Twist of Fate - The Matt & Jeff Hardy Story DVD Review

Rainbow Haired Warrior. Vee-One-Ah. The Charismatic Enigma. Mattitude! Their nicknames and catchphrases are ALMOST as colorful as their wrestling careers and personal lives. This is "Twist of Fate - The Matt & Jeff Hardy Story" - the true (or as true as WWE will let it be) life tale of two brothers from North Carolina who grew up wrestling fans who dreamt of making it big and actually achieved the pinnacle of success. Though one Jeff Hardy is currently serving out a 60 day suspension for a violation of WWE's wellness policy, it's quite a testament to his popularity and that of his brother Matt that they would go ahead with this set - sure to be a box office type bestseller. After all let's be realistic - WWE is the land of second, third and even fourth chances. Randy Orton served out a suspension and ended up being WWE Champion for 203 days. Mr. Kennedy served out a suspension and is now on the verge of the biggest push of his career. That's not to say punishments are given out or taken lightly - these guys lost time and money sitting on the sidelines - but it does say that if you've got "it" and can connect with the crowd anything is possible. That's why Matt Hardy could go from being fired by WWE to being the United States Champion, and that's why Jeff could go from being released by WWE and going to TNA to coming back and becoming Intercontinental Champion. Consider that these accomplishments come after being multiple time tag champions as one of the most popular teams ever in WWE and you've got one hell of a story - their story - the story of Matt & Jeff Hardy. Let's see if two discs is enough to get that whole story in.

The one time I actually wanted to sit through the WWE commercials at the beginning of a DVD, I unintentionally found a way to skip them. I loaded "Disc 1: The Matt Hardy Story" into my PS3, and when it started auto-playing the WWE 24/7 promo I immediately quit out to the PS3 menu so I'd have time to write the opening paragraph. When I selected the disc a second time instead of resuming during the commercials it actually shot ahead to the familiar "Yes sir we promised you a great match... ANDRE, THE GIANT!" promo that airs before every TV show. Now that's a bizarre twist of fate - I have to turn the PS3 off and back on again just to see the spots I normally gripe that I can't chapter past or fast forward through! Here we go - WWE 24/7 promo again. I'm actually thinking of doing a weekly review of one program a week from 24/7 since I'm subscribed to the service - send feedback to steviej@angrymarks.com if you think it's a good idea. Up next is a promo for the WWE Home Video department, followed by a commercial for "Triple H: The King of Kings," available now. I bought it, but I just haven't worked up the enthusiasm to review a set with hours of Triple H matches yet - even though I don't hate the guy that much any more. After the standard "Please Don't Try This At Home" disclaimer we get the main menu with Matt Hardy's theme music "Live For The Moment" playing in the background. The Hardy Boyz emblem is the selection tool for one of four options - Play, Chapters, Extras, and DVD Survey. Like we always say, JUST PUSH PLAY, ya gotta do it anyway!

The DVD opens with the Hardy brothers side by side, shown climbing to the pinnacle of success winning tag team gold, only for the announcers to wonder what more is for them as a duo. This segues into Matt going on his own as "VEE-ONE" to show the world what he can do, but just as this brief intro montage has him saying that things are going great we see Lita with Edge and the whole thing crashes and burns. Oddly enough the fact that he got screwed by everybody BUT Lita may have propelled him to even greater heights of popularity, but that's getting ahead of things a bit. The feature opens with Matt sitting in a pool room telling us he grew up in Cameron, North Carolina, a place with a lot of woods and trees, where he and his brother Jeff grew up country boys with 120 acres of land to play in around them. Matt notes his mom was a soft touch, his dad was really hard, and unfortunately his mom died of cancer when Matt was 12 and Jeff was 9. Matt notes their dad always put clothes on their backs and a roof over their head, but that it definitely changed things and made him more hard and determined.

Matt says he and his brother Jeff were fairweather wrestling fans who just saw it on TV now and then until WrestleMania IV came along, at which point they were making bets with each other as to who would win the tournament to become the new World Heavyweight Champion. Matt picked Macho Man to win and the rest was history - the brothers were hooked on wrestling from then on - and not just the then-WWF. Matt says they watched every NWA episode and anything else they could get their hands on just to see more wrestling. "We were hooked, we were wrestling addicts." Matt & Jeff made the decision to ask for a trampoline for Christmas and when they got it they started training with it with the hopes that someday they'd learn enough to become big-time wrestlers. "We'll be the tag team champions, it'll be the coolest thing ever." Sounds pretty typical of two brothers growing up wrestling fans. Actual home video follows of them practicing backflips and moves on the trampoline.

Matt says from there it was time to have a match! Jeff notes it was amazing how much time they actually put into it as kids, and we see evidence of it as Matt was already practicing cutting promos for the camera on a homemade mic. His gimmick name at the time was High Voltage while Jeff's name was Wolverine. Was having backyard matches on a trampoline good enough for the Hardy boys? HELL NO. Next Matt & Jeff decided to build a ring AROUND the trampoline, cutting down trees from the acreage to use as ringposts, using garden hose for ring ropes, and BY GAWD they actually made their own wrestling ring. You can look at the home video of it and laugh if you like but I guarantee you I couldn't have constructed anything better looking when I was their age. The one time I was ever in a "battle royale" we simply threw each other off stage onto a wrestling mat in an orchestra pit - no ring posts or ring ropes of any kind. (At least it taught me I'd never be a wrestler, because I took a flatback bump and knocked the wind out of me. I felt like I couldn't breathe forever, even though it was probably only a minute or two, but it convinced me I was better off watching the shit on TV.) Once they had a ring, they decided to be a fed - TWF, which they said stood for Trampoline Wrestling Federation. Before long they recruited their friends from school to be wrestlers in their "fed" and set up chairs around it so people could sit ringside and watch. Shannon Moore notes Matt was pretty jacked compared to everybody else back then, so when he got in the trampoline ring Matt pretty much beat the crap out of him!

Of course with that much drive and determination it wasn't just enough for Matt and Jeff to have a backyard ring, get their friends to wrestle, and even put on events with full cards. They wanted MORE. They were itching to get into as they put it a HARD ring and wrestle a match for the paying public. "We wanted to wrestle, it was our dream, and we decided we were going to do anything it took to actually achieve that dream." One of their friends in the TWF knew a guy named Ken Morgan who had a harder ring with some trampoline in the middle, and he was only 15 miles away. It was a perfect match - he was wanting to promote, they were wanting to wrestle on a hard mat, so according to Matt they basically had a handshake deal to help each other do exactly what they both wanted. They started doing county fair shows and home video shows them at the fair putting on matches with their backyard friends. Eventually they bought Morgan's ring for $600 so they could convert it into a hard ring outright. They dubbed the new fed that sprang from that ECWF - the East Coast Wrestling Federation. Matt ran the shows, tried to get sponsors, and worked to make sure everybody would get $20 or $25 every show. Matt taught himself to sew just so they could make their own ring gear to save money, which ended up being a sideline business when other guys needed gear, so he was working three different jobs to make ends meet all the while pursuing the wrestling dream he and Jeff had. Jim Ross admires the passion they had to do whatever it took to get into wrestling.

Another handshake deal led to the formation of OMEGA: Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts. Gregory Helms notes it was the tight bond all of the guys in OMEGA had that enabled them to beat the hell out of each other in order to go out there and entertain the fans, and show them something they'd never seen before anywhere else. Jeff describes OMEGA as a "prime example of powerful passion." One by one all of these business and wrestling connections they were making led them to a guy who trained with Gary Sabaugh, "The Italian Stallion." They show footage of Sabaugh on WWF television - all six foot and 269 of him. Thanks to those connections and a little help from the Stallion the OMEGA guys got a job working as extras at a WWF TV taping in Youngstown, OH. Matt wrestled Nikolai Volkoff on Raw that night. Bradshaw says they were treated as a non-entity, forced to dress in a separate lockerroom, testing them to see if they were willing to tough it out. That wasn't the only test though - each guy got paid $150 to job for TV, and Stallion would only drive them to the next town's taping and get them in the door if they'd each give up $100 of that $150. Matt says he ended up getting $300 for 14 guys so while they each went home with $150, Sabaugh pocketed $4200. Matt's not even bitter about it - he says it was the learning experience they needed to get where they wanted to in this business. He even flat out says that without Sabaugh's help they never would have had that chance to learn wrestling terminology or ring psychology, and he's grateful to him for that. Ross says they got physically abused every night but they endured and came back every night with a smile on their face. After Sabaugh left them stranded one night Matt & Jeff decided to take their chances go to a taping in Macon, GA on their own where they wound up telling WWE directly "Don't call Stallion any more, call us." Ross says they were drawn to the passion the Hardys had and that's why they were signed to a contract. Matt still has the first developmental contract he ever signed and shows it on camera - sure enough it has a signature that reads "James Ross: Senior Vice President Talent Relations." From there they ended up working for WWF on a regular basis.

Up next is a part of the DVD I almost fast-forwarded past through no fault of Matt's - the time in April of '99 when they were "managed" by Michael Hayes. Honestly after the things I've learned about Hayes in the last couple of weeks I can't even stand looking at his face any more. Maybe it's a warped sense of values, but I'd rather watch twelve Benoit matches than even one Freebirds match now. Deep down I still want to think Benoit was a good guy who had something go horribly wrong in his brain that made him snap, whereas when I look at Hayes and think about him wearing the confederate flag and calling black wrestlers names I just think "YOU RACIST-ASS, CRACKER-ASS, HONKEY-ASS DOUCHEBAG REDNECK BIGOT." I know plenty of people in the South who are nothing like him, it's just that I never knew until now that Hayes was the literal embodiment of an awful stereotype. Listening to him now I feel like a cartoon character is talking to me - it's as though he's Yosemite Sam and TARNATION he intends to get that BLASTED RABBIT. The sad thing is he's not even a funny cartoon - he's just moronic. Sorry - Michael Hayes rant over. He was a part of the Hardy Boyz career so I SUPPOSE they had to acknowledge it on this disc. It's telling though that Jeff says they had never really got into booze and alcohol until they were on the road with Hayes and "had to hang with the big dogs." Thanks Michael, really good of you to get them started on the path of UN-wellness. Matt calls Hayes his "wrestling daddy" and all I can think is FOR THE LOVE OF CTHULHU MATT DISOWN HIM.

With Hayes as their manager they worked their way up to beating the Acolytes (APA) for their first ever WWF Tag Team titles. Matt says at that point their dream had come true and he would have been happy even if things had ended right then and there. "But, being a driven person, once you achieve one goal, it's time to set a new one." Eventually they did the angle where they turned on Hayes and went out on their own, and Matt notes things didn't "start clicking" at first until they ended up working Edge Christian on a regular basis, particularly at No Mercy when they had a tag team ladder match. They worked well together, the chemistry was magic, and the Hardy Boys won the match. Edge: "Suddenly it wasn't bad guys and good guys, it was four guys who went out there and busted their tails to have the kind of match they dreamed about growing up." Matt says that match is even more important to him than winning the titles the first time, because that was the match that made people take them seriously.

From here on we get a retrospective of their matches with the Dudley Boyz and Edge & Christian, which eventually evolved into the TLC matches that became so famous. I'm so thankful that I have the original tapes of these PPV's without all the damn WWF logos being blurred out. Bradshaw: "You're watching a car wreck, and you can't imagine that these guys are walking out. Just phenomenal - it was so fun to watch. When they walked out, the whole building picked up." Matt notes the hardcore style tag team match became a staple of their style. From there Lita became part of the Hardy Boyz family because she was doing the same kind of high-flying daredevil moves they were, and it was just a natural kinship. They traveled together, always thinking about the best way to promote themselves, working on the best things they could do in the ring to promote Team Xtreme. Jeff: "Our entrance was very exciting, because we were three people who were very likable, very cool, very hip. We had a lot of good matches and a lot of good times, but all good things come to an end." After a year and a half of hardcore matches though, Matt knew it was time for something new, and Edge admits the bar got raised so high it became impossible to top the things they had already done.

Ross: "WWE made the decision in 2001 to split the brothers up, to let them grow, the thought process at the time was how many more mountains to climb as a tag team, one of the greatest teams ever, but I think they both had aspirations to be individual stars." Matt: "Both Jeff and I knew that would always happen, and we were both excited about it. Jeff was the flashy guy, and I was the guy who always did the solid work. I don't think I got the credit I deserved." It's odd to hear him saying exactly what I was thinking back then - he was the hard worker who did all the technical wrestling and Jeff was the guy who did all the flashy spots to pop the crowd. I must confess that when Matt Hardy broke out on his own and started the "Matt Hardy: Version 1" gimmick I became THE BIGGEST MATT HARDY MARK YOU HAVE EVER SEEN. Frankly I still am. I LOVED Matt Facts. I thought MATTITUDE was the funniest shit ever. I couldn't WAIT for Matt Hardy to come out on TV each and every week. Once he was finally given that spotlight to shine on his own, I thought he took the ball and ran with it in a way no one in WWE could have ever foreseen.

"Times, are great, for Matt Hardy Version 1!" Gregory Helms notes it gave Hardy the chance to show a personality he couldn't in Team Xtreme. Jeff: "Oh I loved Mattitude. One of my favorite things was Shannon as his little MF'er." Moore: "There was so much entertainment in me being an MF'er. Trying to get Matt in shape for a cruiserweight match." Moore: "The stuff we did on TV was so classic. It was probably one of the biggest things in my career yet, and it meant a lot to me. Here's a person who when I was a kid, we started this thing called wrestling together, it turned into a love, it turned into a passion, and turns into me walking out with him at WrestleMania to wrestle Rey Mysterio with me at his side." Matt says it was a really special moment for him too and Jeff notes he loved watching the whole thing.

From here we go into Lita being home with a broken neck, and Jeff having left WWE, and Matt says it got a "little weird" being on the road all by himself without his brother or the woman who had become the love of his life during the Team Xtreme days. "I was chipping away, I was plugging away, and eventually Lita was going to return to the ring from her neck surgery. She approached me and asked what I thought of coming over to Raw, so we could be together for personal reasons. I join forces with her again, and a couple of months later there's an angle with Kane chasing Lita everywhere she goes. Matt notes that was a buildup to him getting chokeslammed off the stage by Kane at his "wedding" with Lita, which was a way to get him off TV to deal with a torn ACL in his left knee. Matt says normally it takes you out for up to nine months, but after six months Dr. Andrews gave him the all-clear. It gave Matt a lot of time to contemplate life outside of wrestling though, settling down with Lita and having a family, easy enough to think about I suppose given Lita was living with him at the time. What happens next is a story I followed so thoroughly online and reported so much of on AngryMarks it seems redundant to me, but I know many of you reading this review may have never heard any of it. To make a long story short Matt found Lita's cell phone had a message from Adam Copeland (Edge) on it where he professed his love to her and said he couldn't live without her. "I told her get out of my house, just get out of my house right now, leave." Jeff says even he felt betrayed given how close he felt to Edge as a friend. Edge: "I think there's only three or four people who really know [the truth]." We see a clip of Lita on WWE's online show "Byte This" saying she's sorry for hurting him the way she did.

Hardy: "I was like ready to make my return now to the ring, because my knee injury had healed, the next thing I know I got a call from John Laurinaitis, and the WWE released me. They fired me." Ross: "Hard to say if Matt being let go was a raw deal. I'm sure in Matt's eyes it was a raw deal." I KNOW it was a raw deal to me. Matt: "It was heartbreaking. I had worked my whole life to be a WWE superstar and it was gone. I needed to get back on there because I needed somethin to take my attention off my personal life, which was in a shambles." Moore: "Time was gonna heal everything, and it just took time for him to get over this emotional scar." Hardy: "This house she had helped me build, this house was like a prison. The pictures of her [...] it felt like a prison. I hated my reality at that point, I felt like I had lost everything." Ross notes having the time off to give him detachment was a blessing in disguise. "Some good can come out of many bad situations, and there was some good that came out of chaos." Well it certainly amused me in a good way that every time Edge came out for a match people vociferously chanted "HAR-DY! HAR-DY! HAR-DY!" I even took a sign to Raw in Omaha during this era reading "Edge speared Lita!" Perhaps it's for the best that WWE security confiscated it even though I was mad that they did at the time - not a really classy sentiment to put on TV. There were plenty of pro-Matt signs in the crowds though, and it was getting harder and harder for WWE to ignore the chants everywhere they went.

It's funny to me looking back now that the groundswell of support for Matt caused WWE to RE-HIRE him exactly two months after shitcanning him, just to do an angle with Edge. Many fellow wrestling fans swore they're fire Matt again after the angle was over but happily for me he's been with WWE ever since. Matt: "I knew it was going to be tough for me, coming back in, because Edge was the golden child and rightfully so - he should be. He's an amazing performer, can't take that way from him." Edge: "It was a lousy way for us to get there, but once we got there, it was like okay now it's time for us to tear down the house." Matt says despite how weird it was he knew he could get through working with Edge to go onto bigger and better things. Everyone involved notes the matches were intense, they were really potatoing each other, and it was impossible not to watch. Edge: "The cage match we had at Unforgiven, with him on top of a cage, and even with all that animosity, that's one of the few people that I would look up and see coming down on me and be comfortable with that." Matt loses the "Loser Leaves Raw" match at the WWE Homecoming and it largely ends the feud, as they had gotten through it and Matt was moving on to Smackdown. Edge says there was both personal and career growth out of it, but it's a shame they couldn't get there a different way. Jeff says he still thinks Edge is a punk, and he's able to move on from it, but he'll never forget it.

Matt talks about how Jeff was burnt out on wrestling, and how he was given an ultimatum of go into rehab or leave WWE. Jeff left. "We had both been through a lot of personal battles to get to this point, I think it made us both strong people. The moment I remember when Jeff said he was gonna come back, he said you know this year it's time for me to make that comeback, to go back to the WWE. It's time for me to get my {shit} together." Bradshaw: "They both had good successful singles runs by themselves, and when they get back together people still love the Hardys." Jeff notes how fun it was for them to reunite on ECW. Matt: "I didn't want it to be a case of oh we just said the Hardys, they were good, but back in the day they were awesome. I wanted it to be OH MY GOD THEY WERE INCREDIBLE, DID YOU SEE THEM, IT WAS GREAT - 2 EXTREME!" Tony Mamaluke got hit with their new double team move - a powerbomb neckbreaker. The day after WrestleMania, the Hardy Boyz became tag champs. You have no idea how badly I was kicking myself considering I was still in Detroit and my flight home didn't leave until Tuesday morning that I hadn't bought tickets for Raw.

This led to a weird period all throughout 2007 where they were on-again, off-again as a tag team, wrestling as singles too. Eventually though after Matt and Jeff lost the tag titles, Matt moved into feuding with MVP for the US Title, eventually becoming reluctant partners as tag team champions. The bio starts to wrap with Matt Hardy saying he's still got that goal to achieve the biggest singles win of his career, and that's to get that US Title. Of course as we all know he's achieved that dream thanks to the Backlash PPV. Kennedy: "I was doing independents, trying to get a job around here. Matt told me hey, we went through the same thing, as long as you keep being persistent and try to get better and keep sending tapes, your day will come. He's not just looking out for Matt Hardy. He's thinking how can I make everybody better because if I make everybody better there's more fans in attendance, and that's a cool thing for Matt." Ross: "Matt Hardy truly loves this business, and I can't ever see him doing anything non-sports entertainment related." Matt closes by thanking the McMahons and everyone at WWE for giving him the chance to do what he loves for a living.

Extra features on "Disc 1: The Matt Hardy Story" - a no-DQ countout match between Hardy and Kane at Vengeance, a steel cage match with Edge at Unforgiven, a Money in the Bank qualifier against Joey Mercury, a match with Mr. Kennedy on Smackdown, a rare OMEGA tag title match with Jeff against the Serial Thrillaz, a High Voltage promo, Matt starting a fire, and Matt Hardy's crib. Since this review is already longer than shit as it is I'm not watching all of this right now (I've seen almost all of it except for the OMEGA match anyway) and moving on to "Disc 2: The Jeff Hardy Story." The menu options here are basically the same as on Disc 1, sans the DVD Survey - Jeff's disc is also sans all the promos on Disc 1 other than "Please Don't Try This at Home."

Ross: "I think Jeff Hardy is best described as a unique, enigma. He's got a little bit of James Dean in him, but he's talented as hell." Matt: "He's extremely talented, and I don't think he knows just how talented he is." Edge: "I've always said I'd love to just for one day hop into Jeff's mind, and just take a ride through it, and see what goes on in there - and I mean that in a good way." I'd HOPE you meant it in a good way!" That's the last comment before the title screen: "Twist of Fate - The Jeff Hardy Story." Jeff reads us one of his poems as the worlds scroll on the screen: "I wonder if they will be my fans, until I have to fold? I wonder if they will remember Jeff Hardy, as he grows old." You already know the story of Jeff's early life from disc one, growing up in Cameron and losing their mom at a young age. Jeff on his dad: "Boys, we're just gonna move on. We can't let this get us down." Jeff walks through the woods of North Carolina wearing an Xtreme Couture t-shirt. "I feel my mother so close to me right now, not on a human level but on a spiritual level very good, and it's very hard to explain." More poetry: "She was one of us, we are one of her. She should be remembered, our respect we should send her." Jeff attributes the success they had to her spirit, and the determination they got from her.

"I remember having a dream of being a pro baseball player at one time, but after WrestleMania 4 I think that was pretty much the line where we said nah, we're gonna do this." Story of the backyard trampoline ring again. At this point Matt says it was either the Trampoline Wrestling Federation or the Teenage Wrestling Federation, they were never really sure because they were doing both. Jeff: "Matt and I did pretty much trainer ourselves by watching television and studying tape after tape after tape." Ken Morgan fair show story again. This review is actually going to end pretty quick if it goes on like this. OMEGA story again. The early history of the Hardy boys does seem to be cut down a lot more on Jeff's disc, as we're getting through this in about half the time. Jeff talks about Stallion taking them to do spots for WWE. Bruce Prichard: "Had we known Jeff was as young as he was, I don't think he would have been wrestling at the time." Hardy: "That led to the evening I worked Razor Ramon on Raw. I was so nervous." Moore notes everybody in school already liked Jeff, and he became even more popular with his peers after being on TV. Jeff: "After that match aired, I got kicked off the wrestling team. It was the silliest thing ever. The athletic director said if you can accept money for wrestling it would be like you going to the NFL and coming back to play high school football. No it wouldn't - it's not even on the same page!"

Well maybe Mike Adamle isn't such a big idiot after all - one of the chryons for a match Jeff had on Raw during this era actually READS "Jeff Harvey." Understandable though as he was a complete unknown at the time - just another jobber. Hardy: "The regular TV shows would be the superstars versus the nobodies, which we were at the time. You'd get your ass kicked. Your job was to make the superstars look good." Michaels: "They were guys you wanted to be in the ring with, because they would just do anything. They could take a beating like nobody's business, they could really get guys over." They even played the "jesters" opening the entrance doors for the matches during King of the Ring, but that wasn't the worst of it - they actually had to carry King Mabel in his full regalia, sitting on a throne, all the way to the ring. Poor Jeff has probably had knee and back problems for years just from he and Matt having to help carry Viscera's bulk out there. Nice to see though that Disc 2 is finally deviating to a large degree from Disc 1 and telling different aspects of the Hardy story. Prichard: "They just wanted to wrestle, they just wanted to be on the card. I think they were shocked when we finally offered them a contract."

In keeping with the theme of being different from Disc 1, we don't immediately jump into Jeff's WWE career with Matt as a tag team. Instead he welcomes us to his "Imagi-Nation" which is really the backyard of his trailer where all of his paintings, aluminum sculptures, and motocross tracks are. "It's in horrible shape right now because the weather's been rough on it, and it almost reminds me of Armageddon but STILL, it's Jeff Hardy's world - it's the Imagi-Nation - welcome." There's no doubt that Jeff Hardy is... to put it gently... an ECLECTIC individual. Shannon Moore: "The Imagi-Nation, that's uhh, that'd be the world within Jeff Hardy. It's Jeff's world. It's his comfort zone." He shows how he makes his aluminummies (aluminum mummies) with plastic hugs and aluminum tape. I'm not much for sculpture, but his paintings and murals are pretty damn good. Jeff shows off his "organic tattoos" which are roots going all the way up his arm to his neck. "I just love the fact that I'm committing to a lifetime deal of ink on my skin. This right here I done myself." We see Jeff putting the acrylic paints on his arm before he came out for matches. "What's cool about that as opposed to tattoos is you can be different every week." Turns out Jeff also designed the Hardy Boyz logo, the HB used for everything the Hardyz do, so props to you Jeff - I have a chain you designed and it's one of the few I actually wear from time to time. I'm not big into shit around my neck (particularly gold and platinum - to me it's a waste of money) but I've always liked that HB logo and the Hardyz in general so I don't mind sporting it once in a while.

Jeff talks about the thrill he gets from riding motocross and we see videos of him making leaps with his homemade tracks, but he notes the machine of his body has done more for him than 250 CC's of power. The greatest adrenaline rush he gets is the roar of the fans when he does something crazy. Prichard: "He always has to top himself and do something more spectacular, more innovative, more dangerous than he did before." Ross: "He has done some of the most suicidal moves one could imagine and has lived to talk about it." Hardy: "I want to do something that's going to blow people's minds every time." This whole section is one crazy jeff Hardy bump after another, complete with a lot of Ross freaking out on commentary, but we also hear Paul Heyman's voice too! Prichard: "Jeff's not afraid of anything, he has guts that are unbelievable." Jeff says the worst injury he's had so far isn't even from wrestling - it's a broken collarbone from motocross. Ross: "Always the devil and the risktaker, hey if I'm going down I'm going down in a blaze of glory." Everybody continues to put over Jeff's credentials, transitioning to talking about them as a tag team, with Rey Mysterio noting that they were the guys who brought the next level of high flying to WWE.

Jeff Hardy: "When I won the IC title from Triple H man, it was once again another, I never expected that so soon - it was a huge thing to me. For one of the Hardys to upset Triple H was just mindblowing. I only had it for a week that time, but nevertheless I could have had it for just a night and it would've been just as good. Words can't describe how neat that is." Matt notes it was the first singles title either had in the company at the time. From there the rocketpack was strapped to Jeff's back to be a star beyond just the tag role. Ross notes he has musical ambitions as well and Jeff talks about his band Peroxwhy?gen. Shannon Moore: "That's something he loves to do, he loves to make his own music." Jeff shows us his recording studio, which is another trailer in the Imagi-Nation, but apparently the studio is closed down for now. "Four or five months ago, my buddy from Cincinnati came down, we did five acoustic sets and got a pretty good little response. I'm a fan of all music man, there's some country I like, there's some rap I like. Music is music to me, and that's pretty much the way I look at that. Maybe by the time I'm 40 I might could be a rock star." Gregory Helms notes he could have been a superstar at anything but fortunately for the wrestling world he chose wrestling.

We see Jeff Hardy's ladder match with the Undertaker, back during his BikerTaker phase, when the undisputed title was at stake. Of course it wouldn't happen that night, he didn't win the match, but Ross notes that he won the respect of Taker and of the fans worldwide by having a great match and having Taker raise his hand after it was over. Prichard: "I believe in that one night Jeff Hardy was made." Jeff notes it was so hard for him to live up to the high hopes people had for him, and he had so many other interests at the time including his art. "I was pretty much burning myself out, cause you only have like 2 days at home, and you're trying to do all this stuff you want to do, and you don't have time for it." That's how Jeff explains how he was late to shows and having personal problems. Matt is a little more direct though: "He was starting to fade into a darker zone of his life, he had some issues going on personally he needed to address." Jeff finally comes out and says it was "demonic atmosphere of drugs" and that he failed a drug test. "They offered me rehab, but that was my way out. That was my exit out. I'll take my release over that." Ross: "We had no other alternative but for him to leave the company." Helms: "He kind of went into seclusion for a little bit, it seemed like he wanted his space, and I respected that."

Jeff enjoyed his time off, hanging out with his dad, painting, finishing his motorcross tracks, a good year where "I had no desire to wrestle at all." He talks about giving "the other company a chance" because their schedule was easier than WWE's and how he did that "for a couple of years." Eventually he got tired of seeing his brother in WWE and not being there, and wanting to prove to the people who said he would never come back wrong. "My TNA deal was actually running out, they wanted me to resign, I went to a Smackdown show in Roanoke though to see how everybody was. I talked to Vince that day, and Johnny Ace, and their #1 was that I was clean. And I was clean. I got the contract in the works and boom, it happened like that. I was excited but pretty nervewracked as well, I had a lot to live up to. The fans believed in me though. It felt great to return to Raw and have open arms from the fans." Ross talks about Jeff's unique ability to connect with the audience. "He has kids, women and men all in his corner." Helms: "If he walks into a room people just stare at him. It's that it factor not everybody has." The last three minutes are clips from all the matches he's had since coming back. The entire bio on Jeff is only 43:30 long, even though it seems a lot longer watching it. I guess that just goes to show what a "charismatic enigma" he really is, since you don't even feel like you got to know enough about him in that short amount of time, even though between his disc and Matt's you've seen so much of him and his work. "People ask me how I do what I do, I say your guess is as good as mine."

Extras on "Disc 2: The Jeff Hardy Story" are as follows. Tag Team Tables Match - Hardyz v. Dudleys at the Royal Rumble. IC Title Match - Hardy v. Triple H on Smackdown. Steel cage IC match - Hardy v. Nitro at New Years Revolution. Money in the Bank qualifier - Hardy v. Shelton Benjamin on Raw. Tag title match - Hardys v. Cade & Murdoch at Judgment Day. Hardy v. Triple H at Armageddon 2007. Steel cage - Hardy v. Umaga on Raw from January 7th, plus two more items labelled "Hardy Dogs" and "Old Grow." I don't think I can watch "Hardy Dogs" because I'll think about the poor dog who died when his trailer burned to the ground, and that's just too depressing. I'm sure WWE already had that filmed and mastered even before the tragedy, so it's not like they could take it off the DVD, but it still feels odd. Hell them even acknowledging TNA exists or that Jeff spent time there feels odd! Overall TWO HUGE THUMBS UP for "Twist of Fate: The Matt & Jeff Hardy Story." The bios alone without the matches are great, the matches alone without the bios are some of the most spectacular you'll ever see, the combination together is a value priced set of entertainment that's a bargain for $20 or less depending on where you buy it. Don't do a swanton off a ladder in front of Best Buy or Wal*Mart to get one, but do run to the nearest retailer that has the DVD and get your fix of two of the most entertaining wrestlers to ever grace the annals of WWE.