Wrestling’s Greatest Prankster : Owen Hart P2

Part 2: Accomplices

 

Welcome to another round of wrestling’s greatest prankster; Owen Hart. He had the patience to see all of his plans fall into place, but he could still hit you with a short lil' prank that left a mark. Sometimes, he even had an accomplice or two because everyone wanted to be on the right side of an Owen rib.

Owen and Davey boy would pull so many ribs together, they were like Batman and Robin, or maybe a more accurate description is "partners in crime". Their own manager wasn’t even safe. They ribbed him many times together while in WWE. Jim Cornette once said in an interview with Wrestling Inc.:

 “You know Owen and Davey together, Davey Boy Smith, they were like two children. They just had to top each other. We would be doing promos, we would be standing there in front of the camera and all of a sudden I’d look to the left of me and Owen all of a sudden was two inches taller than both me and Davey, and we were all sort of the same height. You would look down and he would be standing on a roll of duct tape. Then you look over and Bulldog would be about three inches taller and he’d be standing on a box” “Then I’d look down because I’d feel something and while we were standing there staying concentrated on the camera, Owen had one of those spray bottles and he would spray the front of my pants, so it would look like I had pissed myself on camera. If Owen or Davey, either one if they came to you and gave you a million dollars, you’d be looking for the printing press. It had to be a rib. It got to the point where they ribbed so much, that nobody would believe anything.” 

Owen was known to put on five star matches that would show everyone how talented he really is. But every once in a while, Owen liked to put in a stinker, just for fun.  One of those times took place at a San Jose house show. Owen Hart and Mick Foley decided they wanted to do the worst match possible, a minus five star match, with Stone cold as the special enforcer. Dave Meltzer spoke about this on the Talk is Jericho podcast :

“The story I heard later from Mick is, they knew I was there, and they wanted to have like, the worst match possible, “Meltzer recalled. “Like, a negative star match just for their own fun. And okay, so here’s the thing. I didn’t know that they were doing this. I did watch the match and they took bags of popcorn and they would hit each other with bags of popcorn, and sell it like crazy. And it was absolutely preposterous. But it also got over.”

He continued, “And also, even those guys trying to be bad, they were still, like it really wasn’t what I would call a bad [match]. It was a ridiculous match. It was like, watching two guys do a comedy match, but they’re talented guys. It really wasn’t anything resembling a negative star horrible match. It was just a comedy match that got over with the crowd.

At one point in the match, Mick Foley pulled out a Giant bag of plastic cup lids and dumped it on Owen. Owen sold it like he was being brutally assaulted with shards of glass. The crowd loved it and Steve Austin just broke down laughing. Austin later told them what he thought of their match 

Meltzer recalls ”they went to the back. And Austin was just like, ‘That was the worst piece of shit match.’ And they were just happy that Austin said it, they didn’t care at that point. ‘If Austin said it was terrible, that was good enough for us. Who cares what Dave says?’ But yeah, I remember them completely overselling hitting each other with bags of popcorn, going, ‘This is so ridiculous.'”

That’s the kind of guy Owen was; ridiculously fun while making you look ridiculous in the process! 

By Aaron J Harder