2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Hardy

 

2. Jeff Hardy vs. Darby Allin AEW Rampage 1/19/24

ER: I am pretty deep in the bag for anything involving Darby Allin and A Hardy Boy. They haven't had a single thing to do with each other since 2022, but there were three different Darby/Hardy matches in 2022 and I loved them all: I loved the Tornado Tag with Darby teaming with Sting and the Hardys, I loved Darby vs. Matt despite what everyone said about Matt's "Always Been Weird, Actually" legs, and I especially loved Darby vs. Jeff. I haven't seen any of Darby's matches with Shaun Cassidy but as I said, I've loved every other match involving Darby and the Hardy Boys so I assume they're great. Now, I assumed that Darby/Jeff match was going to be The Last Great Jeff Hardy Singles Match. There was no real indication he had another in him, and while he won that match and didn't actually pass a torch, it felt almost like a guy winning in his last match before retirement, only there was no retirement. 

Now it's a year and a half later and nobody seems to want the Hardys around anymore, so Jeff gets to have a big time swan song, again. Darby and Jeff's first match felt like Jackass Forever: two lunatics doing stunts, but one guy is old and broken so does 1-2 really big stunts, making up the difference in damage to his dick, and leaves the constant bumps to the New Jeff. This match might not have a ridiculously tall ladder made for suicide attempts, but I think it's better, meaner, and created room to be more violent without needing to build to a Big Stunt. 

Hardy wrestles completely differently here and I think it's his literal best individual performance of the decade. His game looks tighter than at any part of his career, and instead of trying to match his stunt successor he decides to just beat the shit out of him. Find me any other matches where Jeff Hardy punches someone - multiple times - as hard as he was punching Darby and I'll show you some more Jeff Hardy matches I'll be writing about. Almost every time Hardy tries any kind of risky stunt in this match, he eats shit. He learns quickly that he doesn't need to eat shit to beat Darby, because he is physically bigger than him and can hit harder. Hardy has a great early miss, vaulting off the ring steps one step late and hitting the guardrail hard enough that it looked like one of the most painful bumps of the match, and decides Fuck This and just starts stiffing Darby the rest of the match. 

For years now Hardy has been mostly doing really sloppy versions of all his trademark pieces of offense, but in this match it looks like he actually wants to murder someone. Suddenly he isn't just hitting everything crisp, but he's finding violent innovations. His Curt Hennig rolling neck snap often looks like trash, but here, when he started doing them perpendicularly, running in from Darby's side and snapping his ear to his shoulder it somehow breathed new life into a move that has been co-opted by too many bad wrestlers. Jeff Hardy is somehow working smarter, not harder, and it's like finding out a guy that has a 98 mph fastball 15 years ago also could have been using a knuckleball the whole time. 

But it's difficult to work smarter when you are historically known for making stupid decisions. Hardy figuring out to dominate Darby with fists but then relapsing into missing a swanton off the top to the floor? That's just the story of this man's life. It doesn't matter that he learned to use his fists, crash landings are hardwired into this lunatic's brain. It was inevitable. This match was one of my absolute favorite Hardy stories of his career, and I'm honestly not sure he's ever told it better. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST