10 Horribly Cruel WWE Moments WORSE When You Know The Truth

10. WWE "Motivate" Jeff Hardy With Pictures Of His Dead Dog

Considering how much of wrestling is based on psychology and crowd manipulation, WWE's higher-ups often show a surprising lack of awareness for how the average human thinks.

WhatCulture has written before about Matt and Jeff Hardy's 2009 feud, which cut uncomfortably close to the bone. Matt was understandably uncomfortable about having to claim responsibility for the real-life house fire that claimed the life of Jeff's dog, Jack, but it gets worse when you learn how WWE tried to use the tragedy to motivate Jeff for a promo.

As reported by Sportskeeda, Jeff revealed on the podcast Wrestling with Freddie that WWE commissioned a video package which prominently featured Jeff's deceased pet. As Jeff put it, company officials told him this was done to get Jeff "fired up" (itself an unfortunate choice of words), but it had the exact opposite effect. Rather than filling Jeff with righteous fury, seeing a video of his beloved former pet just bummed him out.

It beggars belief that WWE thought showing Jeff a video of his recently killed dog would do anything other than depress him. Jeff knew damn well Matt had nothing to do with the fire that claimed Jack's life, so it was ludicrous on WWE's part to assume that Jeff would instinctively get angry at his brother after watching the video.