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There are a few things in the world that I truly hate.
Unfortunately, one of these is today, and no, I didn’t see a snake while walking on a crowded bridge. Sadly, Aaron Glazer was right. Now, what could he possibly be right about? It’s Glazer! Well, he was right when he said, and I’ll quote, “Matt Hardy fucking sucks.”
We argued this point for a while, I mean, I was a Hardy Boys fan from back in the day who always felt that while Jeff was the bigger draw, that Matt was the better worker. That Matt had a love and devotion for the business that Jeff lacks, that Matt is a better worker in general while Jeff is a spot monkey, and that Matt had more long term potential. Glazer had a simply reply for that too.
“He fucking sucks, dude. He’s an asshole.”
We argued this point for a year and a half before we finally just stopped bringing him up. I was a fan, he wasn’t. We both still agreed that Jeff deserved the top spot more, but that was more a matter of him just being more money of a draw, which is not something that just anyone can do. Sorry, but even as a Matt fan I could admit that his promo skills were shit. I always gave him the benefit of the doubt, after all, I was a fan, and this was a guy who loved his fans! He was the guy who got fired over a bogus situation and brought back almost entirely on fan reaction. It wasn’t his fault that Edge was the hottest of his entire career and that there was no chance he could ever match it, he made the most of what he had.
Very little was his fault, like his run on Smackdown, his stalled feud with MVP (amazing feud that never got the payoff it deserved due to injuries), his reteaming with Jeff not really leading anywhere, or even better, the fact that he was the ECW champ while hurt. That one I loved, because he was “such a trooper” working hurt, but he was barely working and looked like crap. Do I commend him for fighting through it? Normally I would have, but the more I look back on it the more I see it as him not wanting to give up his spotlight as opposed to worrying about putting on better performances and earning his spotlight.
When he didn’t regain his spotlight after the injury, it’s because he didn’t deserve it. When he had his crappy matches against Jeff that got nobody over, that was his fault for being a shitty heel. It was the same problem he had during the first and second Hardy splits back before Jeff bailed on the company, Matt can’t play a heel against Jeff. It doesn’t work. Matt Hardy V1.0 was great, but that isn’t how he worked Jeff. He worked Jeff as the jealous older brother, but unfortunately, it never works quite so well when you have a group of fans that would rather not choose between you, but if forced to….will definitely go with your brother. But whatever, Matt Hardy will not die.
The problem Matt has come across over the years is that his work rate has never really added up to where his fans try and place him, and over the past few years it’s become more and more obvious. He’s lazy, he’s a bit sloppy, he still can’t cut a promo, and he has five moves of mild doom. And while that would be fine normally, in his own mind he’s a superstar of main event quality. In real life, he’s a lifelong midcarder who will always be best remembered for teaming with his younger brother…who will be remembered for his solo runs as well as his tag ones.
But the thing is, I liked Matt Hardy, pretty much up until recently. But with this whole being sent home thing, posting bullshit on the web, openly trying to get out of his WWE contract so he can go to TNA…..how do I respect that? He’s using his fanbase as a tool to get over what he wants. He’s posting tweets and youtube videos, and it’s for the same purpose that got him kicked off of TV and house shows. He wants out of his contract so that he can go to TNA, and he wants to leave in a way where he can act like he’s a victim of the WWE, but the hero to his fans that got free of his shackles and found freedom in the promised land. I mean, that totally sounds like something he’d say before reminding us that Matt Hardy will not die.
But in this case, for starters, how is Matt a victim? WWE used him pretty consistently, he had midcard title reigns, got storylines, had some decent potential for matches. He got a better shot then a lot of possibly more deserving talent, but it wasn’t enough to keep him motivated. That bugs me. There are guys who actually like their job, like Chris Master of Zack Ryder, who are struggling to get TV time on Superstars, but Matt Hardy whines that he’s on Smackdown every week. He wants to be on pay per view, he wants to be in the main event. Well Matt, there are guys who want to be on priority one TV and not Superstars, or better yet, there are guys who want to work a televised match. And there are also guys in the exact same spot as Matt Hardy that deserve to be pushed up the card a whole lot more.
Like The Miz, who came out of the same basic roster spot as Matt Hardy a few months ago, his work and promo skills elevating him up the card to a point where I could see him winning the world title. We’ve got John Morrison who has finally started to find a character evolution that makes him a top tier player and not just a gimmick. Ted DiBiase hasn’t been flawless, but he’s been putting on good matches and cutting entertaining promos. These are guys that deserve the nod to move up the card, these are the guys who work their asses off to earn their spots. They don’t have senses of entitlements because they’ve been around, or because they’re brother was a superstar.
What does Matt think TNA will do with him? Does he expect his ‘long overdue’ world title push? Is he going to be putting on five star matches with everyone on the roster while being the main focus of the show? Is he going to finally prove that he’s better than Jeff?
Or are they going to push him with Jeff in a novelty tag team as a way to cool Jeff off from the main event scene, or even to put them against a tag team of main eventers. And then, once Jeff goes back to solos as he inevitably will, Matt will wind up feuding with the X division and showing just how slow and sloppy he’s gotten.
If anything, he should be happy that WWE has been good enough to not expose him for being sloppy, they’ve made him look like a star even when he was incredibly undeserving of the term. They made a lot of money with him, and they paid him a lot along the way. The WWE has taken care of Matt Hardy for over ten years, and his response is to giggle like a stupid school girl about how he’s leaving.
And what’s worse is that he’s playing with his fans in the process. It’s not enough that he’s pissing away any chance at coming back to the WWE on his way out, but he’s playing with his fans at the same time. The same fans who screamed for his return all of those years ago. The same fans who are now able to see clearer and clearer that maybe, just maybe, Matt Hardy never really had it.
A public exit from WWE creates a public entrance into TNA which generates hype and buzz around a guy who hasn’t been able to generate any since his girlfriend nailed his best friend and the WWE made a storyline out of it. How long will that last, and how long until people just stop caring? How long until Matt is making more excuses to his loyal fanbase for why he has a stalled career as he gets up there in the years? How long until everyone realizes that he’s just entirely full of it?
I guess, that’s the problem, at the end of the day. Matt Hardy is his own biggest promoter, but there’s one thing he can’t just promote away.
That Matt Hardy f’ing sucks.
Tags: Matt Hardy, shades of grey, The Hardy Boys
