What was the point in putting Owen Hart in the Nation of Domination?

[Savion83]

After the infamous "Montreal screwjob" involving Vince McMahon & Bret Hart in '97. Everyone in the Hart fondation left the WWF/E for WCW...except for Owen. Yeah Vince McMahon held down Owen Hart in the WWF/E through contracts and such. But who idea was it for Owen Hart to be a member of the Nation of Domination faction?

Because after the screwjob incident, Owen seem to be on a good roll without his brother Bret & the rest of the Hart Fondation in the WWF/E. Owen fueded with both DX member's (HBK & HHH w/o Chyna), and won his first ever European championship. And then all of a sudden Owen turned heel once again by turning on Ken Shamrock and joining the (new) Nation of Domination that was lead by the Rock.

The last that was ever heard of Owen in the Nation was after his fued with both Ken Shamrock and Dan "The Beast" Sevren. Then came the "retirement" angle.

Rest in peace Owen James Hart!

 

[Tenta]

Uh.... They wanted to turn him heel?

Look, you bring up a good point, in that Owen shouldn't have been turned heel and joined the Nation. He did have plenty of momentum going off the Screwjob, and would have been a likely challenger for Shawn's belt before Wrestlemania?

I'd give my speculation, but I'm not sure it even works. The best way to put is that politics got in the way of Owen's push, but by the time Owen turned heel, Shawn was gone, and Triple H wasn't in political power, really. I can only think that Vince was going through issues with the Hart family, as one would expect. He is vengeful normally, but the Screwjob was different. Vince decided that he was going to keep Owen down to annoy his brother. But then again, even that makes little sense.

My best answer? Eh, it was Russo booking. There's not a needed explanation, and rarely do things make sense. It was a case of Russo seeing the Nation needed help, and he added Owen, I guess, though it went against the initial point of The Nation of Dominance, a black militant group.

Eh, I blame Vince Russo

 

[Poop Master Flex]

Now I agree that there was no reason for him to turn heel, but if I was to make a guess to why they put him in the Nation it would be for 2 reasons:

1) They wanted to turn him heel. Although he wasn't a bad face and could get a decent reaction as one, Owen was always much better working as a heel, he was much better at getting people to hate him than to love him.

2) The big reason (and this is really just a guess) would probably be that at the time they had absolutely NOTHING for him and they felt he was too good to be completely wasted, so they decided to put him in the nation to a) turn him heel and b) give him something to do and at least keep him relevant. Russo was booking at the time and he probably couldn't think of anything to really do with Owen (even though there were A LOT of better things they could have done with Owen. Like Tenta said, it was most likely Russo's idea) so he put him in the Nation. I really don't know what the thought process was, maybe they felt the Nation needed a "Token White guy" in the group, with Russo booking that's not entirely out of the question. The only other reason I could think of is maybe they put him in there to get the nation over more (even though the Rock was more than capable of doing that himself).

 

[Savion83]

Now I agree that there was no reason for him to turn heel, but if I was to make a guess to why they put him in the Nation it would be for 2 reasons:

1) They wanted to turn him heel. Although he wasn't a bad face and could get a decent reaction as one, Owen was always much better working as a heel, he was much better at getting people to hate him than to love him.

2) The big reason (and this is really just a guess) would probably be that at the time they had absolutely NOTHING for him and they felt he was too good to be completely wasted, so they decided to put him in the nation to a) turn him heel and b) give him something to do and at least keep him relevant. Russo was booking at the time and he probably couldn't think of anything to really do with Owen (even though there were A LOT of better things they could have done with Owen. Like Tenta said, it was most likely Russo's idea) so he put him in the Nation. I really don't know what the thought process was, maybe they felt the Nation needed a "Token White guy" in the group, with Russo booking that's not entirely out of the question. The only other reason I could think of is maybe they put him in there to get the nation over more (even though the Rock was more than capable of doing that himself).

Token white guy? This is NOT an episode of "South Park" here were talking about. And as far as the nation of domination having a token white guy in the faction. They ALREADY had a token white guy in the "old" N.O.D. in Crush aka Brian Adams (R.I.P.)

Crush was the first ever "white guy" in the nation of domination! So having Owen Hart as a member of the NEW nation of domination should really make no diffrence don't you think?

If that's the case? Then I guess Mike Tyson was the token in the first version of De Generation-X back then huh?

 

[presto]

I always thought it was a "punishment" for "botching" the piledriver on Stone Cold Steve Austin that gave Austin the stinger.

It always seemed that Owen was never at the same level in the WWE after the incident and he did N.O.D. and eventually the Blue Blazer to which he fell to his death.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

Token white guy? This is NOT an episode of "South Park" here were talking about. And as far as the nation of domination having a token white guy in the faction. They ALREADY had a token white guy in the "old" N.O.D. in Crush aka Brian Adams (R.I.P.)

Crush was the first ever "white guy" in the nation of domination! So having Owen Hart as a member of the NEW nation of domination should really make no diffrence don't you think?

If that's the case? Then I guess Mike Tyson was the token in the first version of De Generation-X back then huh?

Ummm they had Mike Tyson in DX in order to make the odds seem impossible when Austin was facing HBK at wrestlemania 14 everyone knows that. It was to PROMOTE THE MAIN EVENT nothing more.

1st off, yes Crush was in the Nation, but not at the time that Owen was (Owen joined like 6 months after Crush so they didn't have a white dude in the Nation at the time).

Secondly, there was a lot of south park humor in the WWE around that time, they even had Earthquake put on a gold mask and dance with a Cartman doll for christ sakes. Back then their were a lot of things that were taboo, and racism did peak its ugly head in the WWE around that time.

Thirdly, this is VINCE RUSSO we are talking about, the same guy who said a spanish guy or a japanese guy could NEVER get over in America because people just won't care about them over here because they are too different (he actually said that in an interview).

Lastly, that wasn't the only reason I gave you dude and no I don't think that is why, but you got to remember, this was the Attitude Era, things were different in wrestling back then and when you throw russo into the equation anything is possible. Its far-fetched (like in my original post I would have to go with it was to give Owen something to do more than anything else) but its not completely out of the question, there were plenty of racially charged storylines and characters back then, things were very South Park-y back then.

 

[Total Impact]

Owen in the Nation was a good move as the WWE was trying to separate the "black" gimmick and make it more mainstream as the rock was getting over. Also Owen was the co-leader of the nation and it did well in getting Owen over as heel as everyone was cheering for him because of Montreal. After that Owen formed one of the greatest tag teams in WWE history with Double J. So it served its purpose.

 

[tjfjr4488]

they did it bc they saw how good DX was getting (hhh xpac outlaws and chyna) and they wanted dx face so since hhh and owen still hated eachother it was a good way having owen turn heel by join nation adn start the dx nation fued, this was how dx became the face of wwf at the time as a group

 

[President Evil]

I believe that Owen joining the Nation was because: 1) the E wanted to keep Owen held down for a while longer, because of the screwjob incident or 2)they just didnt know what to do with him at the moment, so they just threw him with the Nation. Which really made no sense to me, even to this day. One unwritten law about being in the Nation was that you had to be black, and Owen was as white as day.

If they wanted to turn him heel, they should have just done it with him being singles competitor.

Owen's career was just hitting its peak when the accident happened. Owen was starting to be seen as one of the next top main eventers (not that he wasnt one before) but you could tell around this time and on, it was going to be his time.

Ive always heard that Owen was going to begin calling himself "The Game" but after he died Triple H took it for himself in Owens honor.

 

[TheAnimal]

Yes its Russo and maybe they ran out of ideas for him. There also was more to do as a heel i suppose. It was logical that after the screwjob he would want revenge for his brother by feuding with DX but maybe after that they felt like they would have been keeping him face for the sake of it and wouldn't have wanted him to get a bit stale so as a heel he could do more. Although maybe he could have feuded with McMahon too after Montreal? Obviously that would have impacted on the Austin feud though.

With the N.O.D thing, WWF wanted to do crazy things and push the envelope, they must have thought that by putting a white guy in a group consisting of black men that would have been another reason to get people talking. There could be a number of reasosn though ranging from Russo to nothing else for him to punishment wanting him to look stupid due to Bret to pushing the envelope.