Jeff Hardy

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[TRMD]

Very few people I've ever seen were better at drawing sympathy from the crowd. His best attribute was after he took the huge bump, he let everyone know it. He could portray better than most people just how hurt he was. And that's not easy to do.

[JerryvonKramer]

Zero chance of making my list and I won't being spending a single second on him. Reason? It's the moment before he goes for a big flashy high spot from the top of a ladder or something. The way he readies himself before the swanton of doom makes him look more like a trapeze act from a circus than a pro wrestler.

 

Since I wrote off The Mountie, and Jacques Rougeau actually had some decent understand of psychology as both a face and a heel on his day, I don't see how Jeff Hardy is coming close.

 

I don't see anyone from that late 90s WWF Attitutde Era scene -- Edge, Christian, Jericho, the Dudleys, the Hardys, etc. etc. -- making my list in any way shape or form. It's the one era that I feel absolutely sure about writing off. If I never saw another TLC match in my life, I wouldn't care.

[Shining Wiz]

The only time I ever remotely cared about Jeff Hardy was his feud with Punk, because I found Punk calling him out for his bullshit all the time hilarious.

 

Possibly the wrestler I enjoy watching the least.

[funkdoc]

i actually like how hardy is this character with a tragic flaw, as wrestling fans usually crap all over that idea since they think it makes the guy look like an idiot.

 

i specifically mean the way he wants to be the daredevil and get the crowd into things, even if it can cost him a big match. there are guys in real sports who tend to make mistakes like that but are still considered good players, and it's the kind of thing i wouldn't mind seeing a bit more in wrestling.

[PeteF3]

I'll just say that one of the very few post-2000 matches I really found myself getting emotionally invested in was Jeff's ladder match against the Undertaker on Raw. Jeff had me pretty much willing and praying for him to climb that thing and beat 'Taker. That has to count for something.

 

I don't think I'd vote for Jeff but I actually could be persuaded. His level of psychology wasn't your Arn Anderson style in the least, but in terms of emotionally connecting with a crowd, I don't think it can be denied that he had something to that.

[Eduardo]

Haven't seen his late 90's or early 2000's stuff since it happened, so it's been too long to really give good thoughts about that. But I thought Jeff Hardy had a strong run from 2006-2009.

 

The Hardy Boyz team in late 2006, and early 2007 felt like a superteam out there. Ladder match at Armageddon 2006 was wild, and it led to the epic Hardy Boyz vs MNM match at the Royal Rumble 2007. That Hardy Boyz vs MNM is a strong contender for the best tag match in company history, and I still really regret not skipping work to go to San Antonio to watch that (and Cena-Umaga).

 

They also had a feud with Cade and Murdoch that I really dug, and it had some really good work, although it didn't reach the highs of that RR 2007 match. Then Jeff started that feud with Umaga in the Summer of 2007, which was really good too. They had at least one great match, and several fun matches on TV. That's when I started to see that Hardy was one of the best sellers in his promotion. He was great at rallying the crowd behind him, and with the possible exception of Cena, he was Umaga's best opponent.

 

2007 is usually remembered as a great year for Cena, and it should be, but Jeff also had a heck of a year that saw him rise to become a main eventer, and one of the better performers in the company. It was such a good year that people were craving to see Hardy beat Randy Orton for the title at Royal Rumble 2008. Have no idea if he would make a list of mine, but that 2006-2009 period was what made me a big fan of Jeff.

[GOTNW]

I enjoy him as a poor man's Great Sasuke but among 100 best wrestlers ever he is not.

[Jimmy Redman]

A lot of the points I'd like to make about Jeff have already been covered by people in this thread. Namely,

 

a. He was an awesome seller. I don't think he gets enough credit for this because people associate TLC-type stuff as no-selling, but he was great at it. He bumped all over the place and ate offense like a champ, and he was also really great at showing the damage of a match, showing all over his face and in his movements just how much he was hurting. I hope people don't think he was a guy who'd jump up to get to the next ladder spot, because that's so far from what he actually was. He'd push through the pain to get up, to run, to climb, to leap off something.

 

b. funkdoc nails it about Jeff Hardy's tragic flaw: the guy who is determined to be a daredevil and be spectacular, even if it costs him his health, or costs him the match.

 

There's a great match with the Hardyz vs Cade and Murdoch on Raw after a PPV, and the Hardyz had worked a ladder match at the PPV the night before. Both guys come out selling like hell, and are defending their tag titles while they can barely walk. And they both work the match in a way that basically says "fuck it, we're the Hardy Boyz, we got this far by flying around and jumping off things, we can't stop now" and they just soldier on with their daredevil offense, even though it's clearly killing them. But it's the only way they know how to be, they're two backyarders from rural NC who can beat guys by flying around and taking risks no one else will take. They HAVE to work like that if they want to keep these titles.

 

Jeff always works like that. He's an ordinary looking dude who learned how to wrestle on his trampoline, who gets further than anyone expected because of the risks he's willing to take. And they fuck him up, but he has to keep taking them, because there's no other way. And also, if he's honest, because he likes it. He can't help himself. He likes the rush, he likes the pop of the crowd, he likes knowing that he can jump off things nobody else can jump off.

 

c. He was really, really good during his second WWE stint - 2006-09, with a laundry list of good and great matches for the "body of work" type people. He also has a lot of good feuds with people too - Nitro, Umaga, Edge, Punk.

 

vs Johnny Nitro - Unforgiven 2006

vs Johnny Nitro - Raw 11/06 (Ladder)

w/ Matt vs MNM at D2D 2006

w/ Matt vs MNM vs Londrick vs Regal/Taylor at Armageddon 2006 (Ladder)

 

vs Johnny Nitro - Raw 1/07 (Cage)

w/ Matt vs MNM - Rumble 2007

w/ Matt vs Cade & Murdoch - Backlash 2007

w/ Matt vs Cade & Murdoch - Judgment Day 2007

w/ Matt vs WGTT - ONS 2007 (Ladder)

w/ Matt vs Cade & Murdoch - Raw 6/07

vs Umaga - GAB 2007

 

vs Umaga - Raw 1/08 (Cage)

vs Shawn Michaels - Raw 2/08

vs Chris Jericho - Raw 3/08

vs Umaga - One Night Stand 2008 (FCA)

vs John Cena - Raw 7/08

vs Hunter - No Mercy 2008

vs Undertaker - Smackdown 11/08

vs Hunter vs Edge - Armageddon 2008

 

vs Rey vs Jericho vs Kane - Smackdown 5/09

vs Edge - Extreme Rules 2009 (Ladder)

w/ Rey vs Jericho/Edge - Smackdown 6/09 (Cage)

vs Chris Jericho - Smackdown 7/09

vs John Morrison - Smackdown 7/09

vs Punk - Summerslam 2009 (TLC)

vs Punk - Smackdown 8/09 (Cage)