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Vince McMahon explains why he didn’t stop the 1999 WWE Over The Edge PPV event after Owen Hart died

Aaron Rift

The Netflix docuseries about former WWE owner Vince McMahon premiered on Wednesday, September 25th 2024 with comments from Vince that were made prior to his 2022 “hush money” scandal that led to his “retirement” from WWE. One of the topics discussed was Owen Hart’s accidental death at the 1999 WWE Over The Edge PPV and Vince said the following about why he made the decision to continue the broadcast after Owen passed away…

“The decision that I had to make was basically whether or not the show goes on. The live audience didn’t really see what happened (because Owen’s fall happened during a ‘blackout’ while a video was playing on the screen). Had they seen, no question you have to shut the show down.”

“Those people came to see a show, they didn’t come to see somebody die. And, me as a businessman, it’s like ‘Ok, let’s continue on, let’s continue the show.’ There were a lot of negative comments actually as to whether or not the show should continue.”

Vince also responded to comments from Bret Hart about the idea that if Vince’s son Shane had died, the show would’ve stopped…

“Naturally, Bret’s gonna feel like a brother should. He had every right to say anything negative about our company. Had it been me, not just my son, had it been me who ‘splatted on the mat’ like Bret said I would want the show to go on. So get me out of there, you know, and let the show go on. I’d do it with me and to this day I would.” (quotes courtesy of TJRWrestling.net)