King of the Ring 98 Counterfactual

[Loss]

I think more than what happened with Foley, Mae Young getting seriously hurt in 1999-2000 when taking some of those wild bumps could have really done them in.

[PeteF3]

Off the subject now, but the Owen stunt was HORRIBLY unsafe. Their regular rigging crew refused to outfit Owen with a quick-release button, and since Vince thought that slowly unhooking Owen would be stupid, he went with a much less reputable company that was willing to do the stunt the way McMahon wanted. I'm also about 75% sure that the plan was for Owen to do a pratfall, hence the quick-release, the stupidity of which doesn't even need to be addressed

[flyonthewall2983]

This and Owen's death are definitely apples and oranges. It's one thing to die in a stupid stunt only related to make someone in the other company look silly, but we're considering what would have happened if someone died during an actual match, as well as being broadcast live. It would have not only caused dissension outside the wrestling bubble but very well in it too. It's a wonder that the PR nightmares Vince has had to live through were virtually all things that happened outside the ring,

[Jimmy Redman]

It's kind of amazing the luck, like it's not really luck but to put it morbidly, that befell Vince and the company that they happened to be showing a vignette on TV when Owen died. Airing a guy's death on live TV like that would have made it a lot worse.

[Fantastic]

It's kind of amazing the luck, like it's not really luck but to put it morbidly, that befell Vince and the company that they happened to be showing a vignette on TV when Owen died. Airing a guy's death on live TV like that would have made it a lot worse.

 

Is it? An entire arena still saw Hart fall - men, women, children. They also still had the seven second delay option, pretty sure had the vignette not been showing that they would have cut away as soon as Hart fell.

 

Of course, maybe the idea was that on the day, they didn't think the stunt was really going to look that great on TV, so they decided to go with it being for the live audience only with a replay following the vignette if it turned out well. Tragically, it didn't. I'm glad in a way that no footage is widely available to people, the last thing Hart's family needs is people bootlegging footage of his death.

[Jimmy Redman]

That's what I mean. As it is, only the few thousands of people in the arena saw it happen. If it were televised, the hundreds of thousands who watched the PPV would have as well, and there would be actual footage of the incident that would have been exploited.

[flyonthewall2983]

Weren't the house lights down during the actual fall?

[clintthecrippler]

I would also say that a bullet may have gotten dodged by WWE by Droz getting paralyzed on a taped program. Wasnt that a few months after the Owen Hart fall also?

 

EDIT: finally got a moment to look up, this was on a Smackdown taping five months after the Owen Hart incident.

[flyonthewall2983]

I thought that was a house show.

[Migs]

If this happens to Foley, they never do the Owen stunt.

[Smack2k]

That fall was planned, I'd believe…I was there that night and even if you watch the video, you can see zip ties hanging from where the cage broke as well as ties fall away as well…to me, that has always told me that was planned...

 

They are lying all around him on the ground too...

 

Or do they zip tie things regularly?

[Petey]

I thought that was a house show.

It was a Smackdown taping at the Nassau Coliseum.