#4 Post-Montreal Owen Hart
Trending
It's safe to say 1997/8 were tough years for Owen Hart. After seeing the company he worked for screw his own brother behind his back, and then witnessing the other members of his family depart for WCW, Owen was forced to stick around, partly due to contract requirements.
After a short hiatus, post-Montreal, Owen returned to the WWE as a pissed-off babyface wanting nothing more than to get back at the people who had screwed over his family. He took shots at Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels, and in particular HHH.
A former WWE writer just went after JBL for his comments HERE
The new character change had such a promising feel about it at the time. There were genuine, non-kayfabe, emotions at play, with WWF fans desperate to see some kind of resolution to the Screwjob itself. Bret and the other members of the Hart Foundation had left, and it was left to Owen to avenge his family’s honour.
Whether the company got cold feet, or there was just some good old-fashioned HBK politics going on in Vince’s ear, the gimmick fizzled out and became about Owen vs. HHH for the European title. Soon after this, Owen went back to becoming a heel, joining the Nation of Domination.
In a time when reality was being embraced, as the Attitude Era was slowly finding its feet, this could have been so much more than what it eventually became. Imagine seeing a match between Owen Hart and Shawn Michaels for the WWF Championship at the Royal Rumble in 1998, with the Montreal Screwjob lurking in the background.
Perhaps this was just too much of a storyline for the company to handle, given the fact that a lot of people were still very angry about the whole affair. But who knows where that could have led if it were given time?
