New AEW commentator Jim Ross reckons Martha Hart is being somewhat unfair with her refusal to have Owen Hart inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
The late performer fell to his death during WWF programming in 1999 and his widow hasn't been very happy with the company since, especially as they continued on with their PPV on that fateful night. As a result, she has refused to let WWE induct her deceased husband.
Ross, who witnessed the event ringside, was the one to deliver the shocking news to viewers after Hart was pronounced dead at hospital. And he recently opened up on the matter on his Grilling JR podcast.
“Look, I understand that part of Martha is grieving. I grieve myself lately," he said (h/t 411Mania). But at some point in time, you can’t — this grieving process is a strange cat, man. And one person can’t dictate how everybody else grieves, I can promise you. So I think that Martha’s being a little selfish sometimes.
"And it’s cool to say: ‘God, JR, she’s a widow, she’s got two kids to raise.’ I’m sorry if that comes off bad and I’m apologizing now. It just seems to me on the surface, okay look. You file this lawsuit, justifiably so. And you won it, and you got somewhere in the $18 million range before attorney fees. And so that’s been settled. And the process of doing that, it imploded within the family, which was totally unnecessary because it was never a point where it didn’t seem like Martha was really willing at times to move on.
"But again, she was grieving. And I can promise you, that process, there’s no manual for it and no predictability to how you grieve. So I just think she might have been unfair to the fans who loved him, who bought tickets to see him, who helped him earn a great living for a long time, but who really had an emotional investment in the character. And the character was the real guy.”
Jim and Martha clearly share a difference of opinion on the matter and that's exactly what it boils down to: opinion. It's more than that on Martha's part as this is deeply personal and she will never get over it.
Who knows? Maybe holding on to that bit of control over her husband's legacy is what's kept her going all these years.