More fun with Youtube: Owen Hart

More Fun with Youtube: Owen Hart

Haven't had a wrasslin' post in a while.

I think if you were to look back into the 90's, and see a waste of talent in the former World Wrestling Federation, I think you have to look at Owen Hart. And I say that realizing that Owen spent a great deal of time in the mid and late 90's as the company's top (or near the top) heel, holding many title belts along the way.

But when I think of that late Owen Hart, I don't think of many great matches he had along the way of his WWF career. I think more of his skits, his promos and his constant antagonism of his Brother Bret.

I mean, sure, he had some great matches...he had three against his brother Bret in 1994 that stand out, one of which I call a favorite, and I remember a Raw match against Syxx-Pac (or whatever Sean Waltman was calling himself at the time) that made me just sit up on the edge of my seat, a match that was maybe 7 minutes long, but was easily the best match the WWF had on TV that night.

But for the most part, I think Owen was wasted by constantly putting him opposite larger opponents. Such is the life in the roided up WWF. Vince McMahon liked (and still likes) slow, plodding big guys. Owen's strengths were in his aerial stuff, and his acrobatic arsenal. He was a great mat wrestler, too, don't get me wrong. But his strength was in his aeriel stuff, and against big guys, it just doesn't work.

I'll admit that there was a weakness in Owen's repetoire. A couple, really.

First, Owen's brawling sucked. Owen threw girlie punches that against big guys, looked sad. If I can point to two guys of Owen's generation, of similar size and stature that made big, I'll point to Shawn Michaels and Owen's brother Bret. To my mind, their brawling skills made them believable against bigger opponents.

Also, Owen was good on the mike, and was a memorable heel. But he never had a personality that really connected with the fans. Both Bret and Shawn (Shawn to a much greater degree) had that. I think Owen's face-turn after the Bret Hart screw job shows that...after the initial positive reaction for Owen, it kind of petered out. As such, he'd have to depend on his in-ring work to speak for him.

The personality thing, I look to his brother Bret for the answer. Bret had a certain amount of in-ring gravitas that he'd earned.

The brawling, you could work around. I think Owen suffered from working maybe five years too early in the WWE. I look at guys like Chris Benoit and the late Eddy Guerrero, who had a chance to prove themselves to a national audience against guys of similar stature before moving on to bigger opponents.

We can thank ECW for showing that there was an American audience for cruiserweight matches, and Eric Bischoff's WCW for carrying that forward, and showing that a national TV audience would accept it. By doing that, giving guys like Benoit and Guerrero (and Dean Malenko, and Chris Jericho and even Rey Misterio Jr) a spotlight, they got a level of credibility as wrestlers and fighters that they might not have gotten had they consistently wrestled bigger opponents. First they fought the guys their size, which gave them a little more street cred as they began to branch out.

Owen was constantly wrestling bigger opponents. And even when he was wrestling guys his size, they were generally more mat based, brawling type guys, so Owen still didn't have a chance to shine. If Owen had a few guys like an X-Pac and a Brian Pillman and a Chris Benoit to wrestle in the WWF in 1993 and 1994, he might have had a little more in-ring credit, and not had to go into all the gimmickry and schtick to define himself. Gimmickry that ended up in his death.

I want to point out that Owen's brother Bret and Shawn Michaels both found a way to the top of the ladder, despite being smaller than the average WWF wrestler. I think that speaks especially highly of the talent of both men, and their abilities to work their styles around bigger opponents. I point to the brawling again, and if there was a weakness to Owen's in-ring game, it was his brawling. Brawling didn't seem to come naturally to Owen...where the mat-wrestling and the high-flying stuff flows in an Owen match, you can almost see him stop to think about what he has to do when he goes to punching and kicking...and to my mind, that's the stuff that should come the most easily....

The last thing I want to say is that I'm not faulting anybody for Owen's lack of spotlight. The McMahons had a product they wanted, and Owen found a place in it for himself. He carved out a niche, and people remember him even seven years later. In the dime-a-dozen world of pro wrestling, that's worth a lot.

What I wish, though, is that he was remembered more for stuff like this, a match I found on YouTube...it's Owen vs. Jushin "Thunder" Liger...and less for how he died. Owen shines in this one, and it illustrates what Owen could have done if he'd had a couple more opponents that allowed him to play to his true strengths....