Wacky Wrestling Theory 12.18.08: Congratulations Jeff Hardy… Now Quit!

Getting to the World Title is a long and hard road, just ask poor Jeff Hardy. At Armageddon 2007, he won a #1 Contenders match, and it took him one whole year to finally make that contendership into a championship at Armageddon 2008. Does anybody think that that Jeff Hardy will get a long and deserving reign at the top of the WWE? Sure, it would delight his massive fan base, and lots of other smaller wrestlers, like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, have had the chance to run with the company on their back in the past, so why not Jeff and why not now? That’s easy to answer: Triple H.

Triple H is taunting you Jeff. Triple H is the de facto man in charge in the WWE. And yes, he’s actually a wrestler too, unlike what some online critics and fans might tell you. Triple H is a hugely popular in-ring performer, not a politician or a businessman. Therefore, if you were Triple H you would believe that you were the best pro-wrestler in 2008, and that Jeff Hardy on paper does not measure up. John Cena, Randy Orton, maybe, but not Jeff Hardy, that skinny kid who used to be a jobber when Triple H was already headlining shows. Triple H, to his discredit, has formulated some very suspect ways to keep himself on top while still trying to take advantage of the popularity Jeff Hardy has without insulting his fans. Well, I’m insulted, and I want to make a suggestion to Jeff Hardy… get out now, with the championship, while you can!

For a few years, there was a place to go called WCW, where the money was big for popular wrestlers and the schedule was soft. Happily, those days are gone because money crazy WCW was a terrible show to watch, but there is a new option that pro-wrestlers need to start thinking about, in order to keep the WWE on it’s toes. Jeff Hardy should take his title and throw it in the garbage on a different television program and start a career that will be easier on his body, pay him more for less work, and give him a chance to perform without a ceiling. But be patient Jeff, more on that later.

First of all, let’s look at the suspect, and downright insulting, booking of Jeff Hardy in 2008 prior to his WWE Title win. The two biggest crowd deflating moments of the year had to have come at the Royal Rumble and No Way Out. After a brilliant and energizing build-up in the weeks leading to his first big World Title shot against Randy Orton, Hardy was virtually squashed in front of a hot crowd that was dying to see another historic finish inside the hallowed halls of Madison Square Garden (but I suppose Buffalo is a better locale for creating wrestling magic…). Then there was the No Way Out RAW Elimination Chamber match, and Triple H getting his Armageddon lose back by taking out the last remaining, and crowd favorite, wrestler, our poor subject Jeff Hardy. When Hardy didn’t kick out of that second pedigree, you could feel the disappointment in the crowd like soggy toast and sugarless coffee on a rushed Monday morning. Those were the two most appropriate moments for Jeff Hardy to finally win the big one, but nope, ‘evolution’ did not involve a popular Hardy on those nights. If you think there was no connection between these career catastrophes and Hardy’s ‘alleged’ fall off the wagon in the following few days, then you’d be sadly naive. Talk about times of heroin craving depression, I mean, ugh, just what Jeff Hardy needed, another shitty ladder match, while Triple H gets to lose in a meaningless and criminally short, forgettable 3-way non-main event at the Wrestlemania that could have been the host to Hardy’s storybook ending. But don’t worry, Jeff would get another chance… another chance to look foolish!

At the Unforgiven Smackdown Championship Scramble, Jeff Hardy had the WWE Title won. All he had to do was let the clock run out and he would take possession of the belt. Yet, in the final seconds of the match, as Triple H was pinning MVP, Jeff stood there blankly and then foolishly went to cover Shelton Benjamin… huh? All Jeff had to do was break up the HHH pinning attempt, and the clock would have run out and he would have become champion. Instead, he tries to cover Benjamin, even though he didn’t need a pin fall to win the match anymore. If this was a case of bad timing, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for Jeff’s reputation, he looked stupid while Triple H comes out on top again. But that was not all. Triple H just had to get into the Armageddon title match, so somehow the rules of the ‘Beat the Clock Challenge’ were twisted in his favor. Triple H and Jeff Hardy beat their opponents in the exact same amount of time, a wonderful move that makes wrestling look more scripted than John Cena as a surprise 30th entrant in the Royal Rumble. Technically, it made no sense for HHH to be able to tie given that the rules of the competition are to ‘beat’ the time set by the first person, in this case Hardy. If Triple H does NOT beat that time, then he should lose. Just tying the time would be equal to going over time, which cannot happen in these matches because the match ends when the clock stops. In order to win the match, Triple H should have to beat Hardy’s time by at least one second. These are some sly examples of just how clever the WWE and Triple H can be at making a wrestler look weak for their own dark and selfish reasons.

All of these politics and script manipulations are ludicrous. Hardy is super popular and needs to play up that popularity for his own personal gain, and not let the back room-ing of the WWE get him depressed and send him for another ‘ride on the horse’ when he eventually loses the title in a CM Punk-ish fashion. Instead, I strongly suggest that it’s time for Hardy to pull a Brock Lesnar and get out of wrestling and move to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Since we are wrestling fans, we all think that only super heavyweights can be main event stars, well actually in real combat sports, especially these days, this is not the case. The UFC has had many light, welter and middle weight matches successfully headline pay-per-views, and some of the biggest draws in the entire PPV industry in the past few years have been lightweight boxers like De La Hoya, Pacquiao, and Mayweather. While the WWE pursues their archaic fetish for big-bodied super heroes, the rest of the sports world wants to see smaller guys as long as they are the best at what they do. There is no reason to believe that Jeff Hardy, with all of his money and work ethic, couldn’t hole up for a year, learn some jujitsu and enter the MMA world. A move like this by Hardy would blow the roof off of the MMA business, as the success of Brock Lesnar, a much less popular pro-wrestler, has shown. I’m not suggesting that Hardy could be an instant champion or contender, since he obviously doesn’t have the pedigree of a Lesnar or Lashely, but he does draw a loyal and passionate audience, and there could be opponents for Hardy to face at his own weight class that could make for huge marquee matches. On top of all that, there is one style of fighting that has, up to now, been missing from MMA: high flying! Why not? Who’s to say it can’t be done? Use your imagination, i-magi-nation.

The truth is, the WWE is stuck in the same broken corporate washing machine that the rest of the financial world has tumbled into in 2008. Rather than look for innovation and creativity to lead to new prosperity (as was the way the USA and WWE got famous in the first place) instead they’ve all tried to stick to the old corrupt systems and hope to squeeze as much money out of the suckers that are left for as long as they can. The victims will never be the McMahons and Helmsleys, who will always be safe and wealthy in their lifetime, but the Jeff Hardys who are tottered along with just enough tokens of prosperity to keep them and their fans happy. If I’m wrong, and Hardy is about to Cena the next few Wrestlemania main events, then good. But 2008 has been a year that all rational and forward thinking narrative was ignored in the hopes of being able to sell more Triple H DVDs. The real path to independence, wealth, and fulfillment of potential for Jeff Hardy rests in the MMA world. The WWE may chastise Jeff Hardy for his drug use, but they continue to overdose on the same comfortable story streams that make their soap operatic style lose touch with the general audience more and more every year, and the fans are already turning towards the thrills and genuine stories of MMA in droves . Jeff Hardy, if he was smart, would take this opportunity, while he is in the fleeting WWE promotional spotlight, to make headlines and jump to the UFC, a place where he can be respected as a headliner, fulfill his true potential as a star, and reward his fans in a way that the WWE historically has rarely given to those outside of it’s sacred inner circle.

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Before I go, there is something I’d like to say to that snot nosed, rascally little columnist Aaron Hubbard, because I just discovered that he’s really got something against me… who knew? Much like everyone else, I stopped reading you column months ago… but I’m a sucker for the word ‘Snitsky’ I guess, so I clicked on your column last week and what did I find? An all out attack on me? Wow… and with some research, I saw there was a whole series of comments about my column in the recent past… huh… well, truthfully, the guy made some great points, what can I say… who knew that it would take a kid who isn’t even as old as Wrestlemania to see right through me… kudos!

Well, I’d like to publicly invite you, ‘Bard, to participate in my ‘open source’ Wacky Awards next week. If you think you’re so pious and know how to write a real wrestling column, then come over and embarrass me right here next week! Expect a scathing email from me sometime soon young man!

For anyone else interested, yes, next week is the start of the 2008 Wacky Awards, so if you have something ‘wacky’ that you think needs to be recognized on this grand stage, then send me an email with your idea.