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Credit goes to John Cheese, and his Magic Pimp Bus
Even if you hate sports, you can still love seeing things go hilariously wrong. Well, I have good news: Pro wrestling was made for that shit. I’ve spoken before about how professional wrestlers are the best actors in the world, and other Cracked writers have shown us some pretty brutal scenes from when wrestling gets too real. They’re so rare, but when these moments do happen, they instantly become legend for wrestling fans. So let’s all appreciate the fine art of unplanned disasters like …
#5. Jeff Hardy Shows Up to His Headline Pay-Per-View Match Completely Bombed
Jeff Hardy is widely considered to be one of the best “daredevil” type wrestlers who ever lived. For years, he was portrayed as the ultimate underdog — a performer with immense amounts of talent, but lacking the bulk and aggression necessary to overpower his superior, Speedo-wearing title holders. And more recently, he was known as a big ol’ fuckin’ drug lord.
Somewhere between being a WWE superstar and having his pretty-boy ass tossed in jail on five felony charges for cocaine, opium, Vicodin, and steroids, he moved on to TNA, WWE’s laughably bad “competition.” He then worked his way up to a world title match with legendary wrestler and The Crow fetishist Sting, which was to be featured in their 2011 pay-per-view Victory Road. It was the match … the headliner that people paid actual money to see, both at the event and at home. And what they got was just flat out bizarre. Even by “dudes in face paint who aren’t ICP” standards.
The match hit bottom before the introductions were even finished and just started digging down from there. Hardy’s music hit and then played to an empty stage for 47 seconds. On paper, that doesn’t sound like that long, but seriously, stop what you’re doing and time out 47 seconds. It’s an eternity — especially on TV, where even five seconds of silence can bring a crowd to an uneasy confusion. Now watch as that amount of hanging awkwardness gets centered on clouds of dry ice, neon lights, and lasers … and no Hardy.
It went on for so long that it started to feel like he had abandoned the show altogether, and just as the audience was about to give up, Hardy stumbled out of the fog and got all ’60s flower child with the camera.
Now, keep in mind that the TNA officials knew that he was fucked up at this point, but they didn’t know it was this bad until minutes before he was due to walk out and perform. So while Hardy was stumbling down the ramp and trying to absorb the pretty colors, TNA’s management was rushing around backstage, trying to figure out how to avoid the inevitable lawsuit that forces them to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds. Remember, this was the match that they had built up for weeks as the reason for you to give them money for a show that’s normally free.
When they finally got around to the actual introductions, the crowd booed Hardy, and he returned the sentiment by flipping them off:
After introducing Sting, a new song started up and general manager Eric Bischoff came out, giving the “time out” hand signal. He proceeded to the ring and shook Jeff Hardy’s hand, leaning in to wish him luck. Or at least that’s what he was pretending to do. In reality, he was relaying new instructions for the match, which were something along the lines of “Lay your stupid fucking ass down and end this quick. You’re in no condition to be out here, you goddamn drug addict.” Something like that — we can only speculate. He then walked over to Sting and passed the info to him as well, again, under the guise of “I’m just here to wish you luck.”
There was a small mock scuffle to give Bischoff his exit cue, and then the match began. For the first full minute, Hardy walked around the ring, doing that thing you do with a ball to get your dog all wound up, where you hold it up (his T-shirt, in this case) and pretend that you’re about to throw it, but then decide against it at the last second because you’re a horrible, manipulative dick. Meanwhile, Sting sat back and just smoldered with anger because, remember, he’s just been told by management that he has to somehow quickly end a highly promoted match that every potential rioter and arsonist in those seats paid to see.
The actual meat of the match lasted 20 seconds. There was some hair pulling and a punch or two thrown. And then out of the blue, Sting just bends Hardy over backward into his finishing maneuver, the Scorpion Death Drop, and plants him hard onto the mat. Now, check out the three count here:
Notice how Hardy tries to kick out at the end, but it looks all awkward, like he’s being forcefully pinned to the mat so he can’t get up and continue the match? Yeah, that’s because he is. Sting knew Hardy would try to put on a full performance, so the only way to end it was to pin him for real. Then, like an extremely pissed-off father who just caught his son tattooing his infant sister in her crib, Sting stared a hole through Hardy and walked away. As he neared the top of the ramp, the crowd was chanting “bullshit,” to which Sting turned around and offered a sympathetic “I agree.”
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The fun continues tomorrow with #4 in our countdown, when JBL gets shitty with the Blue Meanie, and Stevie Richards exacts some revenge.
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