Straight from the Hart (38 page)

Everyone has their own way of grieving, I suppose, but I didn’t hear Dale Earnhardt’s widow condemning NASCAR after his fatal accident at Daytona, because she knew he had died doing something he loved doing. Having been the one who brought Owen into wrestling, I can attest that he genuinely loved the wrestling business. In fact, there’s no way he could have been as good as he was without having had a lot of passion. Any conjecture to the contrary is horseshit, as far as I’m concerned.

I didn’t care for the way Martha treated my parents — almost as if she’d been the only one who’d suffered any loss — but we all kept our mouths shut and left shortly thereafter.

When we got back to my dad’s, the phone rang and I answered it — it was Carl De Marco, the supposed president of the WWF. He launched into this scripted sounding spiel that almost sounded like he was reading it. “This is Carl
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De Marco, the president of the World Wrestling Federation; on behalf of the World Wrestling Federation, I’d like to extend our sincerest condolences to the Hart family on the untimely passing of their son, the Blue Blazer, Owen Hart

. . .”

I angrily cut him off and snarled: “Vince McMahon should have the fucking stones to call himself and not have some fucking figurehead flunky call to cut a fucking promo.” After I hung up, I felt kind of bad — the old don’t-shoot-the-messenger credo — but I had meant what I said.

Later that evening, at about two in the morning, the phone rang again. Since my parents had finally gone to bed after a long, tough day, I didn’t want them awakened, so I answered it downstairs. It was Vince McMahon himself. In the past, whenever I’d spoken to him, he’d usually been pretty aloof and imperious, but this time around, he was quite understated — almost subdued — which isn’t surprising, given the circumstances. I’ve been told that Vince doesn’t drink, but he sounded like he may have had a few stiff ones before he made the call. I know that I probably would have.

He mumbled, in a half whisper, that he was sorry about what had happened to Owen. I was in the process of telling him that Owen should never have been made to be doing some silly, non-wrestling stunt like that in the first place and that wrestlers should be allowed to be wrestlers and not have to be stunt men, trapeze artists or circus clowns.

Vince, quite honestly, sounded as if he was in a trance, and just kept repeating how sorry he was, when, all of a sudden, I heard this click on the phone. At first, I figured my dad might have picked up the extension upstairs, but I immediately heard this female voice, which I recognized as my sister Alison, launch into this vitriolic rant, berating Vince for having killed Owen. I thought her tirade was uncalled for and I damn well knew how badly I would have felt if the tables were turned and, say, Shane McMahon had been killed in an accident while wrestling for Stampede Wrestling. I found myself in the unlikely position of having to act as a peacekeeper. I kept trying to tone things down.

Thankfully, Alison ran out of steam and finally just hung up, after which I endeavored to offer apologies for her outburst. Vince was pretty understanding about the whole thing though and we hung up at that point.

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♥
BRUCE HART
♥

The next morning, my dad’s house resembled Graceland after Elvis died, with media from all over the world descending. I was tremendously impressed with the quiet dignity my parents showed the next few days. Although both of them were distraught over the loss of their youngest son, they went out of their way to make sure everyone — be it media types, friends, wrestlers or wrestling fans just dropping by to offer their condolences — was made to feel welcome.

They patiently lent themselves to interviews, photographers and whatever else.

In its own perverse way, I suspect that having to deal with the media and all the other responsibilities may have helped take their minds off the enormity of the tragedy.

Two guys who really made an enormous impression on me and my parents that week were Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho. At that time Benoit and Jericho were still in the WCW, but upon hearing of Owen’s death, they booked themselves off for the rest of the week, just to be there. Every day they were up at my dad’s, bright and early, making coffee, cleaning, greeting guests, babysitting or anything else they could do to be of help — all of which was incredibly thoughtful and gives you some impression of what kind of guys they were.

On Thursday evening that week, my brother Bret — whom I hadn’t spoken to since he’d pulled the rug out from under me at
Monday Night RAW
in Edmonton, nearly two years before — called me at home.

I assumed he might want to commiserate about Owen, since he knew how close we’d been, but after briefly touching on that, he quickly cut to the chase. He informed me that after having consulted with police, crime scene investigators, riggers and whatnot, he had arrived at the conclusion that Owen’s death hadn’t been an accident but had been deliberately orchestrated by Vince McMahon, as a means of getting back at Bret for what had happened in Montreal. Bret then said that in order for the lawyers to build their case, it was important that everyone in the family sign a document attesting that we were of the opinion that Vince had killed Owen.

Frankly, I was completely stunned at the whole charade and asked Bret why the hell Vince would kill Owen — who’d remained loyal to the WWF and with whom he had no ostensible issues with. I told Bret that if Vince was, indeed, as
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sick and twisted as he was suggesting, then why the hell hadn’t he just hired a

“hitman to kill the Hitman.”

Bret seemed pissed that I’d even have the audacity to question him and snarled that killing Owen was Vince’s way of getting back at him for what had happened in Montreal. I shook my head, in exasperation, that the fucking Montreal abortion was still rearing its ugly head and finally told Bret that while he was entitled to his own opinion, I couldn’t see Vince doing something like that — especially in front of millions of people, so, by that token, I wouldn’t be signing the document. To my chagrin, Bret proceeded to launch into a profanity laced tirade, denouncing me for having sold out — which was complete bullshit

— and condemning me as a traitor, almost as if I’d been a co-conspirator, which was also complete bullshit.

The day before Owen’s funeral, my mom asked if I could deliver a eulogy on behalf of our family, since Owen and I had been quite close all our lives. I told her I’d be honored to oblige her and spent the rest of the day endeavoring to do justice to Owen’s memory.

When we assembled at the chapel for Owen’s funeral, I spotted Martha and Bret, already seated in the pews at the front. I approached them and respectfully inquired as to when she wanted me to speak. Before she had a chance to reply, Bret, sitting beside her, interceded and snarled, “You’re not speaking — fuck off!”

I was pissed, of course. I’d been as close as anyone in our family to Owen, having been the best man at his wedding as he was at mine. But now I was being denied because Bret wanted to grind his ax with Vince over Montreal. I’d not only put my heart and soul into my speech, but also was intending to address some of the things that really needed to be addressed, such as how wrestlers weren’t disposable commodities but human beings — fathers, brothers and sons

— and that the WWF should never be putting their lives in jeopardy simply to propagate some frivolous story line. At the same time though, I wanted to make it clear that, having been promoters ourselves, we were empathetic to the WWF’s pain. They, too, had lost a family member, and it was time for healing, not fanning the flames of acrimony — a sentiment I’m sure Owen would have been in agreement with.

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BRUCE HART
♥

After the service, we piled back into our limousines and the funeral procession, which must have been half a mile long, made its way to the cemetery on the other side of town. After the interment, I was escorting my dad, in his wheelchair, back to our limousine, when one of the WWF attachés came up and asked my dad if he’d like to ride back with Vince McMahon in his limo. My dad said that he welcomed the opportunity to discuss things, man to man, so I helped him into Vince’s nearby limo and off they went.

Later on, back at the house, I saw Vince’s limo pull up and helped my dad disembark. When I inquired as to how his conversation with Vince had gone, he said that he was pleased that Vince had taken full responsibility for Owen’s death and said that while nothing could bring Owen back, he’d like to give my dad and Martha a substantial out-of-court settlement — so there would at least be some closure for everyone. I asked what kind of figure Vince was talking about, and my dad said that Vince had thrown out the figure $90

million — roughly divided to sixty for Martha and thirty for him and my mom.

I was interested in hearing my dad’s response. He told me that no amount of money could change what had happened but that, all things considered, he’d be inclined to take the settlement and that would hopefully allow everyone to have some closure and get on with their lives. At the same time he said that he first had to confer with my mom and Martha and see what they thought and go from there.

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I was pleased to hear that things might be resolved quickly, as I don’t think anyone had any appetite for a big legal battle at that point. Shortly thereafter though, as my dad was visiting with some of his wrestling cronies whom he hadn’t seen in years, such as Terry and Dory Funk, Bret and the lawyers dragged him inside and sequestered my mom and him behind closed doors for several hours. The next morning in the newspaper I was distressed to see headlines announcing that the Hart family had declared war on the WWF and were suing for $500 million, alleging that Owen’s death may have been premeditated.

I was kind of shocked and spoke to my dad later on that day to ask what had happened to make him change his mind. He heaved a heavy sigh and told me that neither he nor my mom had any desire to embark on a long, drawn-out legal battle that he was sure wouldn’t resolve anything and, he feared, would tear the family apart. He said that Bret was bound and determined to get back at Vince for Montreal and after he’d convinced Martha to proceed with the lawsuit, he and my mom had no choice but to go along with them, as they would have been perceived as insensitive traitors if they hadn’t.

It didn’t take long for my dad’s fears about the family being ripped apart to be realized. The day after Owen’s funeral, on June 1, 1999, Davey Boy started
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back with the WWF. Everyone in our family, including Bret, knew that he’d been given that starting date back in March and that it had been Owen who’d gotten him booked in the WWF. Bret, however, chose to ignore that and wrote a scathing putdown of Davey in his weekly newspaper column (the one that I used to ghostwrite for him). Bret likened Davey’s return to the WWF to a dog rolling in excrement. As a result, a lot of fans at the house shows — who’d been big supporters of both Owen and Bret — began carrying signs and chanting

“dog in shit, dog in shit” at the house shows. Davey Boy, who was pretty fragile to begin with, let it get to him and he soon was back on drugs — which would prove to have disastrous consequences.

Bret next targeted my older brother Smith, who had been one of Bret’s biggest supporters from way back and, in fact, had been the one who’d started Bret’s career when he took him to Puerto Rico in 1977. Not long after the court proceedings had started, Smith’s common-law wife, Zoe, died and Smith was seeking custody of their son, Chad. Since Smith was the biological father, it originally appeared to be a mere formality but, out of the blue, Bret showed up at the custody hearing and testified before the judge that, in his opinion, Smith was an unfit father. Because Bret’s opinion carried a lot of weight, Smith was denied custody — which was heartbreaking for both him and his son.