Bhaal came back after the second sundering. So maybe they can do something with that. 

WWF/WWE (or more to the point, Vince) has always had a spiteful streak. As the last of the Harts in the company, Owen was getting all the blowback for his family members wrestling in WCW. Especially Bret. All the more tragic, in that Owen seems to have been one of those who just soldiered on.

IIRC, they had actually done that bit a couple of weeks prior to the show, where Blazer rappelled into the ring, but got stuck in his safety harness and just hung helplessly while his opponent beat him like a pinata.

Jim Ross basically says as much in the podcast he released today.  He didn’t want to do it, and he really didn’t want to do it with Max Mini, so he hoped that by delaying it, they’d eventually decide it wasn’t worth the hassle and cancel it. The delay meant they planned to probably do the Max Mini bit the next night…

POST Wrestling has a podcast episode this week detailing this final day. It’s a great listen. It seemed as if Owen was avoiding the practices to force Vince’s hand and cancel the stunt. Unfortunately it forced his hand to say he had to be there in 15 minutes or find another job. Owen having just bought a house and…

the Raw the next night was heartbreaking. I’ll never forget the sight of Mark Henry bawling his eyes out in sadness. 

The idea, IIRC, was that Owen was supposed to trigger it a few feet above the ring and fall on his face like a dumbass. 

The gag was that he would descend from the rafters like Sting, but get stuck four feet above the ring. The quick release was so he could then drop from the short height and pratfall.

For real, wtf is the point of the quick release. There are twist lock carabineers that are far safer than this quick release referenced in the article (DIVING equipment McMahon? Are you fucking serious?), but you can still exit in less than a second. 

I was in the crowd that night. We were never told anything about his status after the fall, even though TV viewers were told he had died. I guess Vince didn’t want a sad crowd ruining his PPV.

I thought the story was that he wanted a quick release to hover like 5 feet above the ring like he was stuck and then pull it to let go. 

Darker than Chris Benoit?...

“I’m not an expert in rigging; I guess you are.”

I think its clear from the context of the article that he, at minimum, showed up late so he wouldn’t have to practice his descent with a dwarf strapped to him, or more likely hoping they would cancel the stunt altogether.

This gets to the heart of the matter I think. Vince wanted to prove that there was an easy way to do that stunt that was still safe and cost effective in order to make WCW look like a bunch of overly cautious goofs.

I enjoyed the article but it seems like it ended abruptly.

This is fucking insane.

Was in 9th grade, having a watching party over at my house for this. I remember you couldn’t really even tell what happened. So bizarre

am i understanding this right:

...or if the three-and-a-half-foot tall masked Mexican wrestler Max Mini was strapped to Owen as originally planned...