The fallout from “Delete or Decay” saw TNA hold “The Great War” on their Bound for Glory pay-per-view.
Not filmed in the same style as “Delete or Decay” or “The Final Deletion”, this “rematch” of sorts was held in front of a live audience after Bound For Glory went ahead (after a weekend of speculation over TNA’s very future). Unfortunately, that meant there was commentary…
TNA Tag Team Championship: Broken Matt Hardy & Brother Nero vs. Decay (Abyss & Crazzy Steve) (c)
Josh Mathews starts the segment with his best big boy/gruff voice by declaring that “The Great War” is upon us, as Reby Hardy plays a piano version of the “Obsolete” theme, which Brother Nero actually sings, with the crowd chanting along as well. It’s the first time in ages TNA’s gotten any sort of reaction from a live crowd, is it not?
After the Hardys circled Decay, Reby ended up taking a spray of mist to the face from Abyss, Steve and Rosemary, which took her out of the match, I guess. Nero and Abyss fought in the corner as we totally missed Steve being rammed into the announce table. At least the cameraman got Steve being rammed into the ring steps, and a plancha from Nero to Abyss.
A belly-to-belly suplex from Matt gets a two-count, before Rosemary grabbed Matt’s leg to stop a Twist of Fate, and that gave the heels an advantage. Rosemary grabs a table from under the ring and sets it up (despite the fact there was a table next to her, propped against the ring post…). Nero was choked against the guard rails, as Rosemary and Steve tries to supled Matt out of the ring and through the table, but to no avail.
Rosemary tossed a trash can into the ring, and it landed right by Steve, who used it on Matt and held it up for a Coast to Coast from Rosemary to further break Broken Matt. It seems that this is a falls count anywhere affair, as Steve gets a two-count, whilst Abyss gets a staple gun and tries to use it on Nero in the ring… and eventually succeeds as the staple gun’s used to counter a sunset flip. That was unique, I have to admit.
Abyss and Matt brawl to the backstage area, and handily in front of an interview area. Matt’s thrown onto a table, and I guess that he gets makeup painted on him before he’s thrown into a trash can. They fight some more, but the camera doesn’t follow them, and suddenly we see Nero and Steve in a completely different part of the building. I smell pre-tape.
They fight in some storage area, where Steve throws a ladder onto Nero, before Nero crawls to a blue bucket with “Lake of Reincarnation” written on the side. Steve bite’s Nero’s fingers, and throws a music stand at him before we go outside to Abyss and Matt fighting in front of the Universal Orlando sign. Back to Steve, who dumps the “Lake of Reincarnation” box onto Nero, but he’s disappeared leaving nothing but knee-pads behind.
Matt and Abyss keep fighting like the Family Guy chicken, this time in front of a Ferris wheel, before we quickly cut to Crazzy Steve who’s being peppered with pumpkins. Back to Matt and Abyss, as Matt’s getting punches to the midsection by a tree, and then back to Steve. What is it with these bloody cuts? Apparently Jeff Hardy’s back and he’s talking gibberish, before going back to work on Steve.
…and back again to Matt and Abyss, who almost get run over as they fight on the road. Rosemary resurfaces as she pulls Nero off of Steve in that storage area. Nero puts a pumpkin head on Rosemary, and gets a mouthful of mist… and we cut again to Matt and Abyss, this time fighting by a truck. Abyss rams Matt into the side of the truck, before he throttles him as he threatens to “delete” him. Rosemary appears with Janice (the board with nails in it), but before Abyss can use it, some crazed lunatic gets out of a pickup truck and offers a fight with Abyss. Rosemary just kicks him down and throws him into some bushes.
Back to Steve and Nero, who suddenly morphs into Willow and uses his umbrella to beat up Steve. Again with Matt, he’s got two hands full of fire as he torches Janice, who gets thrown off a moving pick-up truck. Abyss and Matt fight on the truck like it’s the King of the Road match…
Vanguard 1 pops up and sprays Rosemary with mist, before we see Steve powerbombed on a ladder backstage for a near-fall. I can only imagine how the fans watching in the arena felt watching all of this on video with the quick cuts… speaking of, we’re cut back to the live arena, as Willow and Steve return to the ring. A ladder comes into play, but first Willow takes a cannonball dive from Steve into the ring steps. Willow disappears, but we’re then taken to footage of the pick-up truck pulling up outside the arena as Matt and Abyss are still fighting.
They end up on the ramp, where Abyss drops Matt with a suplex, and after getting changed under the ring, Nero returns to take out Steve with a baseball slide dropkick. Abyss grabs some thumb tacks, but he misses a charge in the corner as the Hardys hit Poetry in Motion. Twist of Fate by Matt, then a Swanton Bomb on Abyss, but the Hardys only get a two-count!
More old-school Hardy double teaming on Steve gets cut-off as Abyss chokeslams Steve onto Matt for a near-fall. After the kick-out, Abyss pulls out two barbed wire boards, but Matt blocks a chokeslam with a low blow. Instead, Matt tosses the bag of thumbtacks onto the board, and eventually dumps Abyss into the mess with a Side Effect. That second board gets placed on top of Abyss, who takes an elbow drop off the top… and then there’s a Botchamania moment as Rosemary is *just* too late to make the save, so the referee holds up the count to let her rush into the ring.
Rosemary gets cornered by Matt, but Reby returns to powerbomb her off the apron and through the table from earlier. Nero uses a steel chair on Steve, who goes all EVIL as he wears it and gets posted, before a Twist of Hate (steel chair assisted Twist of Fate) takes down Steve. A pair of tables get set up in the ring, before Nero sets up a ladder… and he’s “invited to indulge in his addiction”, which leads to a Swanton bomb off the ladder through Steve and the tables, and we have new champions!
After all that, I can firmly say that this has jumped the shark somewhat. The “live” version of the Hardy cinematic matches struggled to work for me – the constant, rapid cuts back and forth between two different locations made this hard to follow at times, with the camera work rivalling WWE in terms of that-Godawful-zooming. Sure, they had to pay off the Hardys/Decay feud after the “non finish” in “Delete or Decay”, but now we’ve actually had a result, can we please move away from this sort of filming?
It’s no longer special, and like with most good things in wrestling, they’re now running the risk of beating this horse to death. But of course, they’re not going to – especially following the news that TNA will be holding an entire episode of Impact before the end of the year “at the Hardy Compound”… Joy?