It’s tough to write about favorite wrestlers passing away as anyone that knows me on a personal level knows, however, 13 years ago today on May 23rd, 1999 the professional wrestling world lost one of its all-time greats in Owen Hart, as the youngest male of the legendary Hart family passed away as the result of a tragic accident that occured at the WWE Over The Edge pay-per-view.

Owen was a tremendous wrestler and no one can ever take that away from him, and beyond that he had a great sense of humor as has been told over the years by his brother Bret and former WWF superstars who worked with him. Owen was also a fantastic father and was known for his love of his wife Martha and his children, Athena and Oje.

I’ll never forget staying up late as an 11-year-old kid watching the event and hearing Jim Ross state that something had gone wrong during a video package for Owen’s match against The Godfather that was to be for the WWF Intercontinental Championship and the video feed immediately switching to the crowd after the video package instead of to the ring as usually happens, with Ross then stating in a stunned manner that what had happened inside the ring moments ago was not part of the storyline and not a wrestling angle, before later revealing that Owen Hart had passed away as a result of the impact from his tragic accident, which immediately at that point had me in tears.

I’ll also never forget talking with Bret Hart backstage at an American Wrestling Rampage show in Ireland several years ago and discussing the business at that time, Owen’s career and various other topics and Bret telling me that he loves how the fans still remember Owen, not only as a great wrestler, but also as a great human being. Bret was wearing a t-shirt that night with himself and Owen, which I’ll include below and I never forget both of us fondly remembering great memories of Owen which will stay with me forever.

Owen was in the World Wrestling Federation at a time that it became full of top-name talent such as The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Shawn Michaels and many others and always held his own inside the ring, despite not being pushed to their limits as a huge draw for the company and looking back, it may seem that Owen Hart helped to open the doors for smaller wrestlers that worked hard to develop, such as CM Punk, Daniel Bryan and others the company have signed over the years. Both those men spent their time developing their skills and paying their dues like Owen, before rising to the top in the WWE. While it appears that Owen may never be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, there is no one that can deny his skills as a professional wrestler. May 24th was a very different day as that was a Monday and by then, coverage of Owen’s passing was made available from every major news source you can think of and if you were a wrestling fan, you really felt numb as the wrestlers who performed on WWE RAW that night in a RAW Is Owen tribute.

My personal favorite memories of Owen are seeing him face off against Bret at WrestleMania 10, that also featured a fantastic ladder match between “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon as well as Owen’s crazy promo from Summerslam 1997 (the night Austin broke his neck), where Owen, as comical as ever, pulled out some Blistex and told Stone Cold Steve Austin that he was going to need this when he kissed Owen’s a**.

13 years on, Owen’s memory is never forgotten and I don’t think it ever will be. I’d like to close this out not with a conclusion, but instead with a video, Owen’s “King of Harts” titantron.