End of the TNA Victory Road for Jeff Hardy, loses to Sting in under 2 minutes; drug use suspected
Get serious: Joker, smoker, alleged midnight toker. Worlds away from his WWE heyday, Hardy is no longer #winning much nowadays.
Heading into Sunday’s TNA Victory Road PPV, there was concern that Dixie Carter’s latest hotshot angle-re-signing aging star Sting after a strong rumor went viral (thanks to some overzealous bloggers) that Steve Borden was heading home to Atlanta for a WrestleMania dream match with the Undertaker-would backfire.
After all, Dixie not only re-upped the contract on the broken-down, 52-year-old Stinger but also made him TNA champion in his first appearance back on iMPACT! as a desperate attempt to spike a TV (lame pun intended) rating and mimic WWE TV once again, copying their 2-21-11 vignette designed for the return of the Undertaker.
With Sting reportedly not even a shell of his former self in recent months due to nagging career injuries, it was expected that he would be forced to rely on the recently married Jeff Hardy, who clearly has his priorities in line after committing to a life of matrimony, to have a PPV-worthy title bout at TNA’s Victory Road.
Yes, some were speculating that Sting’s career had come full circle and would need Hardy to carry him to greatness much like Ric Flair did during the infamous NWA World title title bout (a 45-Broadway) at Clash of the Champions that made Borden a star in the late ’80s. At the very least, Hardy would have to excel in the recent role of the Miz, making it appear that 61-year-old challenger Jerry Lawler still had the ability to beat the top titleholder in the company.
And when the finish went down Sunday night, with Sting beating Hardy in a little over a minute with the scorpion death drop, even the most astute wrestling observers initially figured they were protecting Sting. Turns out they were-but were for completely different reasons. Alas, it appears that Hardy was allegedly heavily under the influence, in no shape to perform Sunday, so they jobbed him out quickly before he could injure himself or Sting. (Hardy’s makeup, however, looked outstanding.)
They say in today’s wrestling, the personal feelings that made us all willingly to suspend disbelief back in the kayfabe era is lacking because everything is so scripted to fault. One has to look no further than the disgusted look on Sting’s face in the aftermath to see his disdain with Hardy-a guy who will probably be given another yet another chance-that is, if he’s cleared of his current legal woes.
While he’s certainly made more money than his ’80s/’90s heartthrob counterparts, Hardy would be wise to look at the cautionary tales of former stars Buddy Landel, Eddie Gilbert, Brian Lawler and Tommy Rich. He’s teetering on that same dangerous edge now.
Monday morning update: Some are speculating this might all be a work to create a “Charlie Sheen-type controversy” (#winning) to garner some attention for Hardy and the company. If there’s any shred of truth to that, years from now, people will point to this moment as the death-knell for the promotion much like WCW’s finger-point title changes with Hulk Hogan vs. Kevin Nash and, again, with Jeff Jarrett. Surely, they aren’t that desperate…are they? Either way, the main event last night was a debacle and has to a morale killer for the remaining professionals in the promotion who worked have worked damn hard in the past to build the company.
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I believe Taz sums it up best at 8:32.
“What the hell is Jeff Hardy doing here?”
TNA has been on life support since it’s inception. Jeff Hardy just pulled the plug.
Damn, when is Hardy going to hyphenate his name and add Sheen to it? Jeff Hardy-Sheen, he’s a Winner!
When they find him dead will Dixie feel any remorse for hiring him and supporting his habits? He needs help not a national spotlight.
Whatever the story is behind the main event I really enjoyed the rest of the PPV. TNA gets a bad rap for things like this but the rest of the night was fantastic thus it was smart of them to show highlights of the whole show after this match. I liked the match Sting and Hardy had on Impact and didn’t see a problem with Sting’s in ring work.
Way to call an audible, Sting. The “charismatic enigma” will re-emerge as the Warlock Assassin, with tiger blood and an Adonis DNA…and by Adonis, we mean Adrian Adonis.
@Mike
Pretty sure Matt was the one who inherited Adrian Adonis’ dna within the last year or so.
Yes, but even at his heaviest Adonis could have worked circles around these two.
but back to the subject. there’s a lot of speculation that this is all an elaborate work. If so, that’s almost as sad as if it were real. Mostly because it means they’re working the guys in the back two, which is just really bad for business. Not to mention the fact that they screw a pay per view audience out of a main event. It’s on thing to do that on TV, but when people are paing for it, you just don’t do that sort of thing.
If it was real, Hardy needs to be gone from the company. Not just suspended, but fired. That behavior not only endangers himself, but others. Also, the people that let him on TV in that state should also be gone.
Whichever the case is, TNA should be ashamed of themselves. Of course, their not, because people are “talking” even though the old adage of “no publicity is bad publicity” isn’t usually true, no matter what they tell you.
Seriously, shoot or work, it’s all sadly pathetic.