10 Wrestlers Who Were Stuck In Midcard Purgatory

6. Matt Hardy

Matt Hardy Royal Rumble 2009
WWE

It still seems somewhat incredible to type, but 2016 has been the year of Matt Hardy. It was the year that saw Matt come out from the shadow of brother Jeff to become one of the most popular characters in all professional wrestling, the creative mastermind behind 2016's most innovative matches and the creator of chants that will live long in the memories of wrestling fans.

Matt had a good career in WWE, but unlike Jeff he seemed destined for the middle of the card and nothing more. WWE had a chance to capitalise on his incredible popularity when he returned to feud with Edge in 2005, but instead chose to jump on the Edge train and keep Matt in the middle of the card.

In truth, that may well have been his ceiling in WWE a decade ago. Matt Hardy was an important performer in the company, but an important performer that could be replaced. He has since gone on to become arguably the biggest name outside of WWE in the US, but if he were to return to the WWE the safe money would be on more secondary titles and little else.

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Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.