Review for Owen: Hart of Gold

23rd of May 1999 is generally not a date that will stand out for many people. If you are wrestling fan this is the day the veil dropped on 'sports entertainment' and we all saw what the consequences of getting in the ring actually could be. This was the day that Owen Hart died. His death was such a sad and tragic loss and I will not go into the ethics of who was to blame or any of that, the sad fact after watching Owen: Hart of Gold is just how much talent was lost when he died. Not just that, but such a wonderful person.

The documentary tells the story of Owen from his days growing up, working in the Stampede promotion for his father Stu Hart, his run in WWE as Blue Blazer, his unknown to most people run in WCW, before finally coming properly to the WWE in the early 1990s. For much of his career, he was a mid-card guy at best, but what a great performer he was. Whether it was with Jim Neidhart in New Foundation, Koko B Ware in High Energy or simply as The Rocket, he put on a wonderful, fast-paced match that was almost a precursor to the Cruiserweight and X-Division.

His feud with Bret Hart is infamous, resulting in an amazing match at Summerslam for the WWE title which won them the PWI Award for Best Feud and a Five Star Match award from Wrestling Observer. It was this feud that really showed that he could be a top heel and certainly could step out of his brother's shadow. He never did win the WWE title, but along the way he won multiple Tag, Intercontinental titles, King of the Ring and was a Two-Time Slammy award winner, which became his gimmick for a while.

Two things really came out of this documentary. One: Simply how good he was in the ring. I mean, phenomenal athlete with moves that you could tell he absorbed from his time working in Japan and with many other people from around the world. Whether he was in singles or in tag matches, he was just fantastic to watch.

Two: How much everyone loved him. No one has a bad word to say about Owen. Now, it's true they don't mention the infamous 'spike piledriver' to Stone Cold which more or less shortened Austin's career and causes him to have multiple health issues, but not one person has a bad word to say about Owen and when you hear the stories throughout the documentary marked as 'Owen Tales' this could almost have been its own documentary in itself.

There are multiple matches throughout the two disks with the likes of Bret Hart, Mr Perfect, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Mankind, British Bulldog, Edge, Ken Shamrock and many others. His matches against Bret are still fantastic (though they don't include their Summerslam match oddly?) and the multi-tag match from Canadian Stampede is still one of the best I have seen. Not a single match is unwatchable.

There is also a multitude of extra 'Owen Tales'. So many, that is odd they didn't just put them all together as a separate feature as they are all wonderful to hear from the likes of Triple H, Bret Hart, Natalya and many others.

Owen: Hart of Gold is the set that many who loved him have been crying out for, for many years. I really enjoyed every minute of this set and if you are a fan of Owen Hart you have to own it. If you are not, or maybe you don't know who he is, maybe this is your chance to discover or rediscover simply one of the best that has ever put on boots.