1. He Was Owen Hart's Scheduled Opponent At Over The Edge 1999
This is trivial and nothing The Godfather had a hand in, but he was supposed to be Owen Hart's opponent the night Owen tragically fell to his death, at the Over the Edge PPV on May 23rd, 1999. Hart, as The Blue Blazer, was feuding with The Godfather as he was trying to rid the WWE of smut, a parody of old-school wrestlers like Bruno Sammartino who had been critical of WWE's highly-sexualised product. Owen himself was fairly critical of the Attitude Era content, and there are some who believe the Blazer's moral crusade might have been a rib on him. The two were supposed to wrestle in the third match of the night when Owen fell from a catwalk above the ring after a safety harness became loose and triggered an early release. Reflecting on the incident to Slam! Wrestling, Wright said:
Owen was a great, great person. He was a great person to be around, always was funny, always had energy, always was uplifting. It was just a tragic accident, man. When that happened, I was behind the curtain with the girls getting them ready. I think we had a 20-25-minute match that we had to do. So I was just talking with the girls, trying to keep them lifted up. I think it was Bruce Pritchard who said, 'Owen just fell.' 'What?' 'Owen just fell.' Next thing I knew, they were bringing him to the back on a stretcher. What can you say?
Naturally, he was stunned. The Godfather had actually been scheduled to drop the Intercontinental Championship to Owen that night (and did drop it to Owen's former tag partner Jeff Jarrett two weeks later). WWE obviously doesn't want the conversation to turn to Owen Hart's death at Over the Edge 1999. The Godfather's name was right next to his on the booking sheet, though, so it will remain a sad reminder of that awful incident.
