The Hardy Wedding Fiasco - Not NEARLY as bad as what some believe!

Monday night, WWE featured Edge and Lita's "Wedding" on WWE RAW and when they got to the part of "Speak now or forever hold your peace", Matt Hardy's entrance video suddenly graced the Titantron. For about a minute, people waited intently....but Matt Hardy never showed, and Edge took credit for the little joke that he "couldn't resist". A slam on Matt and his fans...or so it seemed.

Ever since then, speculation has run rampant, and rumors have been flying, about the entire angle. After all these weeks, was it a work? Was Matt planning a return? Or was this the WWE's way of saying "F You" to Matt and his legion of fans...you know, those (GASP!) INTERNET savvy fans, the ones WWE hates the most.

I admit I was absolutely APPALLED that WWE's creative team - meaning Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, and Triple H McMahon...um, whoops, my freudian slip is showing - would be so casual and downright cruel to a man who gave them years of loyal work, and who was wrongfully terminated when he went public with what happened between himself, Edge, and Lita (and for the record, I think a wrongful termination lawsuit is in order, but that's Matt's call, isn't it?).

I was all set to rail against the WWE for their nasty attitude.

Yesterday.

But then I read some of the letters columns on the "big four" sites, and realized something I hadn't realized in the heat of the moment...and it caused me to take an extra day to think about it.

People have been saying that Matt, who has spent the past several months doing his own website, other websites, and wrestling radio shows, saying how badly he got screwed by the WWE, and especially by Edge and Lita, brought on what the WWE did Monday night himself by his continual commenting on the incident. Some called it "bellyaching" and "bitching".

After thinking about it for an extra day, there's something else I want to call it.

I call it....SHEER GENIUS.

It may have been WWE's intention to shoot off one final "FU" to Matt, and while it had that effect on the surface...it also generated more publicity in one night for a former WWE performer than that performer could have managed on his own for a year. WWE's "F You" backfired....BIG TIME.

Matt not speaking right up about the angle on his website, as he has usually done immediately after RAW, also helped to fuel the flames of speculation. Which in turn gets people to come online to find out what's really going on, which in turn drives people to his website, http://thematthardy.com, and to that of his new "reality" show, http://thematthardyshow.com.

Where of course, he continues the intrigue, and basically prepares for his indie debut as the "Angelic Diablo" (what a contradiction THAT nickname is....).

Matt has used the internet to his distinct advantage since the beginning of this whole fiasco, and has learned to harness the REAL power of the internet he used to cut down on a regular basis (no doubt under orders to from WWE bigwigs) in doing so.

The NetFans have rallied around him, and the unjust way he was let go from WWE.

And he's used it to almost certainly land a cushy deal with TNA when his WWE no-compete clause ends on July 14th.

And at every WWE houseshow and taping, at every (well, most) indie show, on the internet, on the cell phones, text messages, in e-mail and in chat rooms, people are talking about Matt Hardy with more interest and curiosity now than they did for the entire time he was with WWE.

The WWE may have had less than above the board intentions when they pulled a fast one on the Phoenix crowd and those watching at home the other evening...but it did WAY WAY More to HELP Matt than it could EVER done to hurt him....

Hey Vince, Steph, and Triple H...so...tell me...how exactly DOES it feel to have your best effort to be sophomoric and petty turned upside down on you and worked by a REAL GENIUS?

Yep, kinda thought I'd hear some collective headbanging after that....

Oh, well, as Linda Ellerbee says...

And so it goes...