One MIND-BLOWING Secret For Every WWE SummerSlam
17. 2009 | An All-Time Classic Went Down To The Wire
In 2009, one of the very best matches in SummerSlam history happened.
CM Punk Vs. Jeff Hardy was one of the best feuds in modern wrestling history. A deeply personal and even more believable saga plotted with shocking twists, the storyline, as heated as it gets in the post-kayfabe era, brought the very best out of antagonist and protagonist. Hardy was never more sympathetic, where Punk was never better when motivated to become a headliner and allowed to play with his most venomous and sanctimonious traits.
Wrestling fans have spent a stupid amount of time arguing over the merits of story versus action in recent years. The Tables, Ladders, and Chairs blow-off was so scary in its violent escalation that rarely have fans been treated to the perfect saga and the ideal ending.
What really put it all the way over is that there was immense gravity to it. It wasn’t rematched to death beyond one last Loser Leaves Town Cage match. Wrestling feuds rarely feel so high-stakes because the participants very swiftly end up doing something else. Not here: Punk won, Hardy lost, Hardy was gone.
The SummerSlam match almost didn’t happen. In every spring and summer issue of the Observer, there are reports of WWE essentially begging a want-away Hardy to stay. Every single week, the match was in the balance. There was no back-up plan, at least one reported by Dave, but the options were bleak.
It’s funny - or alternatively very grim - that WWE underwent a series of exhaustive talks with Hardy to make the big match happen, only for the Undertaker to easily beat Punk, who went on to work a TLC dark match against R-Truth, within 10 minutes.