Jim Ross Recalls Owen Hart Rib On Vince McMahon Involving Farm Animals
On a recent episode of the Grilling JR Podcast, AEW Commentator Jim Ross recalled a famous prank that the late Owen Hart pulled on Vince McMahon.
At WWF "In Your House: Seasons Beatings" which took place in 1995, Hunter Hearst Helmsley wrestled Henry Godwinn in a "Arkansas Hog Pen Match" which saw the victor, Triple H, get Gorilla Pressed into a pen of mud after the match. Prior to the match, Ross detailed a story about how the farm animals arrived at the building before the match and Owen Hart told the people who were in charge of them to escort the animals to Vince McMahon's office.
"Oh yeah that happened," Ross mentioned about Owens prank on Vince. "That I can remember happening. Vince was not happy about that and of course everybody knew who did it but nobody would talk. Vince knew who did it. Owen, that was one of his best ribs man. Vince's office had the wonderful odor of untrained farm animals who were having trouble controlling their bowel movements in Vince's little office there at TV."
During that same time, The Kliq was officially born and "running" WWF at the time before Kevin Nash and Scott Hall left for WCW. As a guest on the 83 Weeks Podcast, Scott Hall mentioned how Triple H was hung out to dry by Shawn Michaels in the infamous "Curtain Call" in Madison Square Garden and confirmed Vince McMahon also knew about it prior. Adding to comments he made about Stone Cold Steve Austin benefiting from Triple H's punishment at King of the Ring, Ross admitted that he felt bad for Triple H and didn't think he deserved to be punished for the situation.
"I thought the punishment bullsh** was weak," Ross said. "I'm not saying it wasn't something that went unpunished but was the punishment necessary? Why do you punish one guy for the acts and conduct of his buddies who aren't even there any longer? Why don't we move on? Triple H had done nothing to be punished for other than he picked the wrong friends. At the end of the day, the lucky part was: guess who won the King of the Ring and got over like a million bucks and made the company more money than any wrestler that Vince had had there since the heyday of Hogan."
Prior to Hall and Nash's departure of Hall and Nash to WCW, it had been speculated that Shawn Michaels, who was the WWF Champion at the time, was pushing to wrestle his Kliq friends during his run. Ross admitted that Hall, Nash, Shawn and Triple H basically ran house shows during that time and chose to face each other in each town.
"How many bad Triple H and Shawn Michaels matches did you read about and it generally closed the show?" Ross asked. "I'll put my money on those two guys closing any live event that I would book and do it very well and professionally. What they did earlier the day in catering or what they did the night before in the bar or whatever, that's just whatever it is. Everything can't be hearts and flowers.
"What I always wanted to create was competition. I wanted talents to know that if you're good enough, you're going to find your way to the upper level of the card where the bulk of the money are. I think that's what we created there in a great deal, it created opportunities for guys to do things and created new marriages so to speak."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Grilling JR with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.