Twist Of Fate - The Matt & Jeff Hardy Story

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Running Time: 342 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 2
Studio: Clear Vision Ltd/Silver Vision
Released: June 16 2008

Following Leap Of Faith, it would be several years before another Hardyz DVD. By the time Twist Of Fate came out, both Matt and Jeff had left WWE and returned, having gone through numerous trials and tribulations, but both seemed to have real potential in singles competition as 2008 began.

Intriguingly, we have two documentaries, one for each brother. Matt's is better as it recaps the TLC era of Hardy matches and runs through their Teenage Wrestling Federation and Omega in more depth than Jeff's feature does; plus, his documentary is around 15 minutes longer. The highlights of Matt's feature come as we go through the Version One character, his feud with MVP and, between those, a lengthy look at the real-life controversy involving Matt, Edge and Lita.

For those unaware, Matt and Lita had been an item since 1999, and Edge was longtime friends with both. While Matt rehabilitated a knee injury in 2004-2005, Lita and Edge had an affair (Edge was married to another woman too). When Matt discovered the truth, he ended his relationship with Lita and told fans what had happened online. WWE then very harshly sacked Matt, leaving Lita and Edge unpunished. As fans justifiably slated WWE, Edge and Lita, the company decided to firstly put the devious duo together on-screen, and then to bring back Matt for a worker shoot feud with his former friend and girlfriend.

This section does a good job of covering the situation from start to finish, and whilst it's fair to say that the feud didn't quite meet expectations (largely because Matt lost), it was undeniably gripping to watch. Some argue that Matt never truly recovered from the real-life break-up, with his regrettable incidents in later years partly being attributed to the pain of his split from Lita. But he is now happily married to another lady (and a wrestler too, Reby Sky), and they have a son (as TNA fans will know), so at least he is now in a better place. After covering the Hardyz reunion in 2006/7, the first doc ends with Matt going through his feud so far with MVP, and his plans to win the United States Title and, eventually, the World Title. Why WWE didn't wait until after Matt beat MVP for the U.S. Title to release this DVD, I don't know.

As for Jeff: their shared history means that his feature only stands out due to a section on his music and his home (which would soon burn down, incidentally), his drugs-related exit from WWE in 2003, a brief mention of TNA as he talks about his stint away, his 2006 return to WWE after proving he was clean (which ignores his 2007 Wellness Policy violation), and his rise up the ranks in late 2007/early 2008 which made him the hottest star in the company and a sure-fire future WWE Champion.

The two main features are entertaining, but it probably would have been better to present this as one long documentary with occasional shifts to Matt and Jeff, due to the level of shared content. They are still worth watching, although WWE would have been better waiting another year to release this set because, by then, both Hardyz had won three singles titles between them (Jeff would win the WWE Championship at Armageddon 2008).

Matt's disc largely features singles matches. His Vengeance 2004 No Holds Barred clash with Kane, occurring at the height of a bizarre storyline also involving Lita, is decent; better is the superb Steel Cage battle with Edge from Unforgiven 2005 as part of the aforementioned reality-based love triangle storyline. We then get two SmackDown bouts with Joey Mercury (a qualifier for the 2007 Money In The Bank Ladder match, which features hilarious guest commentary from King Booker) and Mr. Kennedy, which is a really good match. The only doubles clash on Matt's disc is a 1999 bout from Omega, as The Hardyz face The Serial Thrillers, complete with commentary from both Hardyz, Gregory Helms and Shannon Moore.

Jeff's disc has two Hardyz matches: the great Royal Rumble 2000 Tables scrap with the Dudleyz and a strong outing against Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch from Judgment Day 2007. In singles, we see him face and beat Triple H twice (SmackDown circa 2001 and Armageddon 2007), although neither bout holds a candle to the matches they would have in the future. We also see Jeff face Johnny Nitro in a thrilling Steel Cage match at New Year' Revolution 2007, against Shelton Benjamin in his MITB qualifier (during which Shelton nearly breaks his neck) and opposite Umaga in an exciting bout with an amazing finish, back in the Cage from the 2008 Raw Roulette (exactly a year after the NYR Cage match, funnily enough).

There are some notable omissions here: none of the Ladder/TLC bouts are included (although they have admittedly been released many times before), and the WrestleMania 23 MITB bout is also absent (bear in mind that both brothers' qualifying matches for the 2007 MITB scrap are here). What's more, the Jeff-Umaga bout helped to promote Jeff's big WWE Title showdown with Randy Orton at Royal Rumble 2008, but that major encounter has also been left off the set. On the whole, though, the matches are pretty good, despite not being a definitive history of their careers by any means.

There are some bonus segments (such as a tour of Matt's house), and a couple more are hidden by pressing arrows at certain points on the menus (these are known as Easter Eggs). One involving Matt, Jeff, Helms and Moore is noteworthy because it's about toasting their friendship with beers, and during this Helms unnecessarily slags off CM Punk (who hadn't yet become a main eventer in WWE), calling him a dweeb for not drinking, which is backed up by the others in the room. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, but it's an insight into how certain wrestlers treated Punk due to his Straight-Edge lifestyle. Not that Punk would be bothered, to be fair. Ironically, Punk ended up becoming a bigger star than all of those in this segment, and certainly a much bigger star than Helms ever was.

Twist Of Fate is enjoyable but by no means a classic. It does perfectly illustrate the potential that both Hardyz had in singles around the spring of 2008. For Matt, a United States Title win would indeed come, and would be followed by an ECW Championship later that year. But a heel turn on Jeff in 2009 would end up harming his career in the long-run, for despite beating Jeff at WrestleMania 25, he would never come close again to achieving his full potential in WWE, and left under acrimonious circumstances in 2010 following a suspension and some baffling online videos. Jeff, meanwhile, would achieve great success as a solo star; because the rest of his WWE run is covered on My Life, My Rules (which I will review soon), I won't go into what came next for him, only to note that by the time this DVD was released, he had lost much of his momentum due to a (second) Wellness Policy violation.

I'll conclude the Hardyz tale in the My Life, My Rules review, but I'll just say that despite its flaws, Hardy fans should really enjoy this particular set, and it's hard to believe from watching this that Matt never did get to ascend to the main event level in WWE. Mind you, had Matt not left WWE, we wouldn't have ended up having the Final Deletion in TNA, so I suppose that's a positive.

Overall Rating: 7/10 - Respectable

WWE Tagged Classics: Hardy Boyz - Leap Of Faith & Lita - It Just Feels Right

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Running Time: 309 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 2
Studio: Clear Vision Ltd/Silver Vision
Released: March 19 2012

With the Hardyz having generated plenty of buzz recently for their feud in TNA (which so far has included an unusual contract signing and the bizarre yet undeniably compelling Final Deletion match), it seems like a good time to provide a retro DVD review based on Matt and Jeff/Brother Nero.

Leap Of Faith, originally released in late 2001, largely focused on the careers of the Hardy brothers during the TLC era, along with some coverage of their upbringing and their early days in the WWF. Since their pre-WWF adventures are also covered on the 2008 DVD A Twist Of Fate, which I will also be providing a review of shortly, I'll just mention here that this release does a decent job of telling the story of the Hardyz prior to them becoming famous, as well as detailing some of their passions outside the ring, like Jeff's fondness for dirt-biking (which actually left him with a broken leg not so long ago).

Onto the crux of Leap Of Faith, then: we're guided through the Hardyz' biggest matches from 1999 to 2001, which included their first WWF Tag Team Title win over The Acolytes in July 1999, their breakthrough Ladder match opposite Edge and Christian at No Mercy 2000, their Tables scrap with the Dudleyz from Royal Rumble 2000, the three major matches in the Hardyz/Dudleys/E&C feud (Ladder match at WrestleMania 2000, TLC at SummerSlam 2000 and TLC II at WrestleMania X-Seven), and their second WWF Tag Team Title win over E&C in a Steel Cage match from Unforgiven 2000. These battles get plenty of coverage, some more than others, as the Hardyz talk through their memories of each big match and the impact on their careers where applicable, along with comments from Edge, Christian, Mick Foley, Bubba Ray Dudley (where is D-Von?), Jim Ross and others. Lita also provides comments throughout the presentation; I'll come back to her a little later.

Since this was before the era of three-disc DVD compilations and the Hardyz were still young in the wrestling business at this point, Leap Of Faith is as good a one-hour feature on Matt and Jeff as you could have asked for at the time. Adding to the appeal of LOF are some bonus matches, with the aforementioned Hardyz-Acolytes bout, the No Mercy 1999 Ladder match and the first two TLC matches shown in their entirety; the first of these is a basic doubles bout, but the Ladder-related scraps are simply amazing. It's hard to say one is better than the other, because they are all fabulous and each one set a new bar for the next one to follow, making it unfair to say, for instance, that TLC II is superior to the No Mercy scrap because of the additional bodies, tables, chairs and stunts. I would say, though, that much of the commentary for the original Ladder bout centred on Terri Runnels' "services" going to the winner and Jerry Lawler getting horny at the prospect, which weighs the presentation of that particular match down a little.

Also acting as Hardy extras are Matt and Jeff's Unforgiven 2000 championship win over E&C in full (I never noticed until this viewing that one side of the cage has a platform, making it safer for Jeff to fling himself off in death-defying fashion), and a peculiar inclusion of The Hardyz and Lita vs. Steve Austin, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. The result is a surprise but, coming early in Austin's heel run, the post-match scenes are shocking, and not necessarily in a good way. The theory is understandable - build heel heat on Austin, who fans still wanted to cheer - but having Lita take a clothesline and a Pedigree from HHH, and then multiple chairshots to the back and a Stone Cold Stunner by Austin is pretty hard to watch nowadays. The WWF of 2001 had a very different attitude on violence towards women than WWE does today, and whilst many fans complain about the PG rating nowadays, this is one area where the WWF/WWE has definitely improved. Chyna was perhaps understandable since she competed with male wrestlers, but having Lita take a beating like this is hard to justify, and ends disc one on a sour note (well, besides some home video footage of the Hardyz from over the years).

Focusing properly on Lita now: the second disc, It Just Feels Right (what a crap name), is based around her career. Unlike most female profiles during the Attitude Era, this one (released in 2001 as well, before the Matt and Jeff set, funnily enough) actually focuses on her as a human being and a competitor, rather than as merely a sex object. Yes, sexuality is covered in a lengthy section near the end as we go behind the scenes of some photo shoots, but the majority of this looks at how she wanted to become a wrestler after seeing the "Mexicans" (WCW goes uncredited at this point despite it being the real source of interest for Amy Dumas to become a fan; weirdly, WCW is briefly mentioned later on), her intriguing journey from an oblivious girl looking to somehow become a wrestler and actually achieving her goal within a year or so, her short tenure in ECW as Miss Congeniality (no footage is shown, since WWE hadn't yet acquired the rights to the ECW video library), and her eventful first eighteen months in the WWF as - yes! - Lita.

The chronology is all over the place during this documentary, at least within the WWF section: after covering her early days alongside Essa Rios (who provides comments, in Spanish) and her alignment with the Hardyz, we suddenly jump ahead to her involvement in TLC II at Mania X7, before going back to her first Women's Title victory over Stephanie McMahon from August 2000. This would presumably have ended the feature, but instead we cover some more highlights of her career, from a tough match with Ivory at Survivor Series 2000 that saw her receive a nasty cut to her title challenge against Chyna at Judgment Day 2001 (which would prove to be Chyna's last ever WWF match). There's also footage of her filming commercials alongside Matt and Jeff, and a section on her friendship and on-screen romance with Matt. Strangely, though, while this love story (which on-screen came out of a way-too-long and not believable plotline whereby Dean Malenko was trying to seduce Lita, which is also covered on this documentary) obviously mirrored the real-life relationship between Matt and Lita, but their actual relations are not referred to. This is a weird decision, since diehard Hardy and Lita fans (who will have bought the original DVD) would obviously have been aware of this.

That aside, the documentary is worthwhile, and the most flattering feature yet on a female during the Attitude Era. The bonus matches cover that fine line between Lita as the fearless performer and Lita as eye candy: an intergender bout from Fully Loaded 2000 (Team Extreme vs. T&A and Trish Stratus) is pretty good; Lita vs. Jacqueline under Hardcore rules is alright; and Lita vs. Molly Holly is decent. Then, there are the matches that provide sex appeal, like Lita vs. Trish under Strap and (of course) Bra & Panties rules. A six-person match from Armageddon 2000 (Team Extreme vs. The Radicalz) isn't as good as the Fully Loaded bout, and again raises questions as to how the WWF willingly allowed females (Lita in this case, obviously) to take such a beating from male performers. Lita vs. Malenko exists to set up Lita and Matt's first on-screen kiss, and for some reason a Jeff Hardy-Big Show match is thrown on here, despite Lita's only real involvement being a moonsault to Show. (This bout has an interesting finish: all three members of TX pummel Show, cover him at once - with Jeff's shoulders also down - and the referee Jimmy Korderas providing a fast three-count. It all makes no sense in a regular bout, until Michael Cole provides the missing piece by saying that Korderas wasn't happy with Show shoving him moments earlier. Suddenly, it all makes sense, by WWF standards, and is a little reminder of the mini-moments that are missing from WWE television today). There's also more clips from behind the scenes of photo shoots, a picture collage and more home video clips.

Lita fans will have loved this at the time, and probably would do today, as well. That being said, the biggest thing I took from it is just how much the WWF based its female division from 1998 right up to around 2007-2008 on sexuality. That's stating the obvious, I know; but comparing it to today's WWE, whereby Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Becky Lynch and Bayley are putting on genuinely great matches that steal the show and are threatening to main event PPV events, and with all being treated as real athletes and women with integrity, the WWF's portrayal of females back then is questionable at best and almost offensive at worst (I haven't even mentioned storylines where rape was implied and where a woman's sexual services were quite literally at stake for the winner). Of course, all of this seemed normal back then, but it does show how times have changed. By the way, I don't have a problem with the sexual, raunchy side of WWF television during that era - you won't see me complaining that Lita's thong was popping out of her trousers - but comparing how females were treated back then to how they are today is like night and day.

However, the decreased emphasis on sexuality on this feature indicates that Lita was amongst the women who would force a change in WWF philosophies (along with Trish Stratus a little later on). Women like Sensational Sherri and Alundra Blayze had been straight-up wrestlers, but few took real notice. Women like Sunny, Sable and Debra were merely there for sex appeal. And Chyna was a ground-breaker, but no female has followed her path since then. However, Lita was one of the first ladies to actually get people out of their seats because they were amazed at her athleticism and her ability. The balance between ability and eye candy was perfected by Lita and Trish, and whilst it took WWE to go PG and Sara Del Ray to become a trainer at NXT before things truly changed, it is true to say that Lita and Trish really did pave the way for the likes of Sasha and Charlotte today to be respected because of their in-ring ability.

As it turned out, this period marked the peak of Lita's career, at least in terms of popularity. After suffering a serious neck injury in 2002 on the set of a non-wrestling show, she only returned in September 2003, and after an extended feud with Trish Stratus and a second injury (this time to her knee), the rest of Lita's WWE tenure was spent as the valet to former rival Edge, before her retirement at Survivor Series 2006 and well-deserved WWE Hall Of Fame induction in 2014. Of course, the partnership with Edge was instigated by a major series of events off-screen - but we'll cover that in the next Hardyz DVD review, where that particular topic receives extensive coverage.

Summing up this DVD set, then, the link between the Hardyz and Lita makes the two features an obvious companion set. If you were a fan of the Hardyz in 2001, chances were that you also supported Lita, and vice versa. By the standards of early 2000s DVDs, the features are very good, and the matches were logical selections and provided suitable evidence as to why Matt, Jeff and Lita were so popular and had achieved their respective success. Their stories were far from over, but this arguably represented the peak of both the Hardyz tandem and Lita as a performer. Any fan of Team Extreme back then will thoroughly enjoy this recap of their most memorable moments from 1999-2001. Just try not to think too much about the extent of the man-on-woman violence during the Attitude Era.

Overall Rating: 8/10 - Very Good

Raw's Most Memorable Matches

Image Source: Amazon

Written By: Mark Armstrong

Running Time: 86 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Number Of Discs: 1
Studio: Clear Vision Ltd/Silver Vision
Released: April 3 2007

Raw's Most Memorable Matches followed the similar SmackDown release, and again offers a few matches at a budget price. Given the long and eventful history of Raw, it was always going to be a stretch to suggest that the show's most memorable matches are within this 90-minute DVD, but there are some gems nonetheless.

The first is Jeff Hardy challenging The Undertaker for the Undisputed WWE Title in a July 2002 Ladder match. It's a very dramatic bout, and you would never know from watching this that Hardy was as stale as an old piece of toast at this point in time, as he delivers his last truly great performance before leaving WWE for the first time in 2003. Match two pits Triple H against Ric Flair in May 2003, culminating a one-night storyline where Flair (then HHH's chaperone, no pun intended) looks to prove to HHH that he really was and is The Man.

Triple H returns to face Kane in June 2003, in a bout which is fairly good but is more memorable (and is genuinely memorable) for Kane finally unmasking in the aftermath, as per the stipulation. (Some people thought this meant the end of the Kane character; how wrong they were.) Following this is a Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho match from July 2003 which is very good, but a slight notch below expectations; it certainly isn't a disappointment, but it follows and would be followed by superior HBK vs. Y2J collisions. The DVD ends with a brilliant Michaels vs. Shelton Benjamin clash from May 2005, with one of Shawn's greatest ever superkicks providing an incredible finish.

Only the first and last matches have been released in full on other DVDs, so this is a nice little release to pick up while we wait for 2003 episodes of Raw to be added to the WWE Network. Considering that it is a bargain-priced DVD, and assuming that you don't take the title too seriously, this is well worth picking up.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10 - Good