6 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (April 7)
In which the real Beast announces himself.
WrestleMania 33 was more memorable than it was insane, even if the Unsanctioned Match between Triple H and Seth Rollins - a bout that wasn't meant to have counted, in company lore - was presented, with Triple H's ludicrous entrance, as the selling point of the show. Where were the jeans and t-shirts?
That Rollins continually put his career in danger was bizarre - as was the fact that his knee, battered throughout, was somehow in better condition the next night, allowing him to be cleared for a throwaway tag match - but there have been crazier WrestleManias.
The self-anointed number one contender to the company's top prize didn't racially abuse his opponent on the night like Hulk Hogan did at WrestleMania IX, when he referred to the Samoan-American Yokozuna as a "j*p". No midcard heels were hanged from steel cages in some sort of symbolic gesture, like the Big Boss Man was at WrestleMania XV. The New Day's Guest Host gig was anonymous in the extreme, but they at least had the awareness to actually remember were they were, unlike Hogan at WrestleMania XXX.
Nobody threatened to break that "little sh*thead" Michael Cole's "a** in half" on Sunday, a la WrestleMania 2000 - but his total stupidity on Monday Night RAW made one wish it was Hardcore Holly, not the Hardy Boyz, who made their return to WWE this weekend.
6. The Hardy Boyz Wrestled Two Ladder Matches In 24 Hours
Back in 2001, many thought the The Hardy Boyz had taken years from their career by performing in a spate of lunatic stunt festivals. Those first TLC matches were brutal then and are f*cking brutal to watch back now. The suicidal dives, still seen today, are one thing - but Matt and Jeff took full on chair shots to the head in the Attitude Era. Those matches were career shorteners. Edge's neck withered away largely because of the bumps he took in them.
The Hardy Boyz are still performing in them sixteen years later - two in twenty four hours (!) at either side of forty.
At ROH Supercard Of Honor XI, the Hardy Boyz lost their Tag Team Titles to the Young Bucks in a violent twenty-five minute war during which Jeff Hardy - who has flirted with danger by walking under ladders since he first became synonymous with them - took a slingshot ladder bump to the face, the grisly fate of Joey Mercury be damned. In the most insane spot of the ROH Tag Team Title match, Nick Jackson avoided Matt Hardy but had to vault onto a second ladder before springboard somersaulting onto Jeff Hardy and driving him through a ringside table.
Hardy gave an equal amount of f*cks - absolute zero - when he performed a lunatic Swanton Bomb from his trademark giant ladder the next night at WrestleMania 33 in a less showy but equally more dangerous spot.
He has been doing this for eighteen years.