Dark Side of the Ring’s season finale tonight will focus on Owen Hart’s tragic death at the Over the Edge PPV in 1999. In the build-up to the episode airing, Martha Hart has been taking part in media interviews and speaking about the events surrounding her husband’s death.
Bret Hart has since responded to comments Martha Hart made to the Wrap regarding the fallout between his and Martha’s relationship. Martha stated that her fallout with Bret had to do with Bret wanting access to his wrestling footage and rekindling his relationship with Vince McMahon.
“(Bret) was very upset that he didn’t get his footage. It prompted him to befriend Vince again so he could have access to his footage. That was the first fracture in our relationship,” Martha said.
Bret has since released the following statement on the matter:
“While I am not interested in engaging in any more media mudslinging between Martha and myself especially in light of a global pandemic, I will say that our fallout is multifaceted. To say that it only involved being able to access and use my WWE footage and photos for future projects would merely be an oversimplification and inaccurate. I will not comment any further on the matter.”
WWE Lawyer Comments On Martha Hart Statements
In a recent interview with CBS Sports and on Talk is Jericho, Martha Hart spoke about the negligence involved in Owen’s fall. She also spoke about WWE taking legal action against her in an attempt to force the wrongful death suit to be filed in Connecticut where punitive damages would be less of a factor.
“It was really tough. I have to say it was a knock-down-drag-out fight/battle against them,” Martha said on Talk is Jericho. “A lot of people might not realize this but they actually sued me for breach of Owen’s contract.”
“They had in their contract that you could only sue them in Connecticut but I wasn’t suing them about Owen’s contract, it was something totally different. But through that process of the lawsuit, they were trying anything and everything to muddy the waters or just intimidate me.”
Jerry McDevitt Comments
WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt has since issued a response to CBS Sports.
“The reality is, we’ve never told our side of the story of what happened — at least not outside of court,” the statement McDevitt provided reads. “We told it in court, but when she talks about the way the lawsuit unfolded over the years, it really isn’t accurate what she’s saying.”
McDevitt then made accusation about Martha’s lawyers attempting to fix the judicial selection process to get a judge they favoured.
“What she did whenever this happened is, she hired a lawyer in Kansas City who we caught essentially trying to fix the judicial selection process to get a judge that was more to their liking. We caught them and went all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court. The Missouri Supreme Court said, ‘No, no, no. We’re not going to let that happen.’ They essentially appointed an independent judge to come in from outside of Kansas City to oversee the proceedings. We were basically trying to find out what happened that night.”
McDevitt then stated that Owen Hart’s widow wanted to damage the wrestling business.
“Martha was not even remotely interested in finding out what happened that night; she just wanted to used it as a vehicle to beat up a business that she didn’t like that her husband was in, the wrestling business.”
McDevitt’s full statement along with Martha’s comments to CBS Sports can be read here.
Martha talking about WWE’s legal action against her can be heard in the player below:
