Saturday, January 17, 2015

TNA Wrestling's Greatest Matches: Jeff Hardy

We get two matches with Mr. Anderson and one with Matt Morgan. Hardy-Anderson from Sacrifice 2010 is up. Anderson kind of looks like a star here, and the "WE ARE ASSHOLES!" chant goes unmuted here at noon on Saturday. Kind of neat to watch these PPV matches in HD after only seeing them in DVD quality before. Hardy's got a sliced-up jersey while Ken's got his ribs taped up. Somewhat surprisingly, they're not doing anything to blur out the gigantic Spike logos in the Impact Zone, but that would cost more money. An iffy music cue sets up a break, but you can still hear the commentary. "Holy Shit" gets horribly bleeped. Back and forth punches set up a slingblade sleeper drop for 2. Mind bender is countered into the Finlay roll for 2 for Ken. It's amazing how much the production values have plummeted since just 2010. Twisto and Swanton win. Hardy's looking a bit bloated post-match.


Hardy vs. Matt Morgan for the TNA World Title is up. I have no recollection of this, but it's from when Hardy was the heel world champ, so it probably won't be very good as he totally changed his style and Morgan's rarely been good. Nope - we're getting a 3-way with MISTER ANDERSON AGAIN from something in 2010. Nope. He's just the ref for Morgan-Hardy. Everyone gets abridged intros here. Tenay talks about the heel faction trying to take over the company. Tenay puts over the "Anti-Christ of Pro Wrestling" moniker, which I've forgotten about. Tie-up. Punches. Savage necksnap with the body drop like Henry...God this is nothing. Twist of HATE hits for 2. Carbon Footprint hits, but Morgan tweaks his knee. Hardy gets his foot on the rope. Shockingly high amount of Hardy fangirls in the front row here. Hellevator attempt, but the fans chant HARDY HARDY. It was dumb at the time, but in hindsight, man was it ever stupid to turn him heel. Hardy gets 2 off a Twist. Hardy leaves and gets a slow count from Anderson, but he won't count Hardy out. Hardy pie-faces him, so Ken punches him. Jeff's shoved into Ken, but Matt gets the kick with no ref. Bischoff and "Jackson James" come down and Morgan gets 2. A fan yells FUCK YOU BISCHOFF. Morgan goes to chokeslam Hardy on the chair, but Hardy gets a TWIST OF HATE somewhere near the chair, really driving himself on it, for the win. This sucked. Holy God.



Next, it's the 10-10-10 Hardy-Angle-Anderson match, which of course happened AFTER THIS MATCH and sets up the whole Hardy heel thing we saw here - so they should've reversed this so things aired chronilogically. TNA really does have quite a few archival matches for guys that they can really get use of for this series. It does hurt the TNA Legends PPV line though, but whatever - that's dead in the water anyway. Good lord does the BFG 2010 set ever look amazing in HD. You've got the moving video wall, a giant light wall behind that, and two trons off to the side. THIRD MISTER ANDERSON INTRO OF THE SHOW. The tapestry graphic design is great and everyone wound up with a visually-impressive intro here. Kurt will apparently leave TNA tonight if he loses. Well, that didn't happen and he lost the match with Hardy taking the title. Angle's got his swank red-heavy, blue and white gear.

 
 

Nasty over the top bump from Kurt to the floor. Tower of Doom to Hardy off the top. Anderson gets the powerbomb setup, so he covers Kurt for 2.9 and then Hardy for 2.5. Triple Germans to Ken, then Jeff. Ankle lock to Hardy, but Ken gets locked in it too - wow is that stupid. Mic Check, but Jeff swantons to prevent a pin. Angle shoves Jeff into Ken and gets the Angle Slam for 2. Super Angle slam to Ken, but Jeff covers for 2.5. More finishers get nearfalls. Very smooth leapfrog from Kurt leads to the Finlay roll attempt, but they counter stuff. Ref bump sets up more Germans from Kurt to Ken. Mic Check hits but they're both down. Bischoff comes down with a chair to set up Hogan coming down on crutches "after back surgery". Oh yeah - Bischoff was playing face here, so this exposed that. The THERREEEEE HERREE sign is shown with Hogan. Ken and Kurt appear to have died because they're just lying down while Hogan gets in the ring and limps around. They do a sword fight tease with the crutches, but Hardy hits Angle and then Ken and breaks a crutch over each. Twist hits and Eric has Brian Hebner count 3.  Hardy has had tons of great matches in TNA, so beyond having great production values here, I don't know why they picked these matches because they weren't all that good.

Screens -
http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/pwhxuir1cczwjz75uuc2s8hgb6xql0ea

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