Today In Wrestling History 5/23: The Truth About Owen Hart's Death, Matt Hardy WWE Debut, More

* 22 years ago in 1993, WCW held the first Slamboree pay-per-view as the culminations to a "Legends' Reunion" weekend that also included "Slam-meet," a meet and greet with the legends, and "Slam-feast," a dinner with the legends. Historically speaking, the card is probably most notable for the last match of former AWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Bockwinkel (58 years old), who went to a 15 minute draw with former NWA World Heavyweight Champion Dory Funk Jr. (52 years old).

The match was billed as AWA vs. NWA, with Verne Gagne and Gene Kiniski in their respective corners. Bockwinkel was still ageless and Funk kept in shape wrestling regularly, so they had a very good '70s-style match that was easily the in-ring highlight of the "legends" portion of the show.

The other legends' matches saw two tag team matches. The first was a six man tag team match where Blackjack Mulligan, Jim Brunzell and Wahoo McDaniel defeated Don Muraco, Jimmy Snuka and Dick Murdoch. That was followed by a standard tag team match where Brad Armstrong (replacing his father, who was injured) and Thunderbolt Patterson defeated Ivan Koloff and Baron Von Raschke.

The in-ring highlight of the card saw Barry Windham retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship defeating Arn Anderson in a bloody, old-school title match that was one of the last great matches of Windham's career. The WCW World Heavyweight Championship match (yes, WCW beat WWE to having two world titles by almost a decade) match, where Vader retained his title by defeating Davey Boy Smith, was also very good.

* 21 years ago, an otherwise uneventful live Monday Night Raw from Youngstown, Ohio saw the first WWF appearance of Matt Hardy, losing a squash match to Nikolai Volkoff. The Hardys and their friends were self-trained doing what was effectively glorified backyard wrestling on a trampoline converted into a ring, but had made a connection with the Italian Stallion to join his crew of extras (who he took a fee from). They made a lot of headway with the WWF when they decided to contact the office about being booked directly.

* 16 years ago in 1999, Owen Hart passed away in a rigging accident at the WWF Over the Edge '99 pay-per-view at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. There are a lot of misconceptions about what actually happened, so let's clear them up with the details that came out in the wrongful death lawsuit and were in the book his wife, Martha Hart, wrote:

While Sting regularly rappelled from the ceiling in WCW and Owen had done so a few times as The Blue Blazer, those were all done using a system that involved a backup cable and locking carabiner (mountain climber style harness), which was the standard, safe way to rappel. Here, the WWF had requested the use of a quick release cord (which it turned out was not approved for stunt use) so Owen could get out of the harness quicker when the stunt was over. Bobby Talbert, the stunt rigger, had been told that the reason for the change was that Vince McMahon was unhappy with how long it took to get out of the mountain climbing harness.

That day, Owen nixed the plan to include Max Mini (best known in Mexico as Tzuki) in the entrance as a Mini Blue Blazer so he wouldn't be responsible for anyone else's safety. Later, as they readied for the stunt with Hart dangling from the catwalk, he made some kind of movement, possibly to adjust his cape, and the quick release engaged, sending him falling to his death.

The release cord, which was taped down to the stunt vest, didn't have enough slack in it, making it easy to trigger without pulling it. Hart brushed referee Jim Korderas on the way down (enough that he felt something, but wasn't injured), and landed in the corner of the ring, causing his fatal internal injuries.

The investigation done by Martha Hart's lawyers revealed that the WWF had been using another rigger for years who always used the industry standard locking carabiner system. He recalled that they had asked him on multiple occasions to use a quick release, which he always refused for safety reasons.

When his $5,000 fee was deemed over budget by the WWF's Steve Taylor for the May 10, 1999 Raw in Orlando, he told his assistant to offer to do it for $2,000 because he feared a local rigger would use the quick release WWE had requested. The stunt was cancelled, and they were told they'd be contacted "next time," but they weren't contacted for the Kansas City stunt. They had never heard of the rigger used at Over the Edge, who was, in fact, based out of Orlando.