WWE.com has an article up, which I guess doubles as the annoucement:
WWE.com has learned that WWE officials have rehired former Superstar Jeff Hardy, more than three years after his release from the company. WWE.com has tried to contact Jeff about his rehiring for two days, but in typical fashion of the free-spirited Hardy, he has yet to return any of our calls.
For this unique athlete, it has been a turbulent, arduous road back to WWE. In 2003, just as Hardy began to make his ascent to the top of World Wrestling Entertainment, he came crashing down as a result of a poisonous drug dependency. He was plagued by an addiction to pain killers and methamphetamine (crystal meth), a highly addictive stimulant.
I give it three months before his liver destroys the Enzyme-O-Meter. I don't WANT him to fail, but what assurance does the WWE or fans have that he can stay clean?
I hope he stays away from Matt for the good of the latter's career, and I believe Jeff would fit well in ECW, especially as a feud with Punk given CM's straight-edge gimmick.
Good luck, Jeff. Keep your focus.
(edited by Matt Tracker on 4.8.06 1101)
(edited by Matt Tracker on 4.8.06 1134) "To be the man, you gotta beat demands." -- The Lovely Mrs. Tracker
It takes two (teams) to tango. Even if the Hardy Boyz reunite as early as Monday, they conceivably only have The Spirit Squad to feud with. Mind you, that would probably be enough to last a few months worth of some good matches if Jeff is healthy, motivated and capable. But the Hardys alone don't necessarily make for a viable revival of the tag team division.
Thing is, Jeff Hardy is better suited to Smackdown, the taped show where if he blows spots or screws up, it can be edited out. Also, Fridays are where his brother is. The Hardys against Kendrick and London wouldn't make for some bad matches either, come to think of it.
Hm, I just went from indifference to talking myself into some cautious optimism about Jeff Hardy. But since I was never much of a fan of either Hardy, I'll stick with indifference for now.
I don't get it. You fire a guy because he's unmotivated and probably on drugs. In subsequent years, the guy kicks around the indie scene, proving himself to be possibly even more unmotivated and on drugs than he was before. During this time, you institute a wellness policy that suspends people who use drugs. You also deal with a number of very serious athletes who become unmotivated because they can't deal with WWE's brutal schedule. So you hire the guy back? Why would that even occur to you?
For this unique athlete, it has been a turbulent, arduous road back to WWE. In 2003, just as Hardy began to make his ascent to the top of World Wrestling Entertainment, he came crashing down as a result of a poisonous drug dependency. He was plagued by an addiction to pain killers and methamphetamine (crystal meth), a highly addictive stimulant.
Holy Shit I'm glad they decided to edit that part...
new text:
For this unique athlete, it has been a turbulent, arduous road back to WWE. In 2003, just as Hardy began to make his ascent to the top of World Wrestling Entertainment, he came crashing down, reportedly because of a drug dependency.
and Matt is where?
So you hire the guy back? Why would that even occur to you?
Every junkie's like a settin' sun...which means every warm body helps, at this point
FLEA
(edited by RYDER FAKIN on 4.8.06 1452) Demonstrations are a drag. Besides, we're much too high
Originally posted by John OrquiolaIt takes two (teams) to tango. Even if the Hardy Boyz reunite as early as Monday, they conceivably only have The Spirit Squad to feud with. Mind you, that would probably be enough to last a few months worth of some good matches if Jeff is healthy, motivated and capable. But the Hardys alone don't necessarily make for a viable revival of the tag team division.
Thing is, Jeff Hardy is better suited to Smackdown, the taped show where if he blows spots or screws up, it can be edited out. Also, Fridays are where his brother is. The Hardys against Kendrick and London wouldn't make for some bad matches either, come to think of it.
Hm, I just went from indifference to talking myself into some cautious optimism about Jeff Hardy. But since I was never much of a fan of either Hardy, I'll stick with indifference for now.
Wait what about the Highlanders? You also have the Murdoch and Cade. Probably a few other thrown together teams floating around that I forgot about as well.
"They're all losers, either by birth or by choice." - Jack Parkman (Major League 2)
"So you hire the guy back? Why would that even occur to you?"
Everyone deserves a second chance. Whatever we think of the talent involved or the people making the decisions, without fail the company has always given most people second, third, fourth etc. chances. A suprising portion of the current roster has been released at one time or another (even Michaels got fired a bunch.) Hardy's a homegrown star and I'm sure they WANT him to be successful. This isn't suprising. If he is clean and motivated, it'll work. If not it won't. It was the same deal with Regal and Guerrero and Scott Hall etc. Even Angle has *rumored* drug issues. It's always been said that McMahon has soft spots for some people, so this makes sense. He's still young, he should be healed because of his lack schedule and he moves tons of merchandise (the more logical reason TNA kept him than simply saying Meltzer saying 'they kept him because he was a name in the past.') At one time, everyone in the business thought he could have been a tippy-top guy. You put him in ECW, though. Hardy has a strong niche audience, he'll bring the teenage girls and be a helluva heel if it's true they're going to a stand-alone taping. Plus he can't work a "WWE style" match to save his life so ECW gives him a bit more flexibility.
Anyway, good for Jeff. It'll prolly last 6 months before he gets burnt out again I don't expect this to help Matt's career in the slightest either.
What gets me is the fact that the WWE article says that even after they hired the guy back, he's still flaking out and not returning their phone calls. If he's serious about coming back, good for him, but this has the stink of a bad idea all over it.
Why is it that the signing of one wrestler always makes people think that means the return (or start up) of a particular division? 'Wow, now that nameofwrestler is signed, it surely means the WWE will return to having great cruiserweight/tagteam matches.'
I'll believe it when I see it. I'm not knocking the singing, or Jeff Hardy in particular. I just don't expect the WWE (as it exists now) to re-emphasize tag team matches (or to develop an interesting cruiserweight division, should they sign a good cruiser).
Why on earth would WWE announce this on their website? That totally ruined this news for me (though if it were done correctly, there'd be no "news" yet anyway). This should have been an out-of-nowhere surprise that would pop the live crowds when it happened. Jeff Hardy isn't some no-name OVW rookie who needs to be built up through promos and hype before making an appearance. He's half of one of the most popular tag teams WWE ever had; people will know who he is. Make it a suprise, make it fun again.
Ken Kennedy debuted a new finisher: Jeff Hardy fans will insist on calling it the Swanton Bomb, but it looks WAY more devastating when not performed by a 180-pound fruitcake. -Rick Scaia 06.12.2006
I thought they offered to pay for his rehab and he refused, so they released him. In subsequent interviews, he said he did not have a drug problem, and did not need rehab. When did this supposed rehab occur? Either way, and regardless of 2nd chances, this is a bad idea. He couldn't even maintain the TNA schedule! Why not just bring back X-Pac!!
Dean! Have you been shooting dope into your scrotum? You can tell me! I'm hip!
Originally posted by Tenken347What gets me is the fact that the WWE article says that even after they hired the guy back, he's still flaking out and not returning their phone calls. If he's serious about coming back, good for him, but this has the stink of a bad idea all over it.
You're working on the assumption that this particular section of the article isn't a work to get over the "free spirit" or "enigmatic" aspects of his character.
Originally posted by samoflangeThis should have been an out-of-nowhere surprise that would pop the live crowds when it happened. Jeff Hardy isn't some no-name OVW rookie who needs to be built up through promos and hype before making an appearance. He's half of one of the most popular tag teams WWE ever had; people will know who he is. Make it a suprise, make it fun again.
Well, that's exactly it - he is a name guy, so the line of thinking is probably that it's smarter to build the anticipation of his return and advertise it ahead of time in the hopes of moving a few tickets and possibly pop a slight ratings increase.
A surprise move would've made sense years ago when WWE was engaged in a battle with WCW and consistently trying to one-up them with surprises. In this day and age, something like him returning is bound to leak out anyway, and it's better business to announce it ahead of time and try to get some money out of his return (while gauging the level of fan interest in said return) than to have him just show up on a live show.
Wow, mark me as freaking shocked. I actually was enjoying the Hardy run the week before they sent Jeff packing. I wonder how long this run will last. Who's calling Vegas to place there bets?
(edited by jwrestle on 4.8.06 1907)
I get 310 miles, used to only get 260, on 3/4 a tank of gas. Please go ahead and try it. I've seen a major improvement in my mileage
Jeff is simply not a good wrestler. He embodies "flipity flopity" and his ceiling is *1/2.
He is most known for doing dangerous spots, especially the big ladder swanton at Wrestlemania. That was impressive, but I've never really seen him tell a story in the ring. He kind of blew his program with Matt (the program that was supposed to vault one of them up the card).
(edited by canis582 on 4.8.06 2051) I just remembered that im absent minded wait i mean i lost my mind, i cant find it.
I'd planned to goto this & decided to stay in town instead after I found out some joke of promoter was going to run the show. Apparently, this has happened before with someone else in the same area & this guy happened to do the same thing.