This past Sunday saw the latest in a long stretch of incidents of Jeff Hardy's personal life conflicting with his professional one. Seeing that Jeff Hardy was in no state to work a main event match, Eric Bischoff altered the finish, live on Pay Per View, leading to a disgraceful ninety second long conclusion to TNA's Victory Road. One would be tempted to suggest that this is a failure that should not be laid on TNA's slender shoulders - Jeff Hardy failed to meet his most basic obligations, after all - until of course the realisation that it was TNA's limp reaction to substance abuse within professional wrestling that was key in luring Hardy from WWE. That Hardy is facing the impending fallout from his plea bargain, following charges of drug trafficking, and that he has proven yet again that he is incapable of keeping his self-destruction in check, shows how much we and Hardy have lost.
When Hardy returned to WWE in 2006, after refusing a stint in rehab in 2003, there were many platitudes spent on how his life had been transformed. "Things will be different this time!" Jeff Hardy was one of the few people available to WWE in 2006 who represented a genuine megastar, someone who could conceivably achieve the level of fame and work-rate that The Rock and Steve Austin had reached a decade earlier. His connection with the crowd was, and still is, unparalleled in the current climate of tepid and cautious emotional investment. Hardy's issues have always stemmed from not being quite willing to take what was offered to him. Whether it was a conflict between his taste for illicit substances, the admittedly gruelling schedule of World Wrestling Entertainment, or his misguided artistic ambitions, there was always some reason for Hardy thinking that leaving the place where he made his name was a good move for him.
There has been no place more supportive of Jeff Hardy than Vince McMahon's travelling circus. This should be clear. Even the somewhat erroneously despised Triple H was willing to give Hardy the push he needed to finally gain the legitimacy that had long been there for the taking. If Triple H is willing to help you gain main event status, then you have it made. When it came to light however that Jeff Hardy was being removed from the 2008 Money in the Bank Ladder Match, due to his second suspension as a result of the Wellness Policy, it became quite clear that even while the company planned around his imminent ascension to their top star, he didn't quite care enough to alter his lifestyle. Personally, I don't care if Jeff Hardy enjoys partaking in alcohol and various other substances, but if a company is making such a large investment in you, it strikes me that being up front and honest about whether you are going to continue to dick them around, is the action of a decent person.
So now that TNA has felt first hand the effects of turning a blind eye to Hardy's considerable personal issues, what course will they choose? Surely at this stage of creative and commercial inertia, keeping a talent off of their TV shows is a positive rather than a negative. Will they insist on his getting help? Why would he bother at this stage? If he was willing to throw his relationship with WWE in the toilet to allow him to continue on in his way, why the hell would he care about what is currently a two-bit flea market of has-beens and parasites? In the hope of procuring a game changing talent, TNA have effectively guaranteed his continuing decline and eventual irrelevance. Another embarrassment for TNA creatively is hardly news, but the seemingly unstoppable personal and professional decline of Jeff Hardy is something which should be highlighted. Jeff Hardy had more talent than nearly all of his peers, and he has pissed it away. He was a true innovator, a natural performer and with a whole heap of that something you can't acquire: charisma. Those who have leeched off of him in the hope of raising the profile of a company who don't have the first clue as to where professional wrestling should go, will have blood on their hands when he reaches the end of his road. Shame on TNA.
No comments:
Post a Comment