Career
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On the June 20, 2005 edition of RAW, during the storyline wedding of Edge and Lita, Matt Hardy's entrance music and video were played when the priest asked if anyone had a reason why Edge and Lita should not be wed. On the July 11, 2005 episode of RAW, Matt Hardy made his return, attacking Edge as he made his way to the ring. On the July 13, 2005 edition of WWE's webcast Byte This!, which featured Lita as its guest, one of the callers was Matt himself. The two engaged in a huge argument, believed to have been a complete shoot, which led to Lita walking off the set. Matt appeared at a scheduled Ring of Honor (ROH) event on July 16, 2005 in Woodbridge, Connecticut where he defeated Christopher Daniels via submission. Hardy also cut a brief promo where he continued in full 'worked shoot' mode, attacking WWE and John Laurinaitis. Following his official return to WWE, Hardy was met with a backlash which involved him getting booed out of the arena at another ROH event following a match with Homicide, which Hardy won. His final ROH appearance happened the day after this event, where he lost to Roderick Strong. Contrary to previous reports, he ended up not making an appearance in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). On July 18, 2005 Hardy attacked Edge during one of Edge's matches and repeated the feat the following week. On August 1, 2005, Vince McMahon came out on RAW and officially acknowledged Hardy's return to WWE, adding that Hardy would face Edge at SummerSlam. On August 8, 2005, Hardy made his in-ring return, defeating Gene Snitsky on RAW. Seconds after the victory, Matt was attacked by Edge and as he was being carried backstage, Matt counterattacked Edge in a locker room. On August 21, 2005, at SummerSlam, Matt Hardy and Edge faced each other in a "Kill or Be Killed" Match. The match wound up coming to a premature end when Edge dropped Hardy onto the top of a ring post, causing him to bleed leading to the referee ending the match on the grounds that Hardy couldn't continue. Edge was declared the winner. After SummerSlam, the two continued fighting on RAW, with one encounter being a Street Fight that resulted in both men falling off the stage into electrical wires when Matt Hardy took himself down with Edge in a Side Effect. At WWE Unforgiven 2005 Edge faced Matt Hardy in a steel cage match. Hardy had just about won the match with a Side Effect off the top rope, when Lita came in and broke up the pin and was met with the Twist of Fate. Matt hit a legdrop off the top of the cage onto Edge and then gained the pinfall for the victory. (This marked Matt Hardy's second Unforgiven cage match victory over Edge, the first being when the Hardy Boyz defeated Edge and Christian in a cage match at Unforgiven 2000 for the WWF Tag Team Titles.) Hardy and Edge faced each other at WWE Homecoming in a Loser Leaves RAW, Money-in-the-Bank ladder match. Edge's briefcase holding the contract for his WWE World title shot was suspended above the ring. The winner of the match got the contract and the loser is gone from RAW. After a contentious match, Edge tied Matt's arms in the ropes and Lita trapped Hardy in a crucifix hold, leaving Matt only able to watch Edge win. When the match ended, Edge and Lita gloated over the victory, but Matt took it in stride and left the arena afterwards. With his defeat at the hands of Edge, Hardy was moved back to SmackDown!. His redebut happened October 21, 2005, however in a singles match against Simon Dean which Hardy won. edit SmackDown! Matt was among five SmackDown! superstars- Christian, John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL), Rey Mysterio, and Hardcore Holly—to be voted by the fans to compete at WWE Taboo Tuesday, against Edge and Chris Masters. Only two of the five superstars would compete, and the two that received the most votes on WWE.com would become partners. Originally, WWE pushed for Rey Mysterio and JBL as the team to choose. At Taboo Tuesday, it was Matt Hardy and Rey Mysterio who were chosen (with Matt getting 31% and Rey getting 29%), and they defeated Chris Masters and Gene Snitsky. Edge did not wrestle due to a legitimate chest injury; the kayfabe reason he gave for not wrestling, however, was that he "didn't care" about Matt Hardy and Rey Mysterio, the fans, or the RAW brand. This was seen as out of character for Edge, who had been the so-called ringleader against the SmackDown! brand. In fact, it was an angle involving Edge that started the feud between the two brands. It was confirmed on the November 9, 2005 edition of Byte This that Matt Hardy and Ashley Massaro (2005 Raw Diva Search winner) have been a couple since shortly after his return. On the November 11, 2005 episode of SmackDown!, Rey Mysterio competed against Randy Orton for a spot on the Survivor Series team for the SmackDown! brand. After Orton got himself disqualified, he and his father Bob Orton began to double-team Mysterio. But Matt Hardy came down to the ring to make the save shortly thereafter. It looked like Rey Mysterio and Matt would form a tag team, but Rey became the tag team partner of Batista following the death of the great Eddie Guerrero. Following the main event at WWE Survivor Series won by Randy Orton, a group of Smackdown wrestlers stormed the ring to congratulate him, among them being Matt Hardy, Brian Kendrick, Paul London, and others. It was then that the Undertaker came down to the ring with the intent of attacking Orton to restart their feud. Orton bailed before Undertaker reached the ring, so Undertaker took his vengeance out on some of the other wrestlers, chokeslamming them each in turn. Matt Hardy was planned to have been one of those victims, but exited the ring before Undertaker even reached it. It was later confirmed that Hardy had bailed because he had felt that taking the bump from Undertaker would've dropped his popularity. As result of his arrogance and not following the rules Hardy was put into a short feud with former WWE Champion JBL, in which the majority of the matches showed Hardy being beaten down with very little offense. The next small push for Hardy came with the team of MNM. MNM manager Melina approached Hardy seemingly wanting Hardy to join with her team, Hardy refused this offer which led to Hardy facing off with the then-tag team champions on several occasions with a variety of partners. During one of these matches, Matt Hardy teamed up with Road Warrior Animal to try for the titles once more, but they were defeated. After the match, Animal brutally attacked Hardy, as a result of being tired of "pulling all the weight in tag teams". Road Warrior feuded with Hardy for a while after this. Hardy would pick up several wins over Road Warrior, one of which was for a place for the Money in the Bank ladder match WrestleMania 22. Hardy defeated Animal, but did not win the WrestleMania match. Hardy would then compete in the King of the Ring tournament but would lose to Booker T in the opening round due to a low blow and distraction by Sharmell. He would then continue to wrestle on Velocity, winning all his matches, including a win over Simon Dean in the last ever WWE Velocity match on June 10th, 2006. On the July 14th episode of SmackDown! Matt defeated Mr. Kennedy via roll-up to end Kennedy's record of never being defeated via pinfall or submission on SmackDown! Announced by WWE mobile service, he will face Gregory Helms for the Cruiserweight Championship at the Great American Bash. Hardy lost to Helms after a roll-up. Matt Hardy |
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