Did WWE Just Prove They Won’t Ever Push Matt Hardy?
Originality: DELETED!
On Monday night’s abysmal RAW25 show, Bray Wyatt cleanly deleted WOKEN Matt Hardy in a nothing TV match built towards for weeks.
Matt’s debut appearance promised so much. It was as if WWE had parachuted the act in directly from the Compound; Hardy, crazy-eyed, embellished the pronunciations of certain words (“Giiizzzuuuh!”) to hilarious effect, and depicted himself as the absurd inter-dimensional traveller we grew to love as an impossibly creative cult sensation.
The very next week, WWE upgraded the gimmick with trademark tinkering. The glitchy cuts between Wyatt and Hardy required zero explanation - but, since WWE ritually insults the intelligence of the audience, they were reframed with an expository element. Hardy interrupted with a helpful ‘WOKEN’ graphic, which, like the cautious optimism surrounding the character, shattered. Wyatt in turn interrupted Hardy with his trademark “bleh” sting. Immediately, Hardy had become an identifiable product, as opposed to an agent of constant evolution.
This one is Bray Wyatt. This one is Matt Hardy.
Moreover, the segment was virtually identical to the previous week’s opening salvo. Much like the constant rematches that have come to adversely define RAW in the modern era, the Great War faced an uphill battle to sustain audience interest.
Next week’s goldfish chess match was an improvement, but far from the gold that was Hardy’s true BROKEN brilliance. Impact Wrestling reinforced the unique aspect of the character by framing it in a different setting. He literally belonged to another universe. In WWE, he simply acted in front of a more brightly-lit curtain so obviously erected in the same arena as the mere mortals. It reeked of laziness.
So, too, did Hardy’s in-ring debut. He confronted Bray Wyatt on Christmas Day. His gift to the arena crowd was a full two minutes of his insane laughter - the over-saturation and normalisation of which completely undermined the premise. It’s difficult to not dream up a damning image of that particular creative meeting.
“Just have him do the laugh. It’s over.”
Within that segment, the camera cut back to Wyatt. He wore a darting-eye expression on his face suggesting “I’m normal compared to this guy!” - but he could so easily have thought “What the hell have they done to him?” CONT'D...