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#4. AEW's Owen Hart Cup was possible due to Chris Jericho
AEW's connection with Owen Hart might not seem obvious but look no further than Chris Jericho for proof of Owen's influence in the wrestling business. The former AEW World Champion cites Owen as one of his biggest inspirations. During a previous interview, Jericho explained how he was instrumental in bringing Martha into the fold:
"It was a passion project for me and obviously for Martha and Tony. We worked on it for a long time, about a year and a half, to put the deal together and figure out what we wanted to do. I just knew I wanted Owen's legacy to be something positive and something great as far as wrestling goes, rather than just be dwelling on his death. That's the main reason why we all wanted this to happen, so we can celebrate Owen Hart's career and the contributions that he made. He was a pioneer."
On the 20th anniversary of Owen Hart's death in 2019, both Chris and Martha were involved in an episode of Dark Side of the Ring, which detailed Owen's unfortunate demise. Jericho even invited Martha on his podcast Talk Is Jericho to promote the episode, which helped establish their relationship. Jericho touched on why AEW is the perfect place to honor Owen:
"'What's his connection to AEW?' some people are saying. Well, one of the connections is that he's specifically the reason I got into wrestling. Owen Hart was the guy, to an extent Shawn Michaels & Ricky Steamboat, but Owen Hart, to me, I thought, 'I want to be like that guy.' There is your connection to AEW. The original AEW face of the company is an Owen Hart fanatic and disciple. That's the reason we wanted to do this."
"We'll do the Owen Hart Cup and tournament and make people feel good about Owen rather than sad. We know what happened, but that was over 20 years ago. Let's move forward remembering his amazing contributions and legacy in the ring that still resonate to this day. I'm really excited about it and very happy about it...We put a lot of time and work to make it happen, but it did and now we can move forward and have great times with Owen involved, which I'm sure he'd love as well."
It is thanks to Jericho that AEW and Martha were able to come together to make the Owen Hart Cup Tournament possible.
