Matt Hardy's two WWE heel turns sucked. Not just sucked, but SUCKED. With capital letters. The sad thing is that both began with a lot of promise, too. In 2003, he returned to Raw after a year on SmackDown, and immediately turned on love interest Lita. He did so at the behest of Eric Bischoff, but saw any sustained push as a villain extinguished. He did nothing of substance in the role and even missed out on the WrestleMania XX payday the following March. Such a disaster was it that he switched back to playing babyface months later, as if nothing ever happened. Fast forward six years later and in January 2009 Hardy was revealed as the source of brother Jeff's recent torment, the man who had tried to run him off the road and even burned down his house. It was a leap of faith, one that clearly came out of left field as a last-minute replacement for the more predictable Christian return. The result was a feud that built to matches at WrestleMania, Backlash and Smackdown before Jeff moved on to bigger and better things and Matt floundered around the midcard. The problem was that no one bought Matt as being on the level of Jeff, so after the feud had climaxed there was nothing else for the elder Hardy to do. By year's end, he was competing in tag team action with partners like Justin Gabriel and R-Truth before earning the nickname of "Fat" Hardy for rapidly-bloating physique. That is the exact opposite of what one hopes to accomplish with two major heel turns.
Erik Beaston is a freelance pro wrestling writer who likes long walks in the park, dandelions and has not quite figured out that this introduction is not for Match.com. He resides in Parts Unknown, where he hosts weekly cookouts with Kane, The Ultimate Warrior, Papa Shango and The Boogeyman. Be jealous.
