Controversy: The Owen Hart incident, and whether or not the show should have continued Vince McMahon was facing the ultimate conundrum on May 23rd, 1999. Owen Hart had just fallen to his death during the Over The Edge pay-per-view, and Vince had to decide whether or not the show should continue on. On one hand, the entire WWF locker room was shaken to its very core, as were many fans in attendance who didn't view it as an angle (although it's difficult to figure out just how people could watch a man fall like Owen did and think it was "fake"). On the other hand, "the show must go on", and even some of Owen's closest friends have said he would have wanted the show to carry on, in an attempt to help everyone get their minds off of what happened. The saying "damned if you do, damned if you don't" never applied more than it did with Vince's decision here. He let the show go on, which pissed off countless people who were unable to watch a simple wrestling show after what happened. However, if he called the show off, it would have been a financial nightmare, and you probably would have had thousands of fans, in the arena and at home, that were upset and feeling "ripped off". Owen's fall happened relatively early in the show, which meant that there was a lot of action yet to come. It isn't as easy as merely saying "sorry, folks, come back next Sunday and we'll try this again" when it comes to keeping your schedule, having the building again, getting those 16,000+ people to spend yet another day watching wrestling, and so forth.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
