Did WWE Just Prove They Won’t Ever Push Matt Hardy?
Hardy’s latest appearance saw him eat a pin to the Eater of Worlds in a dry five minute match. It felt depressingly conclusive - but it will not conclude a bloody thing. Inevitably, Hardy will get his win back. That is yet another formula to which Hardy will be subjected.
It’s difficult to determine a single motivation. WWE proved they won’t ever push Matt Hardy, because he has always represented the Art Garfunkel of the Hardy Boyz tag team. Vince McMahon always, demonstrably perceived Jeff Hardy as the superior act. Matt was never quite perceived with a blue dot hovering over his face - but McMahon is never one to change his mind. The subject stigmatised as an also-ran, the gimmick created outside the walls of Titan Towers: WWE didn’t just prove that they’ll never truly push Matt Hardy. They did so years prior to 4 December 2017.
They also proved that they are incapable of pushing Matt Hardy, irrespective of whether or not they desired to. You knew he’d come, eventually - and you knew they’d botch it beyond recognition. Speaking on the Turnbuckle Talk podcast, Hardy was quick to point out - tellingly - that WOKEN Matt Hardy is a “collaborative effort” with the WWE creative team. He also requested patience, acutely aware that the buzz is far removed from the Lake of Reincarnation.
Hardy continued:
“There's a huge story that lies in the background of everything that people are going to have to wait to understand which will make more sense. So, the biggest thing I can say to wrestling fans is patience is paramount.”
Those wrestling fans - even the most jaded - love being proved wrong. There’s an understandable confirmation bias element to WWE-centric critique - but such harsh words are not necessarily written to mitigate enthusiasm, knowing it is all too often pointless. Harsh words are not penned as a snarky back-slap. Harsh words are penned because a company so obnoxiously aloof and arrogant should not get away with phoning it in. They are the self-styled recognised leader in global sports entertainment.
On a subjective level, your writer wrote off Alpha Vs. Omega, feeling that the marketing, the concept, was optimistic bordering on the hubristic. At NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12, Jericho proved me definitively wrong in a classic match as fun as it was intelligently-worked as it was dramatic.
Jericho, at least, has a legendary career of previous. New Japan is a superb wrestling promotion worthy of this trust.
WWE creative?
Cue, for the umpteenth bloody time, Matt Hardy’s endless laughter track.