25 Years ago today, Owen Hart tragically passed away during the WWF Over The Edge 1999 pay-per-view. Vince McMahon made the decision to continue the show after the accident. Jim Ross even announced Owen’s death on commentary.
Below is the original PPV footage of JR announcing Owen’s death LIVE on PPV, which was deleted from the WWE Network / Peacock version of the pay-per-view:
Jim Ross announces Owen Hart's death LIVE on PPV at WWF Over The Edge 1999 (this isn't available on the WWE Network) pic.twitter.com/cfjEwtM6VO
— WrestleFeed (@WrestleFeedApp) May 23, 2024
Below is an extended version of this whole ordeal:
RIP Owen Hart pic.twitter.com/glGigCakhs
— WrestleFeed (@WrestleFeedApp) May 23, 2024
In the main event of this PPV, The Undertaker defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin to win the WWF Championship. All the wrestlers who competed after this horrible accident looked shook and visibly sad, including The Undertaker.
During a Q&A session on his Patreon page, Undertaker talked about how tough that night was.
Here’s what The Deadman said:
“Wow. Man, (it was) such an interesting time period. We’re all grinding, just trying to do the best that we could but trying to process the information that somebody just passed away due to some, whatever, the rigging accident.
A guy that you spent tons of time with and seen every day for years and you just losing. One minute he’s there and then the next he’s not. Then you have to go out and put the pieces together and try and perform, it was probably one of the most difficult… definitely, mentally one of the toughest days I think I’ve ever had.
If you go back and you watch the footage of that, you can see it on everybody’s face. There’s just a huge element to the match and everything that’s going on. You can just tell that no one really wanted to be out there.
Like I said, it’s still very raw and you’re processing this information, but you also are trying to entertain these people.
You lived by that motto back then ‘the show must go on’. I just don’t know that that was the right thing to do.
Although we’d already been told (about Owen’s death), it was kind of like you still didn’t believe it. When we came back we were hoping that something miraculous had happened and it wasn’t true. It was such a tough night. Hindsight being 20-20 [we should have stopped the show] but you also have an arena full of people too.
I don’t envy or didn’t envy Vince McMahon having to make that decision. It was a tough call in the heat of it. I just know it was extremely difficult to go out and do my job that night. It was tough, man. We tried to do the best with what we had.”
