AEW Worked On Owen Hart Deal For Well Over A Year

Owen Hart was regarded as one of the best pro wrestlers to ever compete inside a WWE ring. Unfortunately, his life ended far too early as he tragically lost his life at Over The Edge in 1999 as he fell to his death.

Owen Hart had doubts about the deadly Blue Blazer stunt that ultimately took his life as well. His passing led to a lot of controversy that carries on even today. Owen Hart’s wife Martha sued WWE for wrongful death, and Vince McMahon sued her back.

As reported earlier, AEW will be partnering up with the Owen Hart Foundation to honor the legacy of the legendary wrestler. The working relationship will include the annual Owen Hart Cup Tournament in AEW. The winner of the tournament will receive a Cup known as “The Owen.”

While speaking to Stephanie Chase, Chris Jericho talked about his involvement in getting AEW and the Owen Hart Foundation to work together and announce the tournament.

“It was a passion project for me and obviously for Martha and Tony. We worked on it for a long time, about a year and a half, to put the deal together and figure out what we wanted to do. I just knew I wanted Owen’s legacy to be something positive and something great as far as wrestling goes, rather than just be dwelling on his death. That’s the main reason why we all wanted this to happen, so we can celebrate Owen Hart’s career and the contributions that he made. He was a pioneer.

What’s his connection to AEW?’ some people are saying. Well, one of the connections is that he’s specifically the reason I got into wrestling. Owen Hart was the guy. To an extent, Shawn Michaels and Ricky Steamboat, but Owen Hart, to me, I thought, ‘I want to be like that guy.’ There is your connection to AEW. The original AEW face of the company is an Owen Hart fanatic and disciple. That’s the reason we wanted to do this. We’ll do the Owen Hart Cup and tournament and make people feel good about Owen rather than sad. We know what happened, but that was over 20 years ago. Let’s move forward remembering his amazing contributions and legacy in the ring that still resonate to this day. I’m really excited about it and very happy about it and really happy the deal got done. We put a lot of time and work to make it happen, but it did and now we can move forward and have great times with Owen involved, which I’m sure he would love as well.”

AEW’s partnership with the Owen Hart Foundation is likely to benefit the company in the long run and even Jim Cornette defended the partnership recently.

h/t to Fightful for the quotes.

What’s your take on this story? Sound off in the comments!