Matt Hardy: The Fall of the Former WWE and TNA Impact Wrestling Star

It's so strange to look back on the career of Matt Hardy.

Way back when, he and his brother Jeff were considered relatively clean-living guys by pro-wrestling standards. Later, when it was just Jeff who was acting erratically, Matt was seen as the level-headed one. Then Matt experienced some very public personal issues and he has been on a downward spiral ever since.

Now, Matt Hardy is at a crossroads: Within a year, he was fired by both WWE and TNA Impact wrestling for substance-related behavior issues. The latter firing took place yesterday, after TMZ reported that he drove off the road into a tree near his home and was arrested for driving while intoxicated.

Matt and Jeff have both been suspended until they enter and complete drug rehab programs.

How the hell did this all happen? Let's take a look at what we know.

Matt Hardy's Girlfriend, Lita, Cheats on Him with Edge; Drives Him Insane

Matt Hardy had been in a relationship with Amy "Lita" Dumas for about two years when it was written into storylines in 2001. Three years later, it was used to write Matt out so he could get knee surgery Kane attacked Matt weekly until Lita slept with him so he could impregnate and marry her. Then he injured Matt.

With Matt not on the road, Lita started to (in real life) bond with Matt's (married) good friend Edge. They started an affair. Matt found out and was angry enough to go public about it on his website.

If there's a moment we can point to were it seems like Matt Hardy started to lose it, this is it.

He went off on rather peculiar rants about how "Adam Copeland [Edge] is feces." It was one thing for him to be hurt, but he just sounded weird. Eventually, Matt decided to confront Edge at a Raw taping, but WWE management somehow prevented it. With a mess on their hands, they decided that the best move was to fire Hardy.

Meanwhile, WWE decided to pair Edge and Lita (who had already split up) onscreen to play off the controversy. Not long after that, they also decided that the best thing for business would be bringing back Matt for a feud with Edge and Lita. 

Some of it worked, and some of it didn't, but he got his job back. And so began the next stage of Matt Hardy's career.

He had changed—and not for the better.

Matt Hardy Abandons the Concept of Tact; Doesn't Notice How It Hurts His Career

Presumably emboldened by how he got his job back after his firing for speaking out too much online, Matt Hardy began to speak out a lot more. 

He was a wrestler who stayed popular regardless of his push, sold lots of merchandise (also regardless of his push) and consistently had good-to-great matches with a wide variety of opponents. 

So yes, on one hand, when he would complain about his push, he did have some valid points. Still, it seemed like he lost all grasp of wrestling politics and knowing when to pick his spots.

Somewhat regularly, he would encourage fans to support him with chants and signs. Not bad in theory.  In practice, he was telling them to chant stuff like "Matt for champ!" and "Push for Matt!" 

He would never, ever figure out that this made him less likely to get a push, and he never improved his interviews, which were by far his weakest aspect as a performer. 

Regardless of how often he was jobbed out, or how regularly he was at the lowest spot on the card or even if he was scripted to vomit during a PPV, he never learned.

Matt Hardy Displays Warning Signs by Not Noticing Appendicitis

At a SmackDown taping in November 2007, Matt Hardy's appendix became dangerously inflamed. Eventually, it burst, leaving him dazed and walking around the backstage area of the arena covered in sweat. 

Eventually, someone realized what was wrong and he was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. He was out for over three months. The burst had complicated things, causing the infection to travel all over his body, even spreading to his toe weeks later.

When this originally happened, it seemed at least a little weird, but could be chalked up to a wrestler having a higher pain tolerance and/or disregarding a stomach bug. If you've had appendicitis, though, you know it doesn't feel like a run-of-the-mill stomachache or mild illness. 

Now that we know that Hardy has had substance abuse issues, I look back on this and wonder if he took something that masked the pain of the appendicitis, delaying his diagnosis and treatment to a dangerous degree.

Matt Hardy Tries and Fails To Bury CM Punk to WWE, Newsletter Writers and Fans

In 2009, CM Punk turned heel and cashed-in on Matt Hardy's brother, Jeff, to start a great feud that dominated SmackDown that summer. Matt (who had briefly turned heel and feuded with Jeff in a disastrous feud) felt he had earned Punk's role and that it should be his. His lobbying fell upon deaf ears aside from the usual loyal super fans, so he resorted to gossip.

There had, for whatever reason, been a rumor circulating online about CM Punk dating Lita. It wasn't true, but specious evidence was used by some people to try to prove that it was. Eventually, a blurb showed up in one of the major wrestling newsletters "confirming" that they were an item.

Jeff Hardy soon left WWE, only to be arrested two weeks later as part of a drug sting. Punk moved the feuding on with The Undertaker, but also cut a promo about the arrest on SmackDown. As part of the feud with Undertaker, they did a title switch in a "Hell In the Cell" match at the PPV event of the same name.

An item popped up in one newsletter that said Punk had gotten heat and lost the title because he argued with The Undertaker about the WWE dress code. Shortly after that story hit the Internet, another website reported that Punk and Undertaker had a polite conversation, but one wrestler immediately started freaking out and making a big deal out of it and he was the only one doing so. 

That wrestler was Matt Hardy. The next issue of the newsletter that reported the original version included a correction. As for the Lita rumor, from that point on, it seemed like Matt Hardy was the culprit behind the "confirmation," though we have no way of being sure.

Meanwhile, after Punk cut the promo about Jeff's arrest, both brothers were angry at him and decided to use "The Hardy Show" as an outlet to spread rumors about him. A little over a year later, the video showed up on YouTube—and it was not a pretty look into the world of Matt and Jeff Hardy.

Jeff looked a lot worse. He was drowsy and wobbly, to say the least, constantly scratching his nose, and appeared to brag about his own drug use while also accusing CM Punk of taking Ambien. Matt sounded drowsy, albeit much less so than his brother, and focused on Punk's non-existent relationship with Amy "Lita" Dumas. 

It was an utter disaster.

Matt Hardy Spirals out of Control: Fired by WWE, Then Hired and Fired by TNA

As 2010 went on, Matt Hardy's behavior was getting more and more troubling. He was constantly posting YouTube videos where he appeared to be drunk and tweeting at all hours. Eventually, after posting a video where he did not look well outside the arena before a show on the fall European tour, he was sent home for being in bad shape.

Wanting to start a war over semantics, he posted YouTube videos showing that he was still in Europe and in athletically good shape. Still, it was obvious what reporters were actually saying about him.

This went on and on, with nothing happening as WWE didn't want him to go to TNA. Meanwhile, it was clear that he wanted out anyway and a few people felt he was just acting out so he could get fired. It appeared to be a combination of both; acting out was what got him fired. The last straw was Matt posting an old video of Rey Mysterio eating lunch while unmasked on YouTube.

He showed up as a surprise on a TNA PPV after his non-compete severance period expired. With his hair in dreadlocks for no apparent reason, he had a lackluster performance and was described as both "sluggish" and "glassy-eyed" on prominent wrestling websites. In the end, his new hairdo got the most attention. Sort of. Similarly coiffed WWE wrestler Tyler Reks trended on Twitter that night while Hardy didn't.

His TNA run was largely lackluster, with his brother Jeff 's suspension for showing up for a PPV main event intoxicated being the most interesting thing that happened to either brother. A few months later, Matt was also suspended, as he had shown up late to multiple shows and received a ton of negative publicity for a video involving him, girlfriend Reby Sky, Jeff, and a taser that he uploaded to YouTube before quickly pulling it from his account.

A little over a week ago, TNA made it clear to independent promoters looking to book the brothers that they were suspended until they entered and completed drug rehab programs. Then, yesterday, Matt Hardy, while ostensibly intoxicated, ran his car off the road into a tree. He was arrested for driving while intoxicated and fired by TNA.

Matt Hardy is very lucky that he didn't kill himself or anyone else yesterday. Hopefully this case leads to him getting some help, even if it has to be forced upon him by the court.