[2016-06-12-TNA-Slammiversary] Jeff Hardy vs Matt Hardy (Full Metal Mayhem)

[Superstar Sleeze]

Jeff Hardy vs Matt Hardy - TNA Slammiversary 2016 Full Metal Mayhem

For those of you that are like me and 2016 is foggy, this match is during the Broken Matt gimmick but before The Final Deletion. The original Broken Matt gimmick is sheer brilliance. Normally, I am all for evolving a character & adding layers, but in this case it only turned it into a self-parody of what was originally a genius gimmick. You see prior Matt had turned heel after winning the World Championship, something that always eluded him. He started slicking his hair down with a side-part and dressing in suits. Why? The first was insecurity as the older brother who failed to reached the singles heights of his younger brother who had won multiple World Championships in TNA & WWE. He was a giver instead of a taker but was not receiving as much as he was giving out. So he felt the world was unfair and jealous of his younger brother. Then enters his ambitious, ruthless wife, who wants the house on the hill, the fortune and fame, maybe most importantly she wants to be married to a winner, champion and the better Hardy. She drips the poison in his ear that now is the time to take, take, take. Well before the Broken Matt gimmick, he was experiencing a personality and descending into madness. Then he loses the championship and his brother starts to slag. The rift grows into a chasm and then Jeff Hardy hits a massive Swanton Bomb that broke Matt in half complete with stretcher job and not appearing on TV. They took this physical break and made it into a mental break with reality. One could say in addition to the jealousy, stress of his wife pushing, his lust for fame & fortune, he also probably loves his brother and hates that it has come to this. All this stress on him leads to psychotic break. He becomes obsessed with deleting Jeff Hardy. That's the motivation. A heel can be logical and you can understand their perspective; it is the fact they take things too far that makes them a heel! The funny emphasis on words like "Delete", "Obsolete" and "OVAH" had an entertainment factor to the character. Choosing to visually depict his obsession as a classical, Baroque pianist is an interesting take on it that again add entertainment value and plays in line with American stereotype that those men were MAD geniuses like Broken Matt. I wonder if the word "Baroque" was an inspiration to take the character in that direction. Anyways, dressing of the gimmick, the diction and speech emphasis add to the entertainment value to make the gimmick stand out, but it is the OBSESSION and STRESS on Matt underpinning the gimmick that make it work. That's why I believe it flopped in WWE and AEW is because Broken Matt was not being built on the fundamentals of human emotion it was leaning into the shallow, superficial aspects of the gimmick. Terrific gimmick originally and we will always have 2016, brutha. 

Oh yeah there was a match. It was a fine car crash match. Jeff put Matt through a ladder. Lots of Twists of Fate and Swanton Bombs. Matt powerbombed him through a Keyboard. They really played the Side Effect on the Apron. Jeff took it home with a series of Swantons and Twists of Fate through tables. It was a fun match, but the gimmick and the angle were more interesting and it would all lead to FINAL DELETION~! O, before I go, I really liked when Pope said "You can't out-crazy Jeff Hardy" fucking damn straight. That dude is a fucking nut! ***1/2