10 WWE Stars Who Were Fired For Unprofessional Conduct
8. Jeff Hardy Does What Jeff Hardy Does Best
Where do you begin with Jeff Hardy? What about his drug use, the arrests, all the no-shows? How about the physical collapses, the incoherent promos, the botched moves, or the constant lateness? Pick one but on which occasion, and with which promotion? WWE? Ring Of Honor? TNA?
Astonishingly, the younger of the two Hardy Boyz was only ever fired for his behaviour twice - in April 2003 by WWE, and in June 2006 by TNA. Backstage reports cite his obvious drug use in spring 2003 as a serious problem. This wasn't the eighties any longer, where such Issues were rampant and more or less uncontrollable youd have had to suspend or sack half the roster in those days. Now, Hardy stuck out like a sore thumb.
It wasn't even as if the issue was an out-of-control dependency on painkillers. For years, that particular aspect of a professional wrestler's lifestyle had been swept under the rug as a necessary evil. Even in 2003, a painkiller issue might have been dealt with sympathetically.
No, Hardy's problem was purely recreational: he liked to get wasted. His increasingly erratic behaviour included worse and worse performances in the ring, when he turned up at all (he was notorious for his lateness and even failure to turn up to house shows), which would finally result in his dismissal.
With TNA a few years later, a similar problem occurred, Hardy failing to attend shows he was booked on. He was suspended in December 2005, upon no-showing the Turning Point pay-per-view, and released six months later, having only performed a handful of live dates until then in 2006.