Bruce Prichard will talk about a lot of things on his podcast “Something To Wrestle With” but on a recent episode about Owen Hart, Bruce decided not to go into Hart’s death. As you probably know, Owen Hart died tragically on 5/23/99 at the Over The Edge pay-per-view in Kansas City, Missouri.
At the time Owen Hart was performing an entrance on a zip-line masked as The Blue Blazer and things went wrong. Owen fell from the ceiling and hit the ring post where he died in front of a shocked crowd. Bruce Prichard was there when Owen Hart passed away and he doesn’t want to talk about it.
After the Owen Hart incident some fans were accusing Bruce Prichard of not talking about Owen’s death because he was under some kind of legal gag order not to speak about the event. Some accused Bruce of not going into the situation when he did cover the deaths of Rick Rude, Mr. Perfect, and Brian Pillman. Well, Bruce had plenty to say about those accusations.
“No absolutely not, it’s just something that I don’t choose to discuss. I don’t feel that it’s appropriate and it’s something I was there for, I lived it, and I don’t wanna relive it.” Bruce said about fans saying he wasn’t allowed to talk about Hart’s passing. “It was a horrible, horrible experience.”
“And you know what? I will say this, f— you to the people who [were like], ‘tell us about the worst moments of your life.'” Bruce continued, “I’ve shared some things, some very personal things on this show and it’s not easy and it’s difficult sometimes to share that stuff and I just… it infuriates the hell out of me at times when we are public figures. We put ourselves in the public, we put ourselves out here. So I’m open to all your criticisms or whatever it is you wanna say about me or anything else. However, at the same time I am entitled to my feelings, and my private feelings, and my private thoughts. And if there’s something I don’t wanna share then hey, you know, at least give me the respect of… I’m saying I don’t wanna share it so I’m not gonna share it.”
“It was a horrible, horrible, horrible experience that I lived and for those of you who have lost someone very near and dear to you imagine it taking place in front of your very eyes and then try and share that on a national stage.”
Co-host Conrad Thompson reiterated Bruce Prichard was ringside and watched Owen pass. He was literally inches away from the tragedy. There is no gag order from WWE and Bruce never had to sign any kind of non-disclosure agreement about the events. Bruce would just rather remember the happy times of Owen Hart’s amazing life.
In all honesty, we don’t fault Bruce Prichard whatsoever for not talking about Owen Hart’s death. What Prichard decided to do was actually the most classy thing he could have done. Any fan who decides to chastise him for avoiding the subject needs to take his reply to heart.
If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit “Something To Wrestle With” with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription.
