Introduction

Kansas City: May 23, 1999

As Owen Hart arrived at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, he felt queasy about what his paycheck required of him. Most of the wrestlers, or the Boys, employed by the World Wrestling Federation were willing to do anything that Vince McMahon, its dimple-chinned owner, asked of them. But Owen had recently begged off of performing a seduction scene with a former Miss Texas named Debra Marshall. The WWF had just come through the May sweeps having notched the four highest-rated shows in all of cable television. And Hart knew that the children in his son's private school in Calgary-like those in schools across America-watched its show on Monday nights. He didn't want to confuse his son, who was just seven, or his three-year-old daughter, by flirting with another woman before 6 million viewers.

Unfortunately, his request for an alternative yielded something that was only slightly more appealing. McMahon had ordered him to resurrect the Blue Blazer, a silly superhero that Owen had used when he was starting out in the mid-eighties, when the business was still about cartoon costumes and simple morality plays. It required him to wear a full-face mask with dollops of silver and red, a blue leotard with a red spider on it, and a feathered shoulder cape, all of which he found extremely embarrassing. But he assumed that was the point. McMahon wanted to use him to needle all the moralists and handwringers who were accusing the WWF of peddling pornography and violence to kids. The more self-consciously pious the Blazer looked and acted, the better he served that purpose.

Because this was one of twelve pay-per-views that the WWF staged a year in addition to its regular cab...