Fact: Over The Edge 1999 will be available via the WWE Network

I’ve read and re-read the list of PPVs to be made available via the WWE Network, and I still can’t quite get my head around this.

Over The Edge 1999 is one of the PPVs included for viewing.

I am assuming – hoping – that this will be a very, very heavily edited version of the show. Yet even so I don’t think it should be on there.

Because, to be honest, do we really want to relive the pay-per-view in which Owen Hart died?

For me, it’s not a question of it being OK now that 15 years have passed. Even if the Network got the agreement of his next of kin, which I doubt they’d ever get, I don’t think it would be OK. Ever. I think this is a show which we will never be able to forget, and a show we should never want to rewatch for its wrestling content.

In this situation, the reality of professional wrestling is put into sharp relief. There is no way in which Over The Edge can be discussed without the death of Owen Hart overshadowing it. There’s no such thing as thinking, “Well, it was a good pay-per-view, except for the bit where Owen Hart was strapped into a harness that wasn’t designed to take his weight and he fell from the rafters and landed on the ropes and his aorta tore and he died.”

I find it puzzling that some are arguing that they want to see some of the contests again, saying, “They were great matches.” I don’t want to see matches where people are wrestling on the same mat where their friend and co-worker died a matter of minutes before. I don’t want to see poor Jeff Jarrett forced out there having just seen his close friend carried out.

I understand the reasons for the show continuing that night. I understand why the crowd in the arena weren’t told what had happened. But there is no reason for this show to be available to view (as long as you pay your subscription, of course). Though I’m excited about all the pay-per-views we’ll get to see on the Network, this should not be one.