10 Reasons TNA's The Final Deletion Was A Shakespearean Level Masterpiece

Great angle or the greatest angle?

By Brad Hamilton /

ImpactWrestling.com

TNA is a company that has seemed to be barely holding its head above the surface of quicksand for quite some times now, yet rumours of their demise have been greatly exaggerated. The fact the promotion is still in its existence is astounding, considering the various missteps, mistakes and downright horrible business decisions that they've been a part of.

Advertisement

In what could be considered one of many last ditch Hail Marys, Impact Wrestling as of late has centred around an angle involving Matt and Jeff Hardy. The real life brothers and former partners are the closest active wrestlers TNA has to big name stars and the company has gone all in on the duo in an attempt to draw in new viewers.

The storyline dubbed "The Final Deletion" led to a match where "Broken" Matt Hardy, a new twist on his character that's a bizarre mixture of Sweeney Todd, Skeletor and Conor Oberst from Bright Eyes, challenged Jeff, who he now refers to as "BROTHER NERO" to a match to settle their dispute once and for all.

The feedback for the polarising event seems to be split pretty evenly, with about 50% of fans calling it the death of wrestling as we know it while the other half found it to be the greatest thing since Steve Austin hosed down the McMahons with a beer truck.

If you're one of those people who didn't find The Final Deletion to be a genius bit of storytelling, I'm here to tell you why you're wrong.

10. Attack Of The Drones

This entire angle has been filmed mostly everywhere but inside a typical wrestling ring or arena, and when we begin the festivities during Impact we see BROTHER NERO lounging around his house strumming his acoustic guitar. For anyone who has ever heard any of Jeff's music, you know he is not to be interrupted when he's in the zone and those creative juices are flowing.

Advertisement

Unfortunately for him, his musical tour de force was cut short by the invasion of multiple flying drones, all piloted by Matt Hardy. In a slow motion action clip worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster BROTHER NERO began to swat the drones out of the air with his guitar, smashing them to bits.

One drone known as Vanguard One survived the onslaught and projected an image of Matt Hardy a la R2D2, in which he issued a warning and a challenge to his brother for their bout later on in the episode. If you were to delve into wrestling's deep history you'd have to travel all the way back to the mini-movie for Beach Blast 1993 and the infamous shark-finned, one-eyed midget blowing up Sting and Davey Boy Smith's yacht to find such an impressive marriage of pro wresting storytelling and high level special effects.

Advertisement