Owen Hart was one of the most respected and successful wrestlers in the WWE.
The King of the Ring in 1994, Hart was a two-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, one-time WWE European Champion and four-time WWF World Tag Team Champion.
His charisma in the ring, his strength and his agility were all worth the price of admission.
Hart died on May 23, 1999, during the Over the Edge pay-per-view event in Kansas City, Missouri.
Hart fell to his death while in the process of being lowered via harness and grapple line into the ring from the rafters of Kemper Arena for a booked Intercontinental Championship match against The Godfather.
Appearing on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show, I discussed that tragic day with Georgia J. Smith, daughter of tge British Bulldog and niece to both Owen Hart and Brett Hart. “I was 11,” Georgia Smith told me on a recent episode of the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.
“It was in ’99 and it was actually a warm day in Calgary I remember and my grandfather had the wrestling ring outside and my cousins and I were going to do a like, a water fight in the ring because the ring is vinyl, we could put water in there and we could slide around. I think it was my cousin Brooke and I and we were changing in the bathroom at my grandpa’s house and I walk out of the bathroom and the phone is ringing off the hook and my Aunt Allison is on her knees screaming and crying and I’m like, “What’s going on…” and my Uncle Smith was in the library and he said that Owen fell and he must’ve fell into the audience or something and I really didn’t know anything more and I was like, “Is he okay?…” and they were like, ‘I don’t know…’ and then you know, it came to be and then my grandfather got the news that he died and I remember walking up to my parents where they were watching the Pay-Per View at; it was right up the hill, I walked there and my dad came in the house and he saw me at the table and he said, ‘What’s going on?’ because he just came into this somber atmosphere and I’m like, “Owen’s dead.” And he’s saying, ‘No he’s not! Shut up.” … I was like, “Yeah. He fell.” And my dad was like, ‘What?!?’ and then he went upstairs to console my mom but, I remember when I told him what happened and yeah. It was a really, really dark day. Our family has never been the same since that happened and when I was watching ‘The Dark Side of the Ring’ episode there was a lot of things that I didn’t know about it and after the fact of watching that, it was just such a tragedy.”
We know Owen Hart as a wrestler in the squared circle. But what was he like as a human being? “My Uncle Owen was the nicest person ever,” said Smith.
“Just such a good heart literally. Such a good heart. He was probably the best Hart in the family. There was nobody like him and he was such a family man. Family was first. Just such a wonderful, funny, warm, giving, generous person; unfortunately, I didn’t get to see Owen a lot because he was always wrestling and then when he was home he was with his family and he did everything and anything he could to always be with his family and would always go to his kid’s talent shows or sporting events. Like, he went above and beyond for them and yeah. He was literally the best dad. Best son. Best brother…there’s not a bad word I think that anybody could say about him. He was literally like a walking St. Mary.”