10 Things We Learned From Owen Hart’s Final Day: A POST Profile
24 Little Hours...
Where were you on May 23rd, 1999?
It’s a question POST Wrestling’s John Pollock poses at the start of his outstanding audio documentary on Owen Hart’s last hours. The poignancy isn’t lost by those that vividly remember the moment. For those of a certain vintage, it was wrestling’s equivalent of a JFK/Elvis Presley cultural checkpoint - a timestamp in which the remaining mainstream that hadn’t hopped on wrestling’s bandwagon were at suddenly circling it to try and make sense of a supposed Sports Entertainment stunt gone very, very wrong.
It was never more challenging to try and unpick the circumstances behind Hart’s deeply tragic passing than on the night itself, but in the two decades since the awful accident that took his life, the search for deeper understanding hasn’t ever really concluded.
"Owen Hart's Final Day" is a powerful and impartial attempt at tying lots of still-raw loose ends together, but a scene-setter early in the piece captures the callous nature of the industry’s endless churn versus the occasionally-fatal human cost.
Not of Owen’s involvement but of the pay-per-view itself, Pollock notes that; “by May of 1999, business was booming, and the Over The Edge show was going to be another success in a long line of them”.
Either side of the catastrophe, WWE grew beyond wildest expectations whilst a man lost his life in Vince McMahon's ring. It really was “the biggest story in professional wrestling history”, and 20 years on, it deserved this important re-appraisal.
10. The Autograph Hunter
Listeners are introduced to the first moments of Owen Hart's last day via intriguing insights from an industry outsider, but fan Treigh Lindstrom's anecdotes and recollections rapidly shine the brightest spotlight on the darkness about to engulf the former 'King Of Harts' on that tragic May 1999 Sunday.
Lindstrom was a Missouri-based airport autograph hunter that Hart had befriended (a relatively common practice at the time) for assistance in the local area whenever the organisation came to town, and Pollock's lengthy interview with him reveals much about Owen's mindset leading into the event and the ramifications of their relationship after the fact.
From pickup at the airport, Owen needed little more than any wrestler would on arrival. As it transpired, the routine transportation specifically between the arena and gym eventually formed part of an uneasy rift between talent and office as the afternoon of May 23rd drew in. But more on that later.
Away from work talk, Hart had asked Lindstrom about possible excursions in the area the following day. It's in this simple observation of the ordinary that the needless loss of life is made so apparent.