Owen Hart tragically died on May 23, 1999, during a live WWF pay-per-view event called Over the Edge. While performing a stunt that involved coming down from the arena’s rafters, a harness failure caused him to fall over 70 feet into the ring.
This shocking accident affected not just the fans present but also the entire wrestling community, as Owen was known for his talent and dedication. In the aftermath of Owen’s death, there was widespread grief from fans and fellow wrestlers. He was remembered for his wrestling skills and his kind personality. The tragedy sparked important conversations about safety in professional wrestling, leading to changes in how stunts are conducted. Owen Hart’s legacy lives on, as many continue to push for improved safety measures in the industry to prevent similar accidents.
In Netflix’s new documentary series on disgraced former WWE owner Vince McMahon, the incident is presented in a way that suggests it was a freak accident and that while Owen’s death was a tragedy, the WWE was also a victim of shoddy work by the rigging team. Not so, says Owen Hart’s widow, Martha Hart, who spoke about the documentary and how McMahon simply brushed off Hart’s death as a mere accident.
Martha Hart on Vince McMahon’s statements about Owen Hart’s death
Martha Hart issued a statement on the documentary series, which focuses on the life of Vince McMahon. The documentary was mostly shot before McMahon’s highly publicized sexual abuse case with former employee Janel Grant.
Hart’s statement was issued as follows: “The real truth is that on May 23, 1999, out of a desire to cut costs and achieve a ‘quick release’ effect that a rigging expert specifically warned against, WWE hired unqualified riggers to arrange a stunt in which Owen was to rappel from the rafters.
“As a result, the riggers used incorrect equipment that caused Owen to fall to his death. It was pure negligence that killed my husband.”
Martha asserts that the series enables Vince McMahon to argue that “the apparatus they were using was defective,” and she points out that WWE reached a settlement in its lawsuit with the manufacturer of the harness involved in the stunt.
“What the documentary fails to mention is that the equipment used was never meant for a rappelling stunt,” Martha says in her statement. “Instead, a harness meant for dragging stunt people behind cars on movie shoots was used with a sailboat clip meant to release under a load of only six pounds of pressure. Had WWE hired qualified riggers who followed proper protocol that included redundancy, as is typical practice, and used the correct equipment, Owen would not have died that night.”
Martha Hart insists that no one from the Netflix documentary series ever reached out to her regarding the series and that she “refuses to let Vince McMahon or anyone else rewrite that history.”