Pro-Wrestling Wrestler's Death Plunge Page Pro-Wrestling Wrestler's Death Plunge Page
Last updated 21 April 2015
Wife begged him not to do the stunt
The wife of pro wrestler Owen "The Blue Blazer" Hart paid $30 -- to see her husband die on TV.
Martha Hart ordered the May 23 pay-per-view cable event, billed as "Over the Edge," which included a match between her husband and a wrestler called "The Godfather."
The World Wrestling Federation event -- held at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri called for Hart, 34, to be lowered more than 90 feet from a rafter to the ring on a harness and cable device. Though he'd performed this stunt before, he'd never done it from such a great height.
Martha begged Owen not to go through with the stunt.
"I told him I didn't think he should do it," she said. "I didn't think it was safe."
At home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, "Martha watched as a camera showed Owen in the rafters," the wrestler's brother Smith Hart, 50, told The ENQUIRER.
It was the last time Martha saw her husband of nearly 10 years alive.
As the TV screen switched to a pre-taped interview with Hart, the wrestler -- in his trademark cape and hood -- fell headfirst from the rafter in front of the stunned sold-out arena crowd of 16,000.
His head struck one of the ring's padded metal turnbuckles. Paramedics who rushed to the scene could not revive him.
"The announcer came on the TV and said there had been an accident, that this was no stunt," said Smith Hart. "Martha kept hoping it was all part of the hype."
She then spent the longest 10 minutes of her life as rescuers administered CPR to her husband. On TV, she could see only images of a stunned crowd. Finally the phone rang -- WWF president Vince McMahon called with the bad news.
"Somebody screwed up and now Owen's gone," Stu Hart, Owen's 84-year-old dad, told The ENQUIRER.
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Police determined that, indeed, somebody had made a terrible mistake.
"The cable was not attached to the harness," Kansas City homicide Det. Jeff Cowdrey told The ENQUIRER.
"There were two workers on the rafters with him who were supposed to attach the harness to the cable. But that didn't happen."
Wade Keller, editor of a wrestling newsletter, reported Owen practiced the stunt three times earlier in the day, and "was nervous, but agreed to do it in the end."
McMahon said he believes Owen may have accidentally pulled a release mechanism.
Owen came from a legendary wrestling clan. All seven of his brothers are or were wrestlers. Best-known is Brett "The Hitman" Hart, a star with the World Championship Wrestling circuit.
Owen's four sisters are all married to wrestlers and his dad, Stu Hart was an Olympic wrestler who tutored many of today's top stars -- Rowdy Roddy Piper, Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho among them.
Owen's death left two children, Oje, 7, and Athena, 3, without a dad.
Owen's mom, Helen, was inconsolable. She has had nightmares about one of her sons being crippled in the ring. "But not this," she said. "I can't believe it."