Have you ever felt a certain way about something, only to see everyone else feel the opposite way about said thing?
I'm going through that right now.
I sat and watched the "Ultimate Deletion" on Raw, and I have to be honest with myself and with all of you... it was one of the dumbest and most pointless things I've seen in wrestling in a long time, which covers a lot of ground.
I totally understand that it's supposed to be campy. It's not supposed to feature the best of acting. With a nearly crippled Matt Hardy, it isn't supposed to have the best of in-ring action. That's all fine and dandy. It doesn't change the way I felt about the whole segment, though.
When Matt Hardy was "Broken" in Impact Wrestling, we were given a lot of entertaining segments. The Final Deletion nearly turned the internet on its ear. The Great War was incredibly entertaining. It was all stupid, but it was supposed to be stupid. There were "insider" jokes, wild moments, surprise guest appearances, and just an impressive level of absurdity all around.
So, what did we get on Raw for the Ultimate Deletion? We got Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt have a one-on-one match that featured a slight display of pyro, but without the boomstick attacks we saw with the Impact work. We saw Senõr Benjamin, but he didn't really do anything. We saw Vanguard-1, but it didn't really do anything. We saw Queen Rebecca, King Maxel and Lord Wolfgang, but... they didn't really do anything. We even saw the return of Jeff Hardy, who had been off of WWE programming for several months due to an injury. Want to take a guess at what he did? Nothing.
The "Land Of Obsolete Men" portion of the match was cringe worthy. You had Matt hiding from Bray as they run through a graveyard like a Scooby Doo gag, which only served to make Wyatt look like an idiot.
There weren't any random guest appearances from out of left field. No members of Nexus showing up as a wink-wink nod to Wyatt's time as Husky Harris with the group. No Irwin R. Schyster. No Bo Dallas. No Barry Windham. No Eli Cottonwood. No Waylon Mercy. Nothing.
I don't fault Matt Hardy or Bray Wyatt for this, mind you. Matt reportedly had 100% creative control over everything his character did while he was Broken with Impact every week. He might have some say in what happens now... he might even have a lot of say... but we all know who has the final input on everything that goes on in WWE. That's why people were afraid to see the Broken character come to WWE in the first place. They wanted to see it, but not a sterilized, bastardized version of it.
No, this is Vince McMahon's fault, in some way, shape or form. He's not going to sign off on a lot of the nonsense that Impact signed off on. He's not going to "get" some of the ideas that were probably pitched to him, and even if he does "get" them, he won't think wrestling fans will "get" them because he thinks wrestling fans are as smart as a box of rocks.
After watching Raw, I checked social media, and I read different articles and posts about the match. Almost unanimously, it was loved. Sure, people thought it wasn't as good as the stuff in Impact, but they still heaped praise on what we got with the WWE version. I've seen the words "brilliant", "fantastic", "epic" and "classic" used to describe Ultimate Deletion, and it makes me feel like I'm losing my mind.
I enjoy the fact that I don't always run with the crowd when it comes to my wrestling opinions. John Cena and Roman Reigns can wrestle. Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat isn't the best big match trilogy in wrestling history (it may not even be in the top three). Brock Lesnar ending The Undertaker's streak at WrestleMania 30 was absolutely the right move at the right time. The list goes on and on. This is one that I'm really surprised at, though. I'm glad people found enjoyment in the match. I'm just not one of those people. Maybe I just had my expectations set too high because of what was a possibility. If Impact could make good things happen, surely WWE could with their infinitely higher budget, right?
Am I crazy?
