![]() ![]() Clearly a departure from WWE’s increasingly outlandish and transgressive product was in order. Yet the combination of Hart’s status, the unusual nature of his death, and wrestling’s white-hot popularity at perhaps the peak of its late-90s boom produced a wholly distinct context for the proceedings. ![]() or at least the modern mainstream spotlight. Wrestlers too had died from incidents during shows, though mostly outside the U.S. Active wrestlers had died before just 19 months earlier, WWE’s Brian Pillman was found dead in a hotel room of an apparent heart attack at age 35. There was little precedent for the show’s circumstances: the previous night, longtime WWE (then WWF) stalwart Owen Hart had fallen to his death, off-camera, during a pay-per-view event while preparing to make a stunt entrance from the arena rafters. When millions of wrestling fans tuned into Raw is War on May 24, 1999-two decades ago this week-they surely knew they would not find a typical episode. ![]()
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