10 Things We Learned From Owen Hart’s Final Day: A POST Profile
9. The Quick Release Snap Shackle
An important feature of the legal case that later followed after his passing, the logistics of the harness equipment sourced for the big Blue Blazer stunt are here analysed with a foreboding sense of dread that obviously wasn't identified at the time.
Pollock's context on the history of the kit is exceptional, noting how a prior attempt at the Blazer's descent in November 1998 had featured a locking carabiner - popularised in wrestling by Sting's repeated use following his 'Crow' reinvention in late-1996. The suggestion that WWE's intent was to parody WCW's use of it fits the farcical scene in which Steve Blackman assaults the flailing Hart, but the organisation's need for speed added new danger.
A "Quick Release Snap Shackle" was the functionality the company wanted, despite push-backs from respected reliable rigger (and prior contractor in similar segments featuring Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker) Joe Branam.
It's here that Pollock pulls from Martha Hart's book Broken Harts, quoting her as saying that "on at least three occasions, Branam vehemently refused to lower a human with it." The two sides subsequently separated two weeks before Over The Edge - Branam offered WWE a quote to safely perform a similar stunt with Hart on the May 10th Monday Night Raw, but his $5,000 fee was deemed too high.
They'd petulantly lost interest in the idea entirely by the time he rang back, concerned over safety, to lower his asking price.