10 Times WWE Worked Their Audience Into A Shoot

6. Matt Hardy's Return (Raw - July 2005)

Matt Hardy was fired from WWE in 2005, having just discovered that his girlfriend, Lita, was cheating on him with Edge, and deciding to go public about the matter. This not only turned Edge and Lita into two of the company's biggest heels, but saw Matt build a massive following of those sympathetic to his story. He was the aggrieved party, not Edge and Lita, and while they were still on television, Hardy was forced to slum it on the indies.

This support ultimately led to WWE's decision to bring Matt back, starting with a memorable ambush on Raw. There were no suggestions that he'd ever return to the company again, so when he jumped Edge backstage, then brawled with him all the way down to the ring, fans were blown away with shock.

WWE did a great job of making his return feel like a shoot, too. The commentators refused to acknowledge what was happening, and Hardy was eventually dragged away by security, screaming for fans to "see [me] in Ring Of Honor." It felt very much like Matt had snuck into the building and launched a legitimate, unscripted assault, which sounds ridiculous in 2017, but countless numbers of fans bought into it at the time.