Details You Never Knew About Stone Cold Steve Austin

Despite usually being portrayed on WWE programming as Bret Hart's jealous, scheming little brother, Owen Hart was, in real life, beloved in the locker room for being a devoted family man with a great sense of humor, as noted by Pro Wrestling Stories. One wrestler was an exception: "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

As recapped by Sportskeeda, Austin was challenging Hart for the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam in 1997 when, toward the end of the match, Hart prepared to land a piledriver on Austin but lost his grip on his opponent. This resulted in Austin breaking his neck and suffering temporary paralysis, leaving him unable to land his finishing move, the Stone Cold Stunner, as scripted. He did pick up the win with a roll-up, but it was clear to everyone in attendance that the Texas Rattlesnake was seriously hurt.

Given the consequences of that in-ring accident, Austin saw Hart's attempts to apologize as perfunctory at best. "Owen almost paralyzed me," he said. "He called me only once to apologize while I was in the hospital. If I almost break someone's neck, I'm calling them 25 times to apologize. ..."

After Owen Hart died following a botched ring entrance at the Over the Edge pay-per-view on May 24, 1999, Austin was nowhere to be found at his funeral. In an interview with WrestleZone, Austin's ex-wife, Jeanie Clarke, alleged that he never forgave Hart for what happened at SummerSlam and might have even felt that the Canadian wrestler deliberately injured him.

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