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There's been a lot of back and forth between Bret Hart and his former sister-in-law Martha about Owen Hart's legacy and whether he should be in the WWE Hall of Fame lately. Obviously, Owen was great, but should his wife have the call as to whether he goes in or not? She obviously didn't want a DVD about him released but WWE went through with it anyway and even stopped her from stopping that in court. Can't WWE just induct him anyway? Isn't in wrong she doesn't want her children to know the Hart family? Isn't there some happy medium here?
This is a really, really complicated issue, so I want to first explain that I understand where Martha Hart is coming.
I think there are some who look at the death of Owen Hart as something that happened a long time ago, which in somewhat true, as it's going to be 20 years this May that he passed away. While that passage of time may make wrestling fans more nostalgic for someone they loved as a performer, that same passage of time doesn't allow Martha Hart to escape the grief or sadness of the loss of her husband and the loss of the father of her children when the issue is brought up. I am sure it puts her right back into that moment from all those years ago, emotionally.
Nothing should ever mitigate Martha Hart's loss or her decision to hold WWE responsible for Owen's death. That is her right and no one should ever question that right, even if they disagree with it. If you thought someone was responsible for the death of your spouse, would you want them selling action figures or DVDs or making money selling tickets to an event honoring them? As a human being, no, you wouldn't. That is, when you break it down, what wrestling fans and the Hart family, want Martha Hart to agree to. It's not fair to the woman to do that, no matter how much anyone (myself included) loved Owen as a performer.
Martha Hart didn't ask for the circumstances that she has had to live with for the last two decades and I think the fact she has used the tragedy of Owen's passing to raise millions of dollars through the Owen Hart Foundation is a testament to her love for him and a worthy testament to someone who was so deeply loved within the business and by pro wrestling fans - even if Martha and her family do not want Owen's memory strongly connected to WWE today.
I think a lot of fans today forget the brutal lawsuit that Martha lived through in the aftermath of Owen's death and if you've ever read her book on Owen, she was extremely crushed that at the end of the day, his death was reduced to the settlement of the lawsuit, because to her, he was worth far more than that settlement. Stop for a moment as you read this and think about the person you love the most in the world: no amount of money is worth never having the ability to see them or be with them ever again. That is the loss Martha Hart has dealt with May 1999.
As far as Martha not wanting her children (who by now are old enough to make their own decisions about this) not wanting to know the Hart family, again, that is her call and while it has been brought into the public discourse via the back and forth between she and Bret, I don't think it's appropriate for me (or anyone) to comment on it. It has no bearing on the pro wrestling world. During his WWE Hall of Fame induction, Mark Henry said that the business is the birthright of Owen's son Oje. Oje is old enough to decide for himself if he wants that birthright. No one should be commenting on any of that publicly in my opinion and it's unfortunate that it's even being discussed.
As far as whether WWE can honor Owen, of course they can. As tacky and tasteless as it would come off to Martha (which it certainly would), there's nothing legally to prevent WWE from flying in the Hart family and doing a big tribute to Owen and having Bret Hart accept the honor and tell some Owen stories.
Whether it is appropriate to do that from a moral standpoint when Owen died performing for the company is a massive gray area and how one feels about that idea depends on how you feel about WWE's responsibility when it comes to Owen's death. I think if you grew up watching Owen and experienced his death first-hand, unless nostalgia has clouded how you feel, you'd remember that shock and sadness and inducting Owen might not sit well with you, although to be fair, there are some who don't care and just want to see him honored. I also think if you are a younger fan for whom this is all something that happened before you fell in love with pro wrestling, you may not have the same personal sense of loss and shock, and that's human nature. It all depends on where you stand.
Honestly, I don't think there is a happy medium here. If WWE decided to induct Owen, Martha would decry it as a smear on his memory and again, that is her right. She controls his estate and I don't see any, any, any agreement being made between the two sides, ever. Even if WWE has the best of intentions, again, Martha will never see it that way and that is her right.
Perhaps the only thing WWE could do is, at some point, add Owen to their Legacy wing without any prior announcement or promotion, so they can't be accused of trying to exploit his passing by selling tickets to the Hall of Fame. Air a really classy video for Owen that night. Then, the company should make a huge donation (and I mean HUGE) donation in the memory of Owen to a worthy charity in Calgary. I believe when he passed, the WWE tribute magazine for him raised funds for Calgary Children's Hospital, so perhaps they would be the best recipient for such a donation. Martha Hart honors her husband by raising money for charity. WWE can honor Owen the same way.
That might be the classiest way WWE can handle an Owen induction without his family's consent, but even if that happened in the manner I just suggested, undoubtedly, Martha Hart would not approve that from a personal level and she shouldn't, because her world came crashing down when Owen Hart passed away.
No passage of time, no amount of money and no level of outcry from wrestling fans or pro wrestlers - even ones Owen was related to - removes that pain, that sadness or that anger. That pain, sadness and anger should be respected, because if we were in that situation ourselves, we would want everyone else to respect and understand it.
To learn more about the Owen Hart Foundation, click here.
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