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BY
MIKE KILLAM ONMAY 23, 2019
AEW
Starrcast Presents: Remembering Owen
May 23, 2019
This event was put together after the Ric Flair/Ricky Steamboat panel had to be postponed. It’s fitting, as Owen Hart passed away on this day, exactly 20 years ago.
You can order the ENTIRE Starrcast weekend package through FITE TV.
— We’re live! Tony Schiavone kicked things off by introducing New Japan Pro-Wrestling star, Davey Both Smith Jr., who is the great-nephew of Owen Hart. Also joining the panel are three genuine WWE Hall of Famers – the “Worlds Strongest Man” Mark Henry, Jerry “The King” Lawler and Jim Ross!
— Jim Ross said said that on the night Owen died, everyone in the back was handling the situation in their own way. Some were weeping, screaming, hugging, but he and King had to stay on commentary and couldn’t go anywhere. He recalls that all he wanted to do at the time was leave, but he couldn’t.
— Mark Henry recalled that Owen was traveling in a car with him and Dwayne Johnson at the time. He had to go to the car to get all of his things, but the ambulance had already left so he went to the production office thing he was still alive. He remembers multiple paramedics “working non-stop” trying to save him.
— Mark Henry:
“Bret was the older brother, but Owen got more attention in the back. No one was safe from Owen’s ribs. I watched him for two hours take a nap on the floor, right in the middle of everybody. Every now and then he’d wake up and [makes a “Hulking Up” motion]and then fell back asleep. Finally at one point somebody made a real loud noise, and he just started this huge comeback. Both hands going and he finally stood up, and the whole locker room [exploded]. He turned the whole locker room into kids.”
— King told a story about the infamous Car Wars back in the day, where wrestlers would try to find each other on the highway and throw things out the window. The goal was, if you can make them pull-over, you win. There was a story about them bringing dozens of eggs in the car and some of their other shenanigans. He also told a story about when Owen just pulled the plug from the production truck on Raw, just for fun.
— J.R. said once he had to talk to wrestlers who were allegedly doing cocaine backstage, and Owen walked up to him, staggering, acting completely drunk, white white powder all over his face. Apparently, he had smeared a powdered donut all over his face…
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— King: “I don’t think Owen Hart ever paid for a meal on the road!”
— Mark Henry said that Owen would take bottles of lotion and put it all across the edges of people’s windshield wipers. Later on when when they were on the road he’d spray water on their cars, so when they went to wipe it away their entire windshield was covered in lotion. “At least ten times, I thought somebody was gonna die!”
— Mark Henry remembered the time they did the first ever Hog Pen match. They were backstage and some guys started bringing in all these animals in cages. Live animals. And they had the misfortune of asking Owen Hart if he knew where they went… Owen led them all the way to the back and had them put all the animals in Vince McMahon’s office!
— A fan asked if Owen needed to be inducted into the Hall of Fame for the sake of his legacy. Mark said his legacy “was already Hall of Fame”. Davey Boy Smith Jr. said that both Owen and his father are “conspiculously absent” but he believes one day it will happen.
— Jim Ross: “I’m in three Hall of Famers, and nobody ever talks about two of them. Until Owen is in the Hall of Fame, that Hall of Fame isn’t right.”
— A fan asked who they’d love to see Owen work against from the modern era. Jim Ross instantly said AJ Styles, and also said a heel Chris Jericho would make a great opponent.
— King talked about his old Memphis days, about how he was a heel in WWE but a babyface in Memphis, and how they would send down Bret Hart and Owen Hart to work with them. They had a great cage match between him and Bret, where Jeff Jarrett, Owen Hart and Giant Gonzalez all got involved. King claims that it was actually the start of the heel Mr. McMahon character because Vince saw how much fun they were having, came down to Memphis and managed Bret as the top heel at the time.
— Mark Henry said that Owen Hart was really the guy that sat him down after matches and taught him, as well as Dwayne Johnson, how to start working on their mistakes and get better. He genuinely wanted to help people sure up the gaps in their performances to make the whole show as good as possible.
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