Review for WWE: Twist Of Fate: The Best Of The Hardy Boyz

9 / 10

The Hardy Boyz are possibly one of the greatest tag teams ever. As a team they were fantastic and as solo performers they both etched phenomenal careers and Twist of Fate: The Best of the Hardy Boyz is a look at the long career of the brothers from their time as 'Enhancement Talent' to their time selling out arenas. The two brothers talk their careers around the camp fire with 27 matches inbetween it all.

They include their first ever tag match against The New Rockers (Marty Jannetty and Leif Cassidy or Al Snow as we know him) which showed that even that early they were a great team and were ready to take risks in and out of the ring. Another early match against Kaientai which is a great early match.
Included is their first tag title victory over The Acolytes which I remember being a shocker when I watched it originally. Followed by a great match against Edge and Christian which showed just how great they were together and thankfully they include the infamous first tag team ladder match which could be argued as one of the best ladder matches ever.

They include both Wrestlemania 16 and 17 ladder matches against Edge and Christian and Dudley Boyz and the first TLC match at Summerslam. I am glad they did this as usually they include just one of them. Instead we can view all of them and make our minds up as to which one was truly the best. If I'm honest I enjoy the Wrestlemania 17 one the most of the three, but that shifts between that and the one from 16 just because of how new everything about the match was.

They talk about going solo and it seems like they both enjoyed doing it and finding their way to do it alone. Only a few matches are shown from this period and then there is aa time jump from 2003 to 2006 with no explanation. Obviously, they were not going to mention that this was because Jeff went to TNA, but it is odd that they don't address any of the feud between Matt and Edge.

Included is the Hardys against MNM at December to Dismember which was a great match, but one of the only good things worth watching on that PPV. Also included is a great ladder match against Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin showing just why they were so good at this type of match.

There is another jump then to 2009. This is the one that really confuses me in that it completely misses out Jeff Hardy becoming WWE Champion defeating champion Edge and Triple H at Armageddon 2008 and also forget about Matt Hardy's stint in WWE's version of ECW winning the ECW Championship. However, they do include their feud against each other which was a fantastic moment for both of them leading to their excellent match at Wrestlemania 25, but they also include their I Quit match from Backlash 2009 which has one of the craziest endings I have ever seen.

It is then surprising that the two then talk about TNA and them both leaving and include footage which shocked me. I'm not sure if they had some deal or not (possibly the advert to download the Global Wrestling Network App at the end was part of the deal), but I am glad that they were able to show from The Final Deletion and their work there. Hopefully, this is something that will be repeated with other TNA alumni.

Finally, they jump to the redebut in 2017 at Wrestlemania 33. I will admit that was was stunned when the two of them appeared at the event and in a good way. The way they kept this secret made it even better.

What I was delighted by was the fact that it wasn't just a one-time deal or even just a one-time when they were good deal. The run the team had was almost as good as their run in 1999-2001. The ladder match from Wrestlemania was fantastic, but their two matches against Sheamus and Cesaro were even better. I would go so far as to say the Iron Man Tag match they had at Great Balls of Fire 2017 is without a doubt the greatest tag team match I have ever seen and how they were able to pull that match off is beyond a masterclass in wrestling performance.

The set ends with a look at the Woken or Broken Matt Hardy gimmick and the future of the two following Jeff's injury and return. It is shame they did not wait to see the development of the Broken Matt Hardy gimmick and Jeff Hardy now becoming a Grand Slam Champion winning the US Championship. This is story that has not finished and I really enjoyed this set and as an accompaniment to the previous Hardy Boyz set (also called Twist of Fate) it is almost perfect. My only real issue with this set is that I wish they would have just acknowledged that that set existed as a lot of it did feel redundant.

At times I'm not sure what it is supposed to achieve. It felt like it was just looking at the tag team and this would have been fine, but then they include multiple singles matches from the two, but not enough. As I say, a number of matches and moments are missing including the fantastic match between Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam from the Invasion 2001 PPV, they don't include any of the matches from the 2005 feud between Matt Hardy and Edge. They also don't include any of Jeff's World Title wins or Matt's win of the ECW Championship which is a shame.

The only other match that needs to have been on this set and isn't is Jeff Hardy's attempt to defeat The Undertaker in a Ladder Match for the Undisputed Championship. It available elsewhere, but it was such a great match and turning point in Jeff Hardy's career that it is a shame it isn't included.

However, I did enjoy the set and if you are a fan of the team or of either individual it is a great look at their career. Personally, I would have preferred a long documentary, but the talk-match-talk-match worked more because it was the two of them reminiscing about their career rather than just talking heads discussing a match or moment.

Twist of Fate: The Best of The Hardy Boyz is definitely a set that you should own if you love tag team wrestling and this team will no doubt be in most people's Top Ten teams of all time. Their work is always amazing and it is not surprising that they could split and come back and still be as great as always and still are. Hopefully, this is not the last set we get featuring these two amazing superstars.

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