In certain situations, desperation can breed invention, and there may not have been a more desperate entity in professional wrestling than TNA in 2016.
From the lingering fallout of its messy divorce with Discovery to the public flap over failed negotiations with AJ Styles to issues with paying talent on time to the departure of tentpole performers like Kurt Angle and Bobby Roode to the spectacle that has been the legal battle between Billy Corgan and Dixie Carter, it would be fair to say that this past year was not a banner campaign for the wrestling company that seemingly will not die no matter how many times it shoots itself in the foot.
It was not a bad year for the company in terms of in-ring product — Bobby Lashley’s title run, for example, had him positioned as perhaps the most credible champion in the United States — but there was almost nothing so great as to not be submerged beneath the sludge of TNA’s ongoing behind-the-scenes crisis.
However, not everything to come out of TNA in 2016 was drowned by the downhill-streaming feculence from the backed-up septic tank that is the company’s management. One shining diamond of creativity rose above the sludge, managing to transcend the very company whose desperation facilitated its creation.
It was the improbable invention of a 20-plus-year veteran who saw the opportunity to completely reinvent himself in the most absurd manner possible, and it has been far and away the most unique and entertaining phenomena in wrestling in all of 2016.
When Matt Hardy began feuding with his brother Jeff in January, it seemed destined to chart the same paint-by-numbers course as every other sibling vs. sibling rivalry before it. A Hardy Boys feud had already transpired in WWE in 2009, and that it had left quite a lot to be desired severely diminished the prospects of it being any good seven full years later.
At least in this instance, one might have thought, things would not delve into the ludicrousness of having Matt admit to burning down his brother’s home and killing his dog.
Something changed along the way. After being written off TV for several weeks with an injury stemming from an I Quit match, Matt returned with a new personality wholly unlike his previous “Big Money” character. He wore a blonde streak, representing a “scar,” in hair that seemingly became more unkempt and frizzled with each passing week. Equally frenzied was the way he spoke — Hardy had suddenly adopted a bizarre Carolinian-cum-British accent and began populating his promos with curious terminology.
This new iteration of Matt Hardy began referring to his brother by his middle name, dubbing him Brother Nero. He stated that his intentions were to delete his brother, a process that would render him an obsolete mule. He labeled his unique condition as the state of being broken. And thus, Broken Matt Hardy, perhaps the single most extraordinary thing in an incomprehensibly wild year of professional wrestling, was born.
Somehow, it worked.
From those formative moments, Hardy has only turned the weirdness up to 11 and keeps pushing for the next notch on the dial. First, there was the original contract signing in which Broken Matt introduced the world to his personal gardener and father-in-law Señor Benjamin. This was the same signing where Reby Hardy distracted Jeff by way of throwing a fake baby at him.
Then came the now-legendary Final Deletion, a battle taking place at Hardy’s property in Cameron wherein, among other things, Jeff was summoned to the field of battle by a drone known as Vanguard 1 and Broken Matt was forced to take refuge behind a dilapidated boat named Skarsgård to avoid being struck by fireworks.
This past Thursday, TNA aired a Hardy New Year Special that saw Brother Nero regain his free will by carrying the unorthodox table he was put through at the original contract signing to a pit of rubbish where it would be burned and rendered obsolete by the Seven Deities. The special concluded when the gender of Matt and Reby’s next child was revealed when blue smoke erupted from a volcano in their backyard.
Just reading these descriptions, it’s clear that Hardy’s Broken Universe is not the preferred cup of tea for all wrestling fans. What should be universally agreed upon is that it is an uncompromising vision completely unlike anything else mainstream American wrestling has seen in some time.
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The fact that the saga of House Hardy only continues to expand in scope and in absurdity — up to and including Tag Team Apocalypto ending after The Decay’s Crazzy Steve was given a Twist of Fate into a volcano, launched hundreds of feet into the air, and pinned only after landing back in a wrestling ring like a cartoon character — is a testament to both Hardy’s imagination and to TNA’s decision, if only just this once, to get out of its own way and give something great the opportunity to flourish.
Today, chants of “DELETE!” are liable to break out at just about any wrestling show including WWE television on more than one occasion. The Broken Hardys are set to cross over into Ring of Honor for a feud with The Bucks of Youth, and the revelation of this fact at Final Battle was met with a Steve Austin-like ovation.
Matt Hardy, the man once thought to be the less charismatic workhorse of the Hardy duo, ends this year not only as one of the most over performers in wrestling, but also as arguably the industry’s most prominent fountain of boldness and originality.
There are no signs to indicate that Hardy’s brilliant, broken vision will be slowing down. The Hardy New Year Special ended with Broken Matt’s promise that House Hardy would “strap Impact Wrestling on [its] back” and “carry it to the top of the professional wrestling industry.” That may not come to fruition — TNA’s various and sundry problems are perhaps beyond even the intervention of the Seven Deities — but it is sure as hell going to be a lot of fun to watch him try.