Edge & Christian vs. The Hardy Boyz vs. The Dudley Boyz, WWF SummerSlam (8/27/2000)

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This was the first ever TLC match for Edge and Christian’s WWF Tag Team Titles.

It’s a mother fucker of a thing.

Certainly, yes, I recognize bias. You have to. Anyone does, trying to talk about anything like this in a fair way. I cannot imagine someone who began watching wrestling in like 2014 holding this in the same esteem as someone, in my case, who began watching wrestling in 1998. Not only in the sense that it is probably nearly impossible to look upon this with even a shadow of awe in a time not only past this, but past things that have followed this like Shelton in MITB matches in the 2000s or Briscoes vs. Steen & Generico, or in their own way, Ultimate X matches, but also in the sense that there is no nostalgia attached either to these matches or these people. I cannot make someone have their first memories of the Hardys being as psychotic underdogs and all-world babyfaces, in the same way that I also cannot make a younger person’s first Dudleys thought be the deeply deeply deeply deeply canceled and, frankly, embarrassingly entertaining Heatwave ’99 promo. My feelings on this match are — if not locked into place by — at least heavily influenced by even just faint shadows of the feeling it gave me the first time I saw it.

Having said all of that, I think it also just objectively rocks.

So often with matches like this now, it feels as if there is a pretense to it on the front end, that [x] amount of time and/or things have to happen before they get into the heavy stuff, but this match is up there with the most confidence per minute metric in the history of matches like this. They get right into it, never pause, and never ever look back. On top of the confidence of it, it also all feel correct. Beyond how little filler there is, almost every single thing seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger, resulting in a near constant state of hearts in throats in the last half. On top of that, it’s also assembled in a way in which the really huge off the ladder out through table stuff is spaced out, so that each instance feels big.

On top of the efficiency and how it’s a genuine marvel of construction, it’s also pure lunacy for eighteen minutes.

With the exception of bump coward protected ass golden boy Edge, there’s nobody here who doesn’t take at least one genuinely psychotic bump or shot. Gross hits with ladders, huge moves off of them, big falls through tables, it’s a match with so many thrills to it. The ultimate compliment is that if one were to make a highlight reel of what happened in the match, they would have to include just about everything, but that’s just as much about the near total lack of cowardice on display as it is about the planning and construction.

That’s not to say the latter doesn’t also rule.

Narratively speaking, the match is imperfect (more later) but also hits a certain sweet spot. Everything in the match comes down to either the Dudleys being too insane and aggressive, the Hardys — especially Jeff — going way too far with any minor opening of a window to go insane, or the champions hitting a perfect antagonistic blend somewhere in between cowardice, opportunism, and pure luck.

Jeff Hardy and D-Von Dudley get stuck up there with no ladder beneath them at the end, and Edge and Christian take advantage. D-Von drops on his own and the champions throw a ladder into Jeff to knock him down before climbing up to get the win.

Despite the reputation, it is not all it can be.

Partially, that just means in terms of how wild it can get. This match feels like — although having an urgency and efficiency that the WrestleMania 2000 version of this did not quite have almost six months prior — it is still just beginning to scratch a little under the surface, and not just because it is almost a quarter century old. Every inch of it is used well, but there’s something about it (and almost definitely this is the result of a direct rematch that goes even crazier but also branches off with each combo also doing the same) that leaves this feeling like the middle part of something too, even if it is an absolute mother fucker of a middle part.

As a result of the booking as well, it denies itself the greatest possible triumph in acting as a narrative stopgap before a far greater emotional payoff the next month.

The WWF being the WWF, these big attention grabbing showcase matches were all won by the team with the clear project guy on them (do not lie to yourself, Edge was as much of a protected ass golden boy as anyone save for a Cena/Orton/Batista/Reigns figure), and so in a match devoted to these gut reaction high spots and pure visceral thrills, it also handicaps itself at least a little by denying the Hardys the feel good hometown win in classic WWF fashion and having the coward champions luck out intead, stringing it along until Unforgiven a month later in one of the great forgotten matches of this golden era. It doesn’t necessarily make this specific match worse or anything, it is a special thing on its own merits, but given the raw material, one cannot help but imagine something even better.

Still, given all that comes — both in the next month and also in the next year — it is hard to be all that annoyed at a match that opts to simply be one of the great displays of raw artillery and creativity of the time. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t allowed to be, but even in the midst of probably the best year in company history, it’s still so impressive when something this great, especially like this, break loose.

One of the all-time stunt show fireworks ass pieces of bullshit, whose only true flaw in that department is that it is probably not even be the best one these teams had against each other in the same twelve month span.

***3/4

The Wyatt Family vs. The Dudley Boyz/Rhino/Tommy Dreamer, WWE Raw (12/14/2015)

This was an Extreme Rules match.

It’s one of the surprises of the year out of WWE, as they get the full clearance to do everything WWE ever lets people do anymore, and it’s honestly kind of a hoot.vAfter a disappointing tables match (as most tables matches are) the night before, this is way more like it, and the match they needed to have for this to work, and to give the Wyatts not only a solid win, but a solid win in a match that’s even halfway memorable.

This being the best possible match for them isn’t just about the stipulation or it now being on TV, but the way that it’s allowed to break down and get chaotic. Spreading the thing out is as crucial as anything out. With the match spreading to all corners of the environment, the camera is able to jump over to whichever section is interesting at the moment, removing any real dead space or footage of people lying around for too long or clearly half assing it and waiting for a spot. This is also the only match on the show that gets to be as out of control and use the shortcuts that this match does, so they have full clearance to get as wild as possible, without the audience reaction being dulled by already having seen chairs and tables used already on the show. They get all of it. Moves off the stage through tables, the Braun Strowman barricade spot, chairs and trash cans whipped around at each other, all of it. It’s wild enough to just get past that overly sanitized feeling that’s permeated so much of WWE television while also carefully put and held together by a talent like Harper and experienced guys in a match like this like the old men, and allows the match to stand out.

Beyond just being fun as hell, it’s also put together in a way that makes as much sense as possible. The ECW guys (EV2.0 if this was TNA) eventually get picked off one by one, because they can’t really hang anymore. Strowman stampedes through Dreamer and the railing. The Dudleys get separated and fairly easily shut down. The one left who still has something is Rhino, and he delivers a charming little offensive attempt before getting surrounded and stopped.

After the Sister Abby, the focus goes instead to Rowan surprisingly. He splashes Rhino off the top through a table to win, which I guess is an attempt to try and build him back up for The Rock’s retirement match.

Genuinely really really fun, one of the major miracles of the year.

***

The Wolves vs. The Hardy Boyz vs. Team 3D, TNA Impact (10/8/2014)

This was a FULL METAL MAYHEM match for the Wolves’ TNA World Tag Team Titles.

What this means is that it’s about the same as the Ladder Match from three weeks prior, only that now there are more tables and chairs used, and it gets to go fifteen to twenty minutes. It’s not a negligible difference, exactly. The match quality is generally the same because the match is real similar. It’s a stunt show with an incredibly loose story. The stunts rule, and to the credit of Team 3D and the Hardys, it’s incredibly impressive that around fifteen years on from the stuff that put these matches on the map, they still find ways to do new stuff and to change around the old stuff just enough to make it somewhat fresh. It’s still limited in that a lot of it is the same and that some of it is caught being obviously set up, but just enough works. Most importantly, it never comes close to outstaying its welcome or being annoying. Just a nice breezy piece of setpiece wrestlin.

All in all, a really fun series of matches, even if it hardly matches up with prior high points of TNA’s vaunted tag team division. Like most widely praised TNA things in this post-peak period, as long as you watch it with that in mind, there’s a whole lot to like here.

***

The Wolves vs. The Hardy Boyz vs. Team 3D, TNA Impact – No Surrender (9/17/2014)

This was a Ladder Match, and the third match in a special challenge series. If either The Hardy Boyz or Team 3D were to win (as each had won one match in this challenge series), they would have won two matches of three to date, and would win the Wolves’ TNA Tag Team Titles.

The match itself isn’t amazing, but it’s real fun

It’s very much a TV kind of a ladder match, and one that isn’t the main event of the show at that. A lot of really really fun and entertaining stuff happens. There’s an argument to be made that it’s very much a TLC Three (not TLC III, despite Davey being Davey) retread, but the Wolves are so wildly different from Edge & Christian that that just feels like someone saying something to try and diminish great work. Davey and Eddie are different and the match celebrates that difference. Their success is through striking and traditional wrestling, rather than the other two teams being way more comfortable in these elements. If someone REALLY wanted to participate in some grade A fanwank, you could even say Eddie and Davey are a little reticent of the ladders after their one experience in a Ladder War in 2009 ROH in this same building. I won’t, but I want you to know that the option is out there for any of you enterprising perverts.

What helps the match most of all is that everyone in this clearly genuinely does give a shit about it being great. The Wolves go nuts in a big spot, both of the Hardys continue this weird and wonderful year of return, and even Bully and D-Von do as much as they still can at this point. There’s a genuinely charming sort of an effort to the entire thing that really makes the match.

In the end, Jeff Hardy takes a truly heinous bump, but in a far more grotesque way than any table setpiece from the legendary series at the turn of the millennium. Richards tips a ladder over, but Jeff doesn’t QUITE make the flip over and just comes down on top of the ladder, entirely on his ribs and chest. It would be horrifying if a twenty year old took it, let alone Jeff Hardy in 2014. There may be bigger things they can do in the match, but it’s also next to impossible to do something that’s as realistic and brutal as that. You should always end on or close to the high note, and this is that for the match. Eddie Edwards follows up by pulling down both titles, and the Wolves finally take one.

The series ends 1-1-1, forcing a fourth match weeks later, which is their most highly thought of match. Before watching all of this, I assumed it was overhyped TNA nonsense like the Gail Kim vs. Taryn Terrell match. After watching all three matches, I’m genuinely excited for the fourth. It’s hard to think of a more complimentary statement than that.

three way