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Posts Tagged ‘Matt Hardy’

It appears Jeff Hardy is more upset at his brother’s release by WWE than Matt himself is. Jeff passionately defended Matt as a giving talent, willing to do anything asked of him, but who was treated like… umm, excrement? Jeff said it more colorfully.

Matt, meanwhile, said that since his brother Jeff had left WWE for TNA a second time, he felt pushed down and held back in his own career. He vows to go on to “bigger and better things,” perhaps outside of wrestling, while admitting that wrestling used to be his life.

With Jeff the new heel champ over at TNA, only contractual obligations related to his release would seem to be a barrier to Matt joining his brother in TNA. Unless he’s been taking too many prenatal vitamins.

As of Friday, Matt Hardy is taking his act somewhere other than WWE. In a recent YouTube video, Hardy intimated that he was intentionally trying to get himself fired by WWE.

It’s hard to understand why, but Hardy was granted his wish on October 15. The grapevine claims there are health concerns and perhaps Wellness Policy violation concerns to boot. Whether that’s true or not, the biggest question now is does Hardy sit out for a while to get well and get his health back? Or does he jump straight to TNA and let his problems continue to spiral?

While it would be nice to see the Brothers Hardy reunited once more, it would be best if it happened when both were free of any potential health and wellness issues and able to perform at the height of their abilities.

If the angle had involved Vince McMahon, it would have felt like a stale retread; but Friday’s Smackdown, which opened with a very strong segment featuring an altercation outside the ring between IC Champ Drew McIntyre and Matt Hardy, felt fresher and more energetic that anything that’s aired on Smackdown in quite some time.

The show opened with Hardy coming to the ring to challenge McIntyre, a standard storyline on many wrestlers’ resumes-, and when McIntyre responded by coming to the ring and engaging Hardy in an unsanctioned altercation, the authority figures, including Teddy Long, showed up to try and put things in order.

McIntyre ignored Long’s orders to story in a matter of minutes went from champ to suspended to fired and stripped of his title. Sure, it’s a storyline and it’ll be interesting to see where things go from here as Hardy was given an injury angle to play up as a result of the conflict with McIntyre, but kudos to WWE for relying on someone other than Vinnie Mac to sell this angle. Well done.

Everyone was expecting Christian Cage to return to WWE tonight, and this was the match most folks expected it to occur in. So imagine the surprise when not only did Christian not return during this match, but the backstab a former tag partner move came from an unexpected source. It was a storyline so unexpected that it might require a Chicago accident attorney to clean up the mess.

So, what happened? Well, the match between Hardy and Edge was top-notch, but at the critical point in the match, Matt Hardy, fresh off his defeat at the hands of Jack Swagger, showed up and at first it appeared he would be helping his brother Jeff.

Then? The chairshot heard across the WWE as Matt attacked his own brother to turn heel and give Edge the win. Talk about defying expectations? A Matt-Jeff feud could be a huge draw for several PPVs to come!

As an opening match to a major pay-per-view, I’ve seen worse than this. A lot worse. While Matt Hardy has always been the more workmanlike of the two Hardy Boyz, he put on a solid show with a promising young talent in reigning ECW champion Jack Swagger tonight.

Swagger, looking like a fellow in need of some Dwarf Little Gem Magnolia trees rather than a head scissors, he makes a credible heel and Hardy’s ring experience helped carry Swagger through in the areas where he lacks.

When Swagger wanted to slow down and mat-wrestle, Hardy would up his tempo and lead the young Swagger through the pacing of the thing. Given that they were only allowed 10 minutes to tell their in-ring story, that was needed.

Swagger retained the title and looked like he achieved something along the way.

The best diet pills in the world can’t make up for the bloated sight of Vladimir Kozlov in a WWE ring. But we’d better get used to it for a while because Matt Hardy lost his title match against Kozlov to become the new ECW champion.

This shows just how little regard McMahon now holds the ECW brand in; punking out a marketable, popular champion like Hardy after a brief run to the underexposed, overrated Russian big man is just not a way to draw viewers to the SciFi show, nor will it put many butts in the seats at TV tapings.

Does anyone remember The Big Show?

The potential problem with this match was pitting Hardy, a ring veteran, against Bourne, a relative newcomer. For an ECW brand that’s struggling just to get ratings, a more marquee matchup might have been nice, although Bourne ended up putting on a decent show with Hardy.

While diet pill reviews might be more interesting than a blow-by-blow of this match, the bottom line is that Hardy and Bourne kept the action brisk and interesting throughout, with better ring psychology than one might expect out of a ring rookie like Bourne.

WINNER: Matt Hardy
RATING: 7.6

For an opening match, the ECW Title match between current champ Matt Hardy and challenger Mark Henry was, at least, more entertaining than an infomercial for the best acne treatment. Hardy and the ECW Title have received a lot of positivity recently; Hardy pinned Triple H on the MyNetwork debut of SmackDown, and this win over Henry solidifies and legitimizes Hardy’s place as ECW champion.

The match was under 10 minutes, though, and opened the show, so it’s not like ECW is gaining that much respect; but at least with the strap on Hardy, they’re getting better than the lumbering performances recent super-heavyweight ECW champs have been able to produce.

WINNER: Matt Hardy retains the title

RATING: 7.5 (out of 10)

With a five-person scramble over the ECW title to open the evening, WWE’s Unforgiven 2008 PPV was a special event that was really special. After being an afterthought promotion for the better part of a year, this 20-minute match was well-booked, exciting and a great way to open the show.

Like tossing freshwater pearls into a Mardi Gras crowd, the fans were popping and excited, especially over the finish, which featured Matt Hardy finally winning a significant solo title. Coming out on top clean over Mark Henry, The Miz, Chavo Guerrero and Finlay, Matt Hardy delivers ECW a champion who can deliver on the “extreme” in Extreme Championship Wrestling.

What a great way to open the PPV, and what a great match! Finally, ECW is given some respect in the WWE empire.

Chris Jericho’s return to the WWE was supposed to be huge, but after a very brief run against champ Randy Orton, he has now been inserted into a feud with JBL. Now, I enjoy JBL; both in his normal life outside of wrestling as a Fox Business/Fox News contributor, and his in-ring character over on SmackDown.

However, while it’s a huge move to use a feud with Jericho to bring JBL back as an active wrestler and onto the Raw roster, it’s definitely a step way down for Jericho, whose mission was supposed to be as the Raw savior, delivering us from the Randy Orton era. While the move is a necessary sidestep, perhaps, to avoid overplaying the Jericho-Orton feud too soon, what may be brewing here is the unexpected, and that’s the dramatic popularity of the Jeff Hardy-Randy Orton feud. Hardy, a former TNA champ as well as a multiple-time tag champ in WWE, had been a terrific performer in his feud with Orton and is earning a lot of respect and momentum in his drive toward his Royal Rumble title match.

Whether it’s in the ring or doing charitable work for victims of cerebral palsy, Hardy’s a sentimental favorite to get a surprise win and ride that wave into the WrestleMania main event for a rematch against Orton. That could leave Jericho hanging in mid-card limbo again, as has often been the case in his pro wrestling career.

As their limited-run reunion recently proved, the WWE’s top tag-team assets are four wrestlers who are still with the company but haven’t been wrestling as tag teams in quite a while.

Mercury, Nitro and Melina (MNM) were one of the top “rising star” tag teams until nearly a year ago, when Joey Mercury was suspended, forcing the team to break up. But Mercury’s been back for months now and remains on Smackdown while Nitro and Melina are on Raw. It makes no sense.

Then there’s Matt and Jeff Hardy. Both are electrifying individually, but as a tag-team, they’re magic and other than that limited engagement over the holidays, where they Hardys were reunited for a feud with MNM. It made for some of the most watchable tag-team action to come out of WWE in ages.

Yet in both cases, WWE continues to keep both MNM and the Hardys completing individually, rather than as tag teams. Without those teams active, Raw is forced to trade their tag titles between unlikely pairings like Team Rated RKO, as well as the John Cena/Shawn Michaels pairing. All four would be better off in the singles division, but at teams they make for good matches.

SmackDown is in far worse shape, being forced to promote the uninspiring Brian Kendrick and Paul London team that absolutely no one watches. In fact, I’d rather chill in Orlando villas than watching their matches.

Give it up already, VinnieMac! Reunite MNM and the Hardys on a permanent basis already, and make your tag divisions respectable again!