Owen Hart Wrestling With Angels

Because of his neck injuries stemming from the  “messed up” Piledriver, Austin had to hand over the IC belt, which was rapidly regained by Owen in a tournament final at In Your House 18 “Badd Blood”.  Austin defeated Owen for the title in his first contest back from hurt, at Survivor Series '97 in Canada.  It was also at that year's Survivor Series that Owen's brother Bret was the subject of the biggest "screw job" in wrestling record with Bret preparation to leave the WWF for WCW, Vince McMahon conspired to "steal" the WWF title from Bret at that show even with promising Bret that he'd walk out of the PPV as the victor that was the lowest thing Vince has ever done in the whole time I’ve been a Wrestling fan for the Past 14 years.

Many were sure that Owen would follow Bret and the rest to WCW following the screw job.But as a substitute, Owen came back to the WWF better and Stronger than ever, as a baby face (good guy) trying to take revenge for his brother by going after new WWF Champ Shawn Michaels.

At Degeneration X In Your House PPV Owen returned to the WWF with revenge in mind attacking Shawn Michaels. Owen's new look and attitude made the fans cheer for him and in my mind this was the break that Owen needed to be a major player in the Business but again my opinion only Vince held a grudge with anyone with the second name Hart and never gave Owen the chance to surpass his brothers fame which he could have easily done. Owen challenged DX member HHH for the European championship on Raw is War, January 26, but Degeneration X thought they could fool Owen and they sent out Goldust who was going through what I think was some gender disorientation crisis at that point disguised as HHH. Owen disposed of Goldust rather quickly, when Slaughter who was the commissioner at the time came out and said that since that match was for the European title the decision stood and Owen was awarded the title.

Owen lost the WWF European Title to Hunter Hearst Helmsley on March 17th, 1998 during an episode of Monday Night Raw. Triple H challenged Owen, who was still nursing the injury to his leg, and shoved him out of his chair while Owen was doing commentating along side the King and JR. Chyna used a baseball bat on Owen's injured leg, and after that Hunter put an ankle lock submission thing on Owen, and was declared the winner and new WWF European Champion.