8. Matt And Edge's Eventual Feud
During Matt's absence from the company, Lita had turned heel on (the now inexplicably babyface) Kane, siding with the Rated R Superstar and hastily arranging a wedding. It was broken up by the Big Red Machine, but that angle was finally, mercifully ditched to make room for Hardy's return. In a series of worked-shoot attacks, Matt began showing up at events and jumping his love rival, assaults the commentators sold as completely off-script. He eventually cut an incredibly muddled in-ring promo, in which he claimed that Edge had ruined his dream of having a family. The storyline was off to an immediately shaky start, but could surely be saved by having Matt win the eventual match between the pair. Instead, Edge destroyed Matt at SummerSlam, beating him to a bloody pulp and winning by referee stoppage in five minutes. This utterly inexplicable booking decision was partially remedied at Unforgiven, in which Matt won a rematch inside a cage - but he lost a "loser leaves Raw" tiebreaker and was forced to migrate to Smackdown. Remarkably, this signalled the end of the feud, and Matt embarked upon a feud with Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro. The whole thing was a poorly-handled mess from start to finish, and although it did help turn Edge into the main-event star he's remembered as today, it could (and should) have been so much more.