50 Worst Wrestling Moments Of The 2020s (So Far)

40. Matt Hardy’s Over-Acting

Matt Hardy Firm Deletion
AEW

AEW’s very first show was incredible. The first six episodes of Dynamite were a beyond encouraging revelation. The promotion felt invincible in the summer of 2021. In 2025, the real comeback feels on. You could still make the argument that, with the seminal, incredibly detailed build towards the inaugural Revolution pay-per-view, AEW truly peaked as a creative force in February 2020.

Matt Hardy made his debut for AEW in March 2020.

Hardy was great in the first Stadium Stampede match, and the wild Daily’s Place-wide Falls Count Anywhere spectacle that preceded it. Elsewhere, he offered next to nothing, stealing a living in the midcard with his slow matches and pointlessly intricate and utterly baffling contract-based storylines. He traded contracts, found himself bound by contracts, and was lucky to be under contract.

As part of this nonsense, which spanned years, he found himself in conflict with Ethan Page and his ‘Firm’. This led to a universe-breaking cinematic match: the Firm Deletion.

To heat that crap up, Page and his cronies tried to seriously injure Matt’s mate Isiah Kassidy. They threw him off an elevated platform as Matt Hardy watched on a monitor. Hardy couldn’t take it. He screamed, with The Room-level acting, “NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!”

Which is what thoroughly depressed AEW fans said whenever he appeared on television.

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!