The Evil History Of Pro Wrestling: TNA Victory Road 2011
TNA should have had the prescience to devise a back-up plan for anything involving Hardy - but then, the promotion was so systemically incompetent that developing logical creative plans was a fiendishly difficult task for them to begin with.
At Victory Road, a heel Jeff Hardy was scheduled for his rematch against Sting. Hardy was apparently in a respectable enough state to turn up on time and run through the planning process of the main event with his opponent - shortly after which, as he was prone to do, he disappeared until bell time. Hardy himself has since revealed that he loaded himself up on somas, a highly potent pain-killing muscle relaxant.
With total naivety, just three months after Hardy had nearly destroyed a pay-per-view main event, nobody within TNA thought to check his whereabouts.
Jeff Hardy shambled his way to the ring. It took him a long time, so long that referee Brian Hebner was alerted to the situation immediately and held up the dreaded ‘X’ sign - a visual code that a real event must be addressed. Hardy tripped over the ring steps, just finding the ring post in time to balance himself before falling over. He located the camera, and after a slight delay, refocused his vacant eyes to stare at it dimly. He ventured outside as a concerned, pissed-looking Sting made his entrance and appealed to the crowd. Eric Bischoff, unexpectedly, made his entrance.
He said that, since Hardy had no time to prepare for the February match, the playing field should be levelled. The sequel was to be held under a No Disqualification stipulation - something Hardy knew about in advance. This was total improvisation, obscuring the real purpose behind his appearance: to deliver new instructions to the wrestlers. He told Jeff that he had to take the Scorpion Death Drop and get the hell out of there before relaying the message to Sting.
Sting did precisely that - but not before Hardy, in a dazed loop, kept trying to throw his shirt into the crowd. After the “win”, a devastated Sting skulked back up the entrance ramp. When fans chanted “Bullsh*t!”, Sting could only say “I agree. I agree.”