How big could've Jeff Hardy been?

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I was thinking aboutt his the other day, Why did he leave WWE when he was being pushed to the Moon. And why did he join the WAY amaller company of TNA. It could have been the lighter schedule, it certainly wouldn't have been the money. But most of all I can see the reason being that he can do what the hell he likes in TNA. Hell when he first joined he looked so disinterested when he was doing promo's, even his wrestling was sloppy. He is even now allowed to smoke on the way to the ring!

He smokes because he smokes in real life and it makes him look an arrogant prick. He isnt lighting up a fag without the knowledge of the promoters and owners. He joined TNA for the same reason Sting keeps resigning. They pay him good money to hang out in Florida with his friends. Hardy's bent over backwards for TNA. He never misses a shot, works every house show and personal appearances and never refuses to do anything. Lawsuit aside, he's a total asset to the company. Which makes the decision to turn him heel baffling. If he gets let off from doing porridge, now that @MATTHARDYBRAND is in TNA< I cant see him leaving TNA for a long, long time. Judging by the amount of times he was suspended only to be brought back and given main event pushes, it looks like he could do what he liked in WWE as well.

 

The likes of Batista, Hardy, Sting, Hogan, Austin etc. are at such levels of success that they can do what they want, because they have the name value and opinons and financial security not be to fussed if they dont want to play the WWE game.

[Rosler28]

At the end of his WWE run, Jeff Hardy was mega over. How big do you think he could've gotten if he had stayed. Do you think he could've gotten as big as Cena? Personally I think the sky was the limit for him, the kids loved him, the women loved him etc and I cant remember hm getting many boos at all.

 

 

hes as big as ever now. dont think hes good as a heel though/

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

I'd actually put him down as another victim of Smackdown's small-time writing team. Sure, by the end of his run he was a big star, and a legit moneyspinner for the company, but he could have been so much bigger, even with just a little better planning. Take a look at the back end of 2008, Jeff was in the form of his life, he was working hard, (seemingly) behaving himself out of the ring, and most importantly was as over as anyone else has been in the last decade. The excellent series with HHH where he would come "just THIS close" to winning the big one did wonders for him, and gained him even more sympathy. WWE had a guy on the verge of being a megastar on their books, all that was left to do was to put the belt on him...

 

 

 

So, how do you go about making Jeff Hardy world champeen?. Well, the tickets writing Smackdown decided that it would be best to have him win the belt in a poorly built up match at a B-level ppv that noone bought, and then have him go on to lose it a month later at the Royal Rumble. It did nothing for Jeff, except stall his momentum, and he wouldn't recover til long after the Matt feud.

 

 

 

I think that with a proper build Jeff could have been "made" by winning the belt at WM, it could have been a genuine "Wrestlemania moment", and it probably would have been worthy of closing the show. WWE should have capitalised, it certainly would have been better than what we got.

 

 

Fuck Smackdown.

I agree, and it's interesting really, because Michael Hayes is a head writer on Smackdown, and he's always been close with the Hardys. I think if Matt was in shape and it was booked right, we could have had Matt vs Jeff at Mania for the title. As it stands, they had an entertaining hardcore match that was all but forgotten due to being in the midcard. Definitely killed Jeff's momentum for a while.

 

Being in TNA doesn't do Jeff's career any favours, as the casual fan barely knows he's there. For his personal life it's great though. I don't know how much more he could have achieved realistically in WWE, but I wish he'd stayed at least 6 months longer to solidify himself as a top guy. He made it, he main evented Summerslam- then he up and left. That left him in the CM Punk/Edge category of transistional top guy. Someone who can main event, but no one would blink if you placed them in the upper midcard. Another six months of main eventing, and he would have stuck as a HHH/HBK/Orton echelon star, although probably not becoming the face of the company like Cena due to the aforementioned reliability issues (something that has plagued Orton also).