Shawn and eliminated. Bruce and Keith check on Bret as Owen yells at them from the outside. Owen finishes his tantrum and leaves. After some more action between Bret and Shawn, Shawn eventually has enough and leaves, getting counted out and mercifully ending the match after more than 30 ****ing minutes of excruciating runtime. ****, Shawn wouldn’t job to Bret even back then.

Owen comes back out after the match, still livid about his elimination, pulls Bret off the turnbuckle in mid-celebration and shoves him. He yells at his brothers, creates an awkward situation, and gets booed pretty heavily. The camera picks him up saying “I never get any recognition.”

Rating: Mostly horrible, with a few moments of excruciating agony. But at least it was long (per Wiki, just under 31 minutes). Holy Testicle Tuesday this was bad. The only good spots here are a few very funny jokes by Heenan on commentary where he makes fun of Stu and Helen. Good post-match angle though. If you’re ever going to watch this, just fast forward through literally the entire match and watch the aftermath, because that part is done really well. As for the match itself, I’m giving it 0 stars out of 5. Gross. I’m never sitting through that again.

Thankfully this will bring us to 1994, and the Owen Hart match and push quality is about to improve dramatically.

I don't really have anything to add right now but just wanted to say awesome thread.

I haven't gotten to any of the 1994 viewing yet today, which seems crazy because I should have wanted to cleanse my palate immediately after sitting through that Survivor Series 1993 match. Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Shawn Michaels in a match...result: UNFORGIVABLY HORRIBLE. Seems impossible but it's true.

Greg Valentine was in that match too as one of the knights iirc.

Edit - Yup. The other two knights were Barry Horowitz and Jeff Gaylord, lol.

1994

Royal Rumble ’94 – WWF Tag Title Match: The Quebecers (c) vs. Bret Hart and Owen Hart



Date: January 22, 1994

How to watch: No YT or DM. On the WWE Network it’s at the 22:30 mark.

Background: Cliffs would be that Bret and Owen made up since their Survivor Series fight and decided to pursue the tag titles. Video cliffs of the build are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtmYyW-PC4s#t=13m30s.

The Match: Bret and Owen cut a pre-match promo about how chummy things are now. I almost think I would have preferred that the heat have been more subtle at SS and the turn more unexpected here, because this is reminding me of Jack Torrance at the beginning of The Shining giving a big smile and assuring the owner that he would not be murdering his whole family with an axe.

Anyway, some solid action back and forth until Bret Hart gets caught when running with a powerslam, enabling the Quebecers to take over control of the match. Owen was sort of kayfabe ******ed in this match, because he obviously legit wanted to win and yet he runs into the ring and makes the official push him out like 10 different times. This enables the Quebecers to go from legally working on Bret’s leg to eventually just brazenly pulling out weapons when the referee’s back is turned and hammering Bret’s leg with said weapons while Vince flipped out on commentary.

Pierre misses a top rope cannonball attempt as Bret moves out of the way, finally giving Bret the chance to make the hot tag to Owen. This is an opportunity that he doesn’t take though, instead attempting to slowly wrap Pierre’s legs into the sharpshooter. Midway through doing this, Bret’s leg gives out and he collapses. Referee Tim White calls for the bell and declares the Quebecers winners. This is a bull**** call by the way and totally inconsistent with how WWF officials call matches, but there it is.

Owen yells at the referee, then turns his aggression to Bret, screaming at him about not tagging out while Bret slowly tries to make his way back to his feet on his injured leg. Right as Bret gets back to his feet, Owen kicks Bret’s leg out to big heat, completing the heel turn. He leaves the ring screaming to the camera about how selfish Bret was for not tagging. He proceeds to cut a promo from backstage that starts out hot, then gets repetitive, and then culminates in one of the all-time botches when he says “and that’s why I kicked your leg out of your leg.” Oh Owen. All the same, a highly successful heel turn that started one of the great feuds of this time period.

Result: Quebecers via referee stoppage



Rating: All parties involved were at least good hands in the ring if not great, so the action was executed well and the match told a good story. There was some slowness to it as the Quebecers had to just focus on Bret’s leg for a good while, but obviously that was necessary to where we were going with this. I would give this 3.5 stars out of 5, and would upgrade it to 4 stars for the whole segment if you count the post-match heel turn.

Royal Rumble ’94 – Rumble Match

Date: January 22, 1984

How to watch: No YT or DM. On the WWE Network it’s at the 1:37:48 mark.

Background: Most of the build on this match was about Lex Luger getting his one chance to earn a title shot at Yokozuna after blowing his previous one at SummerSlam. Other contenders didn’t get hyped up much, and it seemed clear enough to me that Lex was going to win. I was half-right.

The Match: Owen enters at #5 to big heel heat. He eliminates Rick Steiner with the rare “slowly work him up over the top rope, slowly move him to the other apron, then hit him while he’s on the other side so that he falls off and hits the floor” move. That never works. Owen only lasts a few more minutes though, getting tossed out by Diesel when Diesel clears the ring of everyone. Bret comes in with a late number, makes it to the final two with Lex Luger, and the two of them tumble over the top rope together and pretty much land on the floor in a tie. They do a nice job on this spot; it’s gotta be a difficult one to pull off so well with only one attempt at it. The two are declared co-winners of the Rumble.



Result: Owen eliminates one, then eliminated by Diesel. Bret Hart/Lex Luger win Rumble.

Rating: N/A, don’t care. Owen’s heat when he comes out and the pop when he gets eliminated are both good signs that the heel turn worked to perfection though.

Great thread.

Thanks guys, glad people are enjoying. Should get the WM X match up tonight, and then it might slow down until next weekend.

Excellent work LKJ. Bret was my guy growing up so I paid a ton of attention to Owen as well. My personal favorites involved them teaming up but obv their best work was against one another.

I described this recently in another thread, but my trajectory in really taking to Owen was that he was an on-screen enemy of Bret, and at the time here in '94 when Owen turned on him I was a huge Bret hater.

I don't even fully know why I was a Bret hater; I was a big Hart Foundation fan, and then without the Anvil I found Bret to be dull, and then overpushed, and generally whiny and irritating. I resented it when they had him take the IC belt from my main man at the time Mr. Perfect (obviously knew nothing of Perfect's injuries; now that I bring this up, I'm thinking that the win over Mr. Perfect probably was the catalyst for my hate, which is how much I liked Perfect), then just found myself opposing Bret in his title defenses all along the way after that. I eventually became a Bret fan again in '96 in the run-up to his match with Shawn Michaels because I hated Michaels more, but during 1994 we were definitely in the sweet spot where an enemy of Bret's was a favorite of mine.

I was only mildly interested in Owen until this WrestleMania X match that I'll be writing up soon, which put him over absolutely huge with me.

WrestleMania X – Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart



Date: March 20, 1994.

How to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z910gwoySGs. Or it’s the opening match of this event on the WWE Network.

Background: Bret was co-winner of the Rumble with Lex Luger, and instead of having the two of them fight each other for the title shot, Jack Tunney set up a double main event where each of them would get a shot at the title in separate matches. Seems deeply unfair to Yokozuna to be forced into double duty because two other dudes hit the ground at similar times, but nobody cared about him I guess. It was set up so that there would be a coin flip for who got to face Yoko first. If Luger won, he would go first and Bret would face Owen. If Bret won the coin flip, he would go first and Lex would face Crush. Wait, how is it winning the coin flip to get forced into winning two championship matches instead of having one match where the result doesn’t matter and getting an automatic pass regardless into the last match of the night? Shouldn’t that be what winning the flip was?

Anyway, Lex won the flip on Monday Night Raw and was happy…almost as happy as when he won at SummerSlam by countout and then acted like he won the Super Bowl. Bret being downtrodden about losing the flip at least made sense because he had held firm in his desire not to face his brother, and now he was stuck with it. In any case, the match was on.

The Match: The announcer opens WrestleMania by trolling, announcing the first wrestler as being from Calgary, having the fans pop expecting Bret, and then Owen came out. I dunno how that wasn’t obvious to happen as it was, but…you know, wrestling fans. The very first physicality of the match still always makes me laugh. Bret and Owen get into a collar-and-elbow tie-up, basically struggle to a stalemate where neither gets any advantage, and then upon separating Owen throws his arms up and yells “YEAH!!!” From the announce table Lawler celebrates with him as Vince dumbfoundedly says, “Is that some sort of a victory? Give me a break!” I can’t be the only one who finds this moment funny.

Some basic wrestling to start until Owen gets sent out through the ropes when Bret escapes a hold, and Owen comes storming back into the ring and openly slaps Bret in the face. Bret gets more aggressive from there. Great bit of storytelling to make Bret less reluctant about fighting his brother. The chain wrestling here is just top-notch, with no wasted moves and only brief slowdowns to give the two of them a chance to call the next sequence. Bret mostly tries to keep the action to clean wrestling, though he does return Owen’s big slap a bit later himself. Owen naturally wrestles more of the heel style, slamming Bret into the steel ringpost in one spot.

Too much good work to call; a great german suplex pinning combo by Owen for a near-fall. A great jumping tombstone spot as well. There’s a cool spot where Owen attempts to cinch in the sharpshooter, Bret reverses and tries to put the sharpshooter on Owen, but Owen escapes and rolls out. Bret follows him out, executing a rare pescado that hits Owen on the outside but kayfabe injures Bret’s leg. Back in the ring Owen immediately attacks the leg and kicks it out from underneath Bret in a call-back to the Rumble heel turn. Excellent stuff.

Owen goes HAM at the leg, hitting a leg whip and then applying a figure-four. Bret escapes the figure four after reversing it and then turns the tables with an enziguiri. Bret follows with a piledriver and then a superplex, but can only get a two-count. Owen hits a low blow out of referee Earl Hebner’s sight, and then locks in the sharpshooter in the middle of the ring. Bret actually clearly taps out here, but I guess this was before tapping was a signal for submission. Bret fights his way into a reversal, but by then they’re near the ropes and Owen gets a rope break.



Owen and Bret fight into the corner, where Bret stuns Owen with a punch and then hops up to the second rope and positions himself to attempt a victory roll. Midway through the victory roll, Owen puts on the brakes, sits down for a pinning combo of his own, and gets the 1-2-3 to cap off an awesome match. Jaws visibly drop in the audience as Owen completes the upset; the air goes out of the arena. I was as shocked as anyone; after the fact it felt like I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t even remotely foresee Owen winning this match, let alone cleanly. But it was an awesome moment, rarely matched in the time I’ve watched.

Result: Owen via pinfall clean, 20:21

Rating: I genuinely have nothing critical to say against this match. It’s amazing. It was the culmination of a long storyline, with them finally wrestling three and a half months after Owen first challenged him, and it delivered in a big big way. The Royal Rumble made sure that Owen was permanently over; this match made sure that he became a star. No choice here but to call this 5 stars out of 5.

Later that night

Bret went on to beat Yokozuna in the main event that night and take down the world title. The babyfaces in the locker room poured out of the dressing room to celebrate with Bret, but then Owen came out into the aisle and glared his brother down to foreshadow a future rematch between them. Obviously the feud had plenty of steam left.

King of the Ring ’94 – (First Round Tournament Match) Owen Hart vs. Tatanka



Date: June 19, 1994

Link: N/A

Background: Owen qualified for the KOTR tournament by defeating Doink. Tatanka qualified by beating Crush.

The Match: Art Donovan asks Gorilla and Macho what Tatanka, but they no-sell the question. I love that he asks that question about someone like Tatanka, considering that it’s a guaranteed uninteresting answer. I at least get asking that about Mabel or Yokozuna. Tatanka attacks before the house lights come up on Owen’s intro, and we’re off. A bit of a cheap shot, but Owen will pay this forward later. Art re-asks what Tatanka’s weight is so Savage finally humors him with a guess. “I’d say…between 260 and 280.” ****, 280? Tatanka? That seems high. Wiki says 250, which seems more like it.

Owen sends Tatanka over the top, but Tatanka lands on his feet and drags Owen out. Owen gets the ultimate better of the sequence though, sending Tatanka hard into the steel post outside. Nice continuity in that sequence. Owen hits a nice missile dropkick off the top rope, but it only garners a two-count. Honestly that should have been a move worthy of getting a first-round tournament win. Owen locks Tatanka into a reverse chinlock. Art: “Gorilla, is Tatanka getting any air at all?” Gorilla: “Uhh…I didn’t…hear you, Art.” Savage: “That’s okay. <gets back to commenting on action>”

The ending sequence occurs when Tatanka hits a running powerslam, only gets a two-count, and then complains to the official about his count. Owen comes up to attack, but Tatanka turns around in time to head him off. Tatanka sends him into the ropes, Owen reverses, Tatanka attempts a sunset flip, but Owen sits down instead and hooks the legs to get the pinfall.

Result: Owen via pinfall clean, 8:18

Rating: Unspectacular but definitely solid. Good flow, decent work from both guys. 2.5 stars out of 5.

In between rounds 1 and 2…

Bret Hart defended the WWF Title against Diesel. He was accompanied by his old partner Jim Neidhart. Diesel hit a jackknife on Bret, but Anvil ran in and attacked Diesel, causing a disqualification but saving Bret’s title.



King of the Ring ’94 – (Tournament Semifinals) Owen Hart vs. 1-2-3 Kid

Background: The 1-2-3 Kid advanced to the second round with a first round win over Jeff Jarrett, but Jarrett ambushed him after the match and left him laid out after multiple piledrivers. There was a question (in kayfabe) about whether the Kid would be able to go for round two.

Link: N/A

The Match: Art asks how much Owen weighs. Art proceeded to outlive both of his broadcast partners from the evening somehow. They tease the 1-2-3 Kid not being able to show for the match, but he finally answers his entrance cue after a delay. As he gets to the ring, Owen hits him with a vicious and awesome baseball slide to the outside, then gets up, runs off the ropes, and hits him with a suicide dive for good measure. The baseball slide is truly a GOAT match-opening spot.

1-2-3 Kid hits a northern light suplex that seemingly gets a 3-count, but Owen’s foot was on the rope so the match continues. The match is fast and furious, and I won’t sit here and type out every spot; I’ll just recommend that you watch it if you somehow haven’t. The end sequence comes when 1-2-3 Kid goes up for an attempted hurracanrana, Owen blocks it and powerbombs him, then cinches in the sharpshooter to gain the submission victory. Man they were giving Owen the big push here, that’s now three straight wins I’ve described that were completely clean.



Result: Owen via submission clean, 3:37

Rating: Pretty ****ing spectacular in the time given, and basically as good of a match as you can possibly see with such a short runtime. I have to dock it points for being so brief though. 3.75 stars out of 5.

King of the Ring ’94 – (Tournament Finals) Owen Hart vs. Razor Ramon

Background: Razor made his way to the finals with wins over Bam Bam Bigelow and IRS. They finally went ahead and had a tournament without any byes, though admittedly I’d have worked a bye in if it meant we could have had a nice 10+-minute match between Owen and the 1-2-3 Kid.

Link: N/A

The Match: I thought that Art had stopped talking about weight, but in mid-match he suddenly busts in with the declaration that Razor might outweigh Owen by 30 lbs. Scott Hall was at least as good of a worker as Tatanka, but these two either didn’t have great chemistry or were tired from both working twice leading up to this or something, because this was the weakest match Owen was in on the night. There was one nice spot with Razor hitting a back superplex on Owen though.

Ending sequence: Owen backdrops Razor out of the ring to the outside, causing Razor to sell a leg injury and stay down. While Owen distracts the referee, Jim Neidhart races to ringside, seemingly acting like he was going to help Razor out at first, but upon getting him to his feet, the Anvil attacks Razor before rolling him into the ring. Owen sets Razor up in the middle of the ring, hits him with a flying elbow from the top rope (puts CM Punk’s elbow to shame FWIW), and pins Razor for the 1-2-3. After the match, Anvil and Owen double-team Razor with an attack, and Anvil even sets Razor up for the old Hart Foundation’s Hart Attack move, which Owen executes.



Ray Rougeau catches up with Bret backstage, who is MAD and refuses to comment on what he just saw. Back at ringside, Macho Man has puzzled together what’s up and theorizes that Anvil saved Bret’s title earlier in the show for Owen’s benefit. Art: “Let me ask you guys a question. Did you guys act like that in the ring when you wrestled?” Gorilla completely no-sells the question and just talks to Savage.

Result: Owen via pinfall with outside help from Neidhart, 6:35

Rating: It wasn’t that interesting. Nice crowning moment for Owen gives it some worth, but the match itself is whatever. I’ll throw it 1.5 stars out of 5 for the back superplex spot and the flying elbow off the top rope.

Coronation



Owen refuses to be crowned by Jack Tunney and insists that Jim Neidhart be the one who crowns him. He also forces Todd Pettengill to kneel before him. Neidhart helps Owen put on the robe and crown. As Pettengill is about to announce Owen as the King of the Ring, Owen grabs the mic. “Wait a minute here. My first proclamation as King is from this day forward to be known as the King of Harts.” The Rocket moniker died out here, and Owen went by the King of Harts nickname for a good while going forward. Obviously this whole thing set us up for a rematch between Bret and Owen in SummerSlam '94.

Alright so the WM X match rewatch was so fun that it gave me the energy to plow through the King of the Ring run as well. I do anticipate it being at least a few days before I get to SummerSlam '94 though.