10 Most Vicious WWE Grudge Matches Ever
5. Matt Hardy vs. Edge - Raw 2005
The card read 'Matt Hardy/Edge', but there was a third person involved in this genuine rift between former best buddies - Hardy's former girlfriend Amy 'Lita' Dumas, who had cheated on Hardy with Edge while Hardy was off the road recuperating from a nasty knee injury. Unable to keep his mouth shut over the whole thing, Hardy began to air his grievances with the two on his website.
Given the friction, WWE were faced with little choice but to separate them, and chose to release Hardy from his contract. Highly unfair, of course - but fair had nothing to do with it. The backlash was unexpected, however, and Hardy milked it for all he was worth.
He was rewarded by being brought back in for a feud with his nemesis and 'former best friend'. Surprise attack followed surprise attack, and finally Hardy and Edge were booked for SummerSlam 2005. The match was frenetic but poorly paced, and ended in a bloody victory for Edge when Hardy was unable to continue. You'd have thought it would be the other way around.
A street fight on RAW the following week ended in a hair-raising no-contest when the two men went through the wrong table at stageside, causing a (kayfabed) electrical explosion and requiring both men to be shepherded out by EMTs and Ross and Lawler to use their best 'Owen voice' on commentary.
The follow-up, a poorly conceived steel cage match the following month at Unforgiven, ended with a resounding Hardy victory. It was a weird way to end the feud: either man could have come out on top, but the cage didn't prevent Lita's interference, and Edge hadn't exactly been running away during their emotional, brutal showings to date. Hardy wrestled far too much in this bout, too - for a man seething with hatred, promising to take Edge to hell, he sure had a way with a headlock.
Luckily, there was a ladder match in the offing to kill off the feud properly. More precisely, it was a two-man Money In The Bank ladder match, for the briefcase Edge had won at that year's WrestleMania, where the loser would also leave RAW. Given the pair's history with the ladder match, it was a brilliant notion: it was followed by stupidity when this money match was presented on the October 3rd episode of RAW instead of on pay-per-view.
Regardless of the sketchy booking of the feud itself, both men sold the whole thing as though the commission was feeding their families, and the ladder match was an absolute joy to behold. The right man won, on this occasion: Edge had a future on RAW with Lita as a superheel, while in the absence of a hot angle like this, propping up the midcard on Smackdown was about Matt Hardy's level.