There's a macabre belief that had Owen Hart jumped ship to WCW after his brother Bret was screwed out of the WWF World Championship in Montreal at Survivor Series 1997 that his untimely demise in Kansas City, Missouri would not have occurred. Though Bret Hart, the British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart jumped to WCW immediately after Survivor Series, Owen remained in the company as his contract was not terminated. Owen's likely reason for not pursuing WCW any deeper though was that WCW president Eric Bischoff was unwilling to match the salary he was earning in the WWF. Hart leaving the WWF post-screwjob (moreso than Neidhart or Bulldog) would've made sense. Of course, furthermore, given how things turned out, Hart not jumping ultimately feels much worse.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
