10 Backstage WWE Feuds That Changed Everything

The many tag team battles between Matt Hardy and Edge made the two men friends in real life, but that all came to an end in 2005. After an illicit affair between Edge and Hardy's longtime girlfriend, Lita, Hardy cut both out of his life, but he did so in a very public way - by deleting every picture of Lita off of his website. When fans asked him why, he simply replied: "Ask Edge."

WWE was annoyed at Hardy's public airing of dirty laundry and seeming breach of etiquette, so they fired him. In earlier years, that would have been the end of the story, but in the Internet era, fans caught wind of what happened. The fan outrage was palpable, but moreover, WWE recognized the potential of a worked feud between Edge and Hardy based on their real life differences, so they rehired the latter man after only a few months away.

That of course led into the Hardy/Edge feud for which the fans had been clamoring. After weeks of attacks and very barbed promos, they had a bout at SummerSlam, where Edge shocked the world by scoring a quick, decisive victory. The next month at Unforgiven, though, Hardy would pick up the win in a steel cage match. Finally, Edge beat Hardy at Raw Homecoming, sending the former Tag Team Champion to SmackDown.