7 Times Payback Wasn't Delivered In WWE
6. Cheats Sometimes Prosper
The Edge/Lita/Matt Hardy mess from a decade a go has been dissected to death in the time since. Matt and Lita were together in real life, but Lita sort of put a knife in all of that by cheating on him with Edge.
Somehow this led to Matt being released by WWE, and Edge and Lita were paired up on screen. This real-life tomfoolery made the Edge the star he threatened to become but never seemed able to.
Matt Hardy, quite obviously the heavily wronged person in the saga, wasn't about to go down without a fight however. There was a wonderful few weeks on RAW where a Hardy return was teased, and he did just so by attacking Edge out of nowhere a few times.
This was done in a shoot style, and somehow a feud between Edge and Matt Hardy was the hottest thing in wrestling. Matt was re-signed, and a match between the two was booked for SummerSlam 2005.
Logic dictates that a fired up Matt will return and defeat the man who wronged him, right?
Well, no. The match happened, and less than five minutes after the bell had rang it was over. Not just that, but Edge was the victor. Oh, it gets worse too, Edge was the winner by referee stoppage. Matt Hardy went from a white-hot face to a chump in four minutes and fifty seconds.
Hardy would eventually pick up a victory over Edge, but the feud would culminate with the latter going over in a 'Loser Leaves RAW Ladder Match'. Hardy lost his girl, his job and his credibility.
Cheats sometimes do prosper.