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That's why Owen Hart was up on the catwalk of Kemper Arena in Kansas City during the "Over the Edge" pay-per-view telecast May 23. The 34-year-old journeyman WWF wrestler was going to be attached to a harness and lowered from the ceiling, nine stories up, just the way Turner's WCW superstar Sting descends into the ring for a bout. Only instead of swooping into the ring like Sting, Hart would gently flop, face down, and play it for laughs.

Perhaps the 16,200 fans at the sold-out arena, or the 250,000 watching at home on pay-per-view, wouldn't even get the mocking reference. But McMahon and his boys at WWF would get it, and they'd laugh and slap backs. Because not only does McMahon's WWF routinely trounce Turner's WCW in the lucrative Monday-night cable ratings game, but the WWF knows how to enjoy a good rout.

But something went wrong up on the catwalk.

Hart's character was "the Blue Blazer"; the arena was darkened and a pretaped interview was shown on a big video screen as Hart, suspended horizontally Superman-style 78 feet above the arena, gazed down on a ring that must have looked like a postage stamp. He was hanging from a single cable, attached to it only by an easily triggered release mechanism; the plan was that once he was lowered and hovering directly over the ring, he would release himself to accomplish his anticlimactic flop. Waiting for his cue, the wrestler reached back to secure his elaborate feathered cape. A stage rigger hired by the WWF heard a pop. Hart's release trigger had snapped, and the wrestler went into an unplanned free fall. He was moving at 50 miles an hour when he slammed head first onto the ring's corner turnbuckle. He was killed almost instantly from a ruptured aorta and massive internal bleeding. (Since the arena was all but dark, and the TVs were showing the intro tape, few of those present, and no one watching pay-per-view at home, actually witnessed Hart's deadly fall.)

Life for the 53-year-old McMahon and the WWF (not to mention the Hart family) has not been the same since that night in Kansas City. Thanks to his botched handling of the crisis in the hours and days that followed the fall, McMahon is now in the fight of his life. Two weeks ago, the Hart family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against him and the WWF. The suit could conceivably shut down the company. Meanwhile, the Kansas City police, which found no signs of foul play and initially treated the fall as an accident, have gone back and opened a criminal investigation. They're now trying to determine if the WWF took proper precautions in setting up the stunt, and whether Hart, who had no professional stunt experience, should have been up on the catwalk to begin with. If not, WWF execs could face involuntary manslaughter charges and seven years in prison.

Next page | Gorgeous George and the making of Vince McMahon