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Hello, Wrestling-Online fans, and Welcome to the Jumble!
My sincerest thanks to everyone who sent me messages via email and MySpace for my 30th birthday! I appreciate your happy wishes more than I can say!
Even though May is a happy month for me with my birthday, I also find it a sad month as a wrestling fan. It was in May of 1999 and 2002 that the squared circle lost two of my favorite wrestlers - Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith. I was (and still am) a huge fan of The Hart Foundation, particularly the 1997 version with Bret and Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, and Brian Pillman (the Foundation’s “associate” who has also gone on to the squared circle in the sky). It was just over a month after becoming a wrestling fan that I witnessed the reunion of the Hart Foundation on “Monday Night Raw.” Owen and Davey had been battling for Davey’s European Championship when Owen’s big brother put a stop to their bickering by telling them that it was the fault of the American wrestling fans that they were at each other’s throats. Owen and Davey finally agreed with Bret and they all had a big emotional hug to cement the new bond while the crowd booed mightily.
Even now, it remains hard for me to believe Owen and Davey are gone. I started collecting WWE action figures shortly after becoming a fan and I still have four special figures sitting on my dresser - Bret, Owen, Davey, and Brian Pillman (never did find an “Anvil” figure but, to be honest, he was my least favorite out of the five anyway). I don’t think I’ll ever put those figures away because they continue to remind me of some of my favorite wrestling-related moments.
I hope you will join me now as I reminisce on the days when Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith were still alive …
One of my absolute favorite Owen and Davey moments came at the 1997 “Slammy Awards” (remember those?) when Owen accepted an award that he wasn’t even nominated for! He gleefully told Davey that while Davey might have two titles, he didn’t have two Slammys like Owen did! Davey chuckled at the table while watching Owen shove a waiter with a tray full of drinks directly into Vader. Vader tried to chase Owen down but ended up tripping and falling, giving Owen all the time he needed to scurry safely away!
Another of my favorite memories came courtesy of Brian Pillman who led a prayer on one knee in the middle of the ring for Bret as he recovered from knee surgery. Owen and Davey were right there praying with him before they were chased off by Shawn Michaels.
Remember the victory celebration when Owen defeated Rocky Maivia for the Intercontinental Championship? He raced up the aisle to where Davey had been standing watch over both Owen in the ring and Bret sitting in a wheelchair on stage as the recovery from knee surgery continued. Owen excitedly draped his newly won title over his brother’s shoulder as Davey did “victory laps” by pushing the wheelchair around in circles. The three of them couldn’t have been happier!
I think my number one favorite match that included both Owen and Davey was the tag team match they were in at the July ‘97 pay-per-view, “Canadian Stampede.” It was the Hart Foundation versus Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock, Goldust, and the Legion of Doom. A good chunk of the Hart Family, including Bret and Owen’s parents, were sitting at ringside, and a couple of their brothers even got in on the action by attacking Steve Austin as he went after their dad, Stu! Owen was injured during the match and was taken away from the ring but made a valiant comeback in order to pin Austin for the victory! The ring then filled up with the entire family for a joyous celebration. I’ll never forget how cute Owen looked with his wife and their two young children. His son, Oje, was even holding an Owen action figure as he hugged his dad.
The following month at “SummerSlam,” Owen accidentally injured Steve Austin’s neck during their Intercontinental Title match. Austin managed to win, although it was pretty obvious that Owen knew Austin was in a lot of pain and made sure he didn’t do anything that could potentially hurt Austin further. Shortly thereafter, Owen started wearing what is probably one of my favorite wrestling shirts ever - “Owen 3:16 says I just broke your neck!” It was creative and comical and I absolutely adored it!
My memories up until now have all been from 1997 because that’s when the Hart Foundation was together and happy (and because I could go on for quite awhile if I included stuff about all of their pre-Foundation matches, too). Then after the infamous “Survivor Series” the group was split up and would never be together again. Bret, Davey, and “Anvil” all went to WCW while Owen was stuck in the WWE since Vince McMahon had refused to release him from his contract.
It never seemed like WCW had a clue what to do with any of the Hart Foundation members after that. Davey languished on a back burner until he was injured when he fell onto a hidden trapdoor that was to be used for The Warrior’s entrance later in the night. The injury led to a raging staph infection that almost killed him. From then on you didn’t really hear much about Davey until his passing in 2002. Now I have the privilege of watching his son Harry, known in the ring as D.H. Smith, wrestle professionally and carry on the legacy of the Smith Family. I’m sure his father is looking down on him with an immense amount of pride in his eyes!
Owen, on the other hand, did enjoy a pretty positive return to the ring following the joke that was Montreal. His turn as “The Black Hart” was a great way to play up what happened between Bret and HBK at “Survivor Series” without actually having Bret there. Later on, Owen was teamed up with Jeff Jarrett and his manager Debra. This was a team that I never thought would work out but they sure proved me wrong! They were fantastic together! It seemed like smooth sailing, until that horrible night in May of 1999.
People will always ask “Where where you when?” in regards to important events, such as when President Kennedy was assassinated or when the planes crashed on September 11th. I will never forget where I was the night Owen Hart died in a stunt gone wrong at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. I had opted not to order the “Over the Edge” PPV because the matches just didn’t interest me enough to spend my money to watch them. Instead, I was watching a television movie about Jesse “The Governor” Ventura when the phone rang around 10:00 p.m. It was my friend and fellow wrestling fan, Salkeir, and she had heard some disturbing news from another friend who had been following the PPV’s results online. She told me something had happened to Owen at the show and the initial reports were saying he was dead. It took about 45 minutes before we could get confirmation of his death. We couldn’t believe it because we had just seen Owen wrestling with Jarrett at a house show about two weeks before that night. It didn’t seem possible that he could be alive one day and gone the next.
I will never ever forget Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith and their contributions to the wrestling world. How lucky we all are to have had them in our lives for as long as we did! They will continue to be greatly missed.
That will do it for me this week. Take care and I’ll see ya in The Jumble!
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