Muscle Busters #2: The Final Deletion
[3,893 words] The task this time was something more eldritch in nature than when we watched Yokozuna/Luger. That certainly wasn't a fun match by any measure, but it was mostly harmless in its base, early-mid nineties, American wrestling that was mostly body slams and punches.
This forthcoming episode of Buster was another manner entirely. It was almost nature's dare, the kind of "match" that has prompted the quandary on how man can make something but, then, should man make it?
MUSCLE BUSTER DRE: Truth is, I cannot be glib or otherwise snarky: you're right. This is a deep dank darkness.
It would be like if Nietzche was a booker.
When you stare into the Xtreme the Xtreme stares back also.
The suggestion, no doubt prompted by a wild moment in time possessed of twisted humours and diseased notions of entertainment, came to my good, sickly pal. I imagine it must have come to him as if an omen visited upon him by malformed horrors, the hallucination-spawned stillborn of a fever dream, rife in rapturous delight at the sincerity of his decision.
Like last time, Jim decided. Like last time, we would come out the other end of this wrestling tunnel all the more strange and misshapen for having the experience. Unlike last time, there would be no going back. Unlike last time, we would climb the Holy Mountain and have visited upon us a transitive shock of some other worldly glean.
Unlike last time we would not be the same, we would not come out of this roughly eighteen minute journey full. In fact, some of what would make us us would be gone, irrevocably torn from us.
Deleted, you could say.
This episode we travel into the grotto of the human soul, streets littered with the lost and the damned.
This episode we watch the seeming finale of a war of brothers, the trumping of which had been blaring since they were born, brought to a cataclysmic crescendo.
This episode we watch The Final Deletion.
MUSCLE BUSTER JIM: So... this is what I suggest. We are gonna watch the build up to Matt vs Jeff, then the final deletion.
MBD: I like this idea, this preamble to madness.
MBJ: Dear god...I dunno if I'm ready for this.
MBD: We're going to be stuck in Vietnamese hotels punching out mirrors naked when we're done with this. The booking. The booking. I'm sweating like I'm in a Sidney Lumet movie all right. Just extreme closeups of my dilated pupils, my mouth begging to form the words that can end this apocalypse.
MBJ: I'm glad I'm in air conditioning.
MBD: I'm fine in the shit. It gets me in the mood. It brings me closer to the heart of darkness.
Or, I guess, the Hardy of Darkness?
MBJ: Already I'm dreading this like the Libyan sands.
MBD: Remember, Jim: "they went up as men, they came down like animals."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNFcWHEXOSg
No training will prepare you for the blood and roar and stench of war. No training will adequately ready you for the thrill of the hunt, the dashed limits when survival is everything that is at stake. No amount of All Japan tapes or 2007 era Ring of Honor DVDs will get you in the least way ready for what was coming.
And the worst part is, we knew something was coming. We could see it, the black husks of men -- nay, monsters -- riding hard and damnable over the poison horizon. We wouldn't know until we saw the shapes of their madness, until we saw the gore on their sharpened points what was truly to bear down on us, sitting fat and naive, meat to be picked off and consumed.
MBJ: I begin this by asking a simple question: You think Edge and Christian look at this and think about how they must have dodged a bullet?
MBD: I wonder if Lita has to use HCL as a douche juuuuuuust to make sure. Broken Hardy just screams, "I'm gonna put my evil in you."
MBJ: I don't think anyone would blame her.
MBD: He's like the Ramsey Bolton of wrestling.
MBJ: Alright.... let's do this. May god have mercy on us all...
We began by watching the initial video to the whole saga. For some modicum of context (which would be like explaining to a child where milk came from by first explaining how the universe was formed as context), this particular yarn of despair started after Matt Hardy lost the TNA title. The loss shattered him; he began to act erratically, and told the barber to "Tim Burton Sweeney Todd" the fuck out of his hair. He soon began in a feud with Jeff, and somewhere in that loathsome drink Broken Matt Hardy was born. As the animosity continued bearing bloody fruit, it led to the previous video -- a contract signing for their big rematch at the Slammiversary PPV.
MBD: ALRIGHT. First of all: Broken Hardy has a lovely house. You know he's snarl-arghhing like Ultimate Warrior there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXNvusFPsBQ
MBJ: Great music choice too...I'm certain he hadn't showered in at least a week
MBD: I also do not want to meet the aliens that made those crop circles...There's Reby Sky, looking at least three hundred percent more Hispanic than she was on the indies. Was he using the contract as sheet music?
Jeff, seemingly summoned by Matt's discordant piano playing, walks by Reby who is utterly done with Matt's nonsense, echoing pretty much the entire wrestling world for the last eight years. Matt is inside the house, and begins with a cadence of "community theater Shakespeare protagonist."
MBJ: It'd make as much sense. Jeff doesn't seem like his in to this.
MBD: The way he says "risk take-ah and a dare deville' makes me laugh incessantly. Oh, this is all a carry job by Matt. Which I don't think has ever been said before.
MBJ: What accent is he even trying for?
MBD: This is like Bulldog/Hart of mind fucking vignettes. [And that accent] is clearly how people speak in North Carolina. Also when on meth. When Reby Sky shows up this warehouse will have more fans than your average TNA show. [Obligatory internet TNA dig]
MBJ: It really says something when Jeff "Glowboy" Hardy is the voice of reason...
MBD: You've gone beyond the pale when JEFF is the sane one, yeah. To reiterate: Jeff saying 'WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU" as his entire character is gold.
MBJ: May I ALWAYS laugh at the baby fake out.
Yup. Matt lures Jeff to an isolated warehouse -- "the birthplace of our genesis," he says. We are first introduced to Senor Benjamin, the gardener. Inside is a single ring and a stout wooden table. While Jeff wants to fight, he is distracted by the Jezebel Reby Sky, who was all into Matt's plan, tossing a baby doll to disorientate Jeff, causing Matt to hit a side effect through said stout table, in what looked like a legitimately painful moment.
MBD: That wooden table for MVP. Spot of the year.
MBJ: You think the people at the Goodwill store knew that table would be used like this?
The video had ended. The two had their match at the next PPV, which Jeff won. The next, more important video had already been queued.
MBD: This is like when you go to the all day movie marathons. Like all the Marvel movies before the next Avengers release. Gotta get the story so we understand the weight and gravitas of what's going on here. Also, I love the Senor Benjamin. He's like the Agent Coulson of this whole saga. He's the connective thread that we really feel for.
MBJ: He is! Wait....He is?
He is.
MBD: I feel like before we started I should have yelled at you like Jeff does. "COME ON JIM YOU WANTED TO WATCH THE FINAL DELETION! ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU SAID, JIM? ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU SAID?" Senor Benjamin was so popular that he got a Twitter account, which only the coolest and classiest of kids do. He should go to New Japan as Senor X Benjamin.
MBJ:"WHAT ARE YOU YELLING ABOUT? I WAS JUST ASKING FOR A RIDE TO THE STORE!" Of course Senor Benjamin has a twitter. He has to document this!
MBD: It's like in all the old tales, how there was one left alive to tell the story for future generations. In that way, Senor Benjamin is like Horatio in this tale of bloody brothers, battling into a doomed future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6y-5OYc_0
This was the match; it had been introduced in secret to many other wrestlers first, including even a few WWE wrestlers who were then doing a tour of Japan. Many posted their reactions to the content. It did little but swell public interest. Mission accomplished, the time had come, the Opus had been written now it need only be performed, the suite had been composed now we need only pull the wire across string, and breathe into the brass.
Now was time for The Final Deletion.
MBJ: I gotta limber up fer this.
MBD: I'm doing neck bridges as we speak. Chewing on broken glass and lying down on a bed of nails. Or is that how I prepare for old IWA death match tournaments?
MBJ: I Thought that was how you deal with your parents?
MBD: I do get my parents confused with horrific Japanese death matches from the mid nighties.
This time, Matt plans on, not defeating, but deleting the Brother Nero from the world and taking sole custody of the Hardy name.
MBJ: Behold the glory!
MBD: BEHOLD THE GLORY OF THE FINAL DELETION!
We tried to psyche ourselves mentally; it went about as well as could be expected of ants soon to battle a tsunami.
MBJ: You sure you would rather play Battletoads instead?
MBD: Christ that's a real "one bullet in a room with Hitler and Stalin" kind of proposition isn't it. It's like Sophie's Choice but with actual stakes involved.
MBJ: I ask the tough questions!
We dilly'd and dally'd for long enough. It was time.
FOR THE FINAL DELETION.
MBD: I LOVE the mariachi music to begin. As well as the fact that both this and the contract signing begin with a similar shot. [I had honestly not expected any sort of filming continuity in what amounted to a couple of dudes recording their backyard wrestling match.]
MBJ: I really hope that baby doesn't see this years from now.
MBD: I'm so sorry, Maxel. We cannot all be Windhams..."For your birthday I'm going to kill your uncle."
MBJ: Reby misspelled Mommy.
MBD: Longing creepy shots of Matt Hardy before I go to bed is exactly what I need.
MBJ: Christ I'd be fucking PISSED if I had to work on that lawn
We begin at Maxel's, Reby and Matt's little twist of fate, birthday party. One of Maxel's gifts is, as Matt has infamously put it, "an extraordinary...xylophone. Matt's gift to Maxel is not a new toy or even some practical clothing, but a deceleration of fratricide, because family values. The Hardy Boys have a relationship that you would likely find in the Adams Family.
MBD: I love the transition of Broken Matt from Shakespeare villain to cyber hacking madman.
MBJ: I wish they dragged out Jeff seeing the drones more. Drag out the suspense.
MBD: This is what it would look like if the Hardys wrote and directed Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.
MBJ: Matt stole [the drones] from Solomon Crowe.
Jeff is strumming away at his guitar before he is assaulted by a fleet of drones, all of them shouting "Brother Nero." Jeff destroys a few, before one (the "Vanguard 1" or "V1") projects a crimson hologram of Matt, calling for his "final deletion."
We've crested into a mortal absurdity that promises to misshapen our spirits.
MBJ: I hafta give credit. The "AW HELL NAW" was truly amazing.
It really was.
MBD: I also like how his whole master plan involved fucking up Matt's meticulous lawn. Like in a real world sense, that's mad asshole of him.
MBJ: And now that lawn is fucked up. Thanks Matt.
MBD: Yeah, that's like suburban evil. Also, Senor Benjamin I bet worked for ECW back in the day.
While Jeff is occupied, Matt takes a riding mower and cuts a line through Jeff's lawn while wearing the face of a man actively orgasming at his evil. It's truly withering, the look, and I wonder how Reby's eyes are still in her head.
MBD: "Goss--o-line." I have to say, any woman who is willing to go with you in "final deletion" of your brother is worth keeping. Ah yes, this ref is the audience proxy.
MBJ: Of course refs only wear the striped shirts
MBD: He needs to understand that he has been CHOSEN.
It's nighttime now. Matt has informed Senor Benjamin to slather the field in "goss-o-line" and "prepare the battlefield for the massacre," which seems outside the realm of most lawn technician's resume, but not Senor Benjamin, who agrees to his task with zero complaint. A ref arrives as night falls, wearing no seat belt (horrible fact: this is the same ref that was fired from Ring of Honor for allegedly creepin' up on the women). This ref will be the doula to this child of malevolent history.
MBJ: "THE SUMMISSION"
MBD: I ADORE the running gag that Jeff is summoned by horrific music playing. First the piano, now this. Also his violin playing sounds like an enemies mega attack from an old SNES JRPG. I bet Matt Hardy and Stradivarius were in the League of Extraordinary Men together.
Matt uses a violin given by his friend Stradivari, dating Matt by a few hundred years. He plays it terribly, sounded like a shanked, warbling elephant seal, which is enough to - again -- attract the presence of one Brother Nero.
MBJ: I betcha this all coulda been fixed by going to a local Waffle House or Perkins
You dear, sweet summer child.
The match begins; you could tell this was the case, because the sun fell from the sky and the planets aligned in a blasphemous arrangement, pouring heretical blathering down on the mortals of the Earth. Somewhere in the din of generic "rawk" metal, there is the trumpet that will blare the end of the Earth.
MBD: This music that would fit in with a menu screen of an early 2000's PS2 game. This movie is like The Force Awakens. Like how it rendered the Expanded Universe worthless, this match has nullified all back yard matches.
They battle, immediately resorting to using the Twist of Fate and weapons, including one which looks like a set from a children's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. Poetically, a ladder is brought in and shoved against Brother Nero's throat.
MBD: I like how Matt Hardy basically becomes a Dalek, yelling Delete instead of Exterminate.
MBJ: These are two former World Champions.
MBD: [Matt is] like the monster of the week from an episode of Super Human Samurai Cyber Squad. These men have scores of accolades between them.
MBJ: And drugs...Lotsa drugs.
MBD: Sadly, Jeff jumping from a tree is among the least idiotic things he's ever done.
MBJ: I wonder if neighbors saw this and were put off by it.
MBD: Well, sadly, this is just another night in North Carolina, daddy!
MBJ: The ladder spot is fucking nasty
MBD: Truly...and now, for the colorful money shot. Another great Jeff delivery: "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU????"
MBJ: It needs sci fi sound effects I feel
Jeff places Matt on the ladder and hits a swanton from the top of a nearby tree. Matt kicks out. Matt retaliates with...fire works. A tube that just spits off a series of fireworks, like in that one scene in Naked Gun, only that movie was much more series and grounded than what we are seeing here. Soon, a smokey haze envelops the battlefield.
MBD: I've never seen a wrestling match with a fog of war. Except for, I guess, every episode of RAW with old school Kane ever. This is like a real life reenactment of Duck Game.
Matt attempts to use a garden tool on his brother, who now has fireworks of his own, prompting the exchange of:
Bat Shit Insane Broken Matt Hardy: Oh shit!
Somehow Currently the Saner of the Two, Brother Nero: You damn right "oh shit!"
Matt hides underneath a boat, which instantaneously became one of the most meme'd moments of the whole, Avant Hardy experience.
MBD: "It's a dilapidated boat!" Matt is a ninja, using his surroundings to his advantage.
MBJ: Fucking Willow
MBD: I HATE that Willow laughs like the Space Kook from that Scooby Doo episode. Jeff is AMAZING at quick changes, by the way.
Matt gains the advantage and is able to toss Nero into the river. Matt believes he has finally deleted his brother...until Jeff's alternate persona, "Willow" emerges with a crippling cackle. Matt beats Willow after Senor Benjamin tazes him, and pins him for the three count -- until he finds that Willow, at some point, had switched out with Senor Benjamin. Matt is distraught; Senor Benjamin had been sacrificed by Willow, and the match continues.
Seriously.
MBD: Some of the best "NO" screams in cinematic history
MBJ: Poor Benjamin
MBD: Hardy did confirm that he is alive and well. He was not deleted.
MBJ: Oh good! I'm so glad!
The battle fast approaches its climax; the sky begins to brighten, the early harbinger of the forthcoming star. Before the sun, however, would be a great burning.
The two fight by a ditch, cap-ended by a giant replica of the Hardy logo. Jeff begins to climb but -- in a throwback to earlier when Matt had a candle for his son's birthday and the GAS-O-LINE that was spread around the battlefield -- Reby gives Matt the candle (triggering a career spanning flashback for Matt), which he uses Die Hard 2 style to light a blazing trail to the symbol, causing Jeff to fall off. Matt pins him and wins, basking in the purifying flames. He has deleted, finally, Brother Nero.
We give our post match analysis.
MBD: See, Jeff couldn't just win with wrestling. He HAD to go for the showboating. That will be his undoing. I wonder if Matt had that old Hardy symbol there because he knew it would trigger Jeff to do what he does. Also that flashback sequence is like the one you have near the end of Mass Effect 3, though this has a MUCH better ending.
MBJ: It's not showboating! It's making a definitive statement!
MBD: IT COST HIM EVERYTHING.
MBJ: Well, it cost him a shirt and pants...
MBD: Fun fact: I've seen this twice now and I have no idea what I actually saw.
MBJ: I feel just as empty now as I did watching it.
MBD: Do you know why you feel empty? Because the contents of your stomach have been DELETED.
MBJ: I hope so! I need to lose weight!
MBD: Just think about it: Roughly sixteen years ago, we saw these dudes call the Dudleyz the master of putting people through tables.
MBJ: 17 years ago they had the most amazing series of matches with Edge and Christian
MBD: I actually read a theory that this whole thing was a massive reference to their entire career. The old Hardy logo, the fireworks like from the Hardy feud back in 2008, the taser which was from another part of the Hardy feud, Willow, the fire at the end like the fire from when they were the New Brood. The ladders and chairs, obviously. The main drone being the "Vanguard 1" AKA the V1. Matt even did the hand signal. There's, I think, layers to this. Like I think this is going to be the subject of debate for generations. It's going to be the Stonehenge of wrestling. Wrestling fans will rediscover it eons from now and the only thing they can say will be, "what the fuck was THAT all about?" Sorry, future generations: the present had no god damn clue either.
MBJ: If it helps, this probably will always give me a headache!
MBD: I seriously wonder what Vader thinks of this. "Um, never mind what I said about Ospreay/Ricochet..." Of course that negro was in the White Castle of Doom videos so who the actual fuck knows.
MBJ: Perhaps a future Muscle Buster! Does this mean both Hardy's are retired now? Following up on that retrospective theory
MBD: Matt said this was for the "hardy name" or some such. So is Matt...both Hardys? Is Matt now Matt Nero Hardy Hardy? Will he, too, now dress up like Willow and jump off of tall cages onto no dead Samoans? Also, I bet Willow's laugh is at a similar frequency as that horrific sound through the phone from the end of Fail Safe.
MBJ: Matt's is like the roar from those fast zooms from the final seconds of the [Fail-Safe].
MBD: So, to reiterate: there are dozens of five star matches I haven't seen. There's New Japan I have to catch up on. Yet, I've seen Final Deletion TWICE now and I do not know if I can accept that. I feel like I need to pray at the altar of Misawa (and by that I mean head drop some fools like a strong style hail Mary)
MBJ: I think I need Antonio Inoki to slap the shit outta me.
From here, the conversation evolves into a lengthy discussion about some of our favorite Sidney Lumet movies.
So that was...the...Final Deletion?
It's The Room of modern wrestling angles, so mind warpingly over the top that you cannot help but wonder at the sheer lunacy involved in making this. The Final Deletion story has been the culmination of literal decades of weird assed ideas of Matt Hardy, ideas you'd normally associate with a the weirdo kid in your high school who sniffed glue behind the bleachers and had a collection of esoteric movies like Repo Man while drawing pictures of him armed with a sword battling unspeakable horrors in the margins of his notebooks. It's his Magnum Opus, his Mona Lisa of "what the shitting fuckery."
And whatever anyone can say about the damned thing, it worked. Impact got some big ratings out of the deal, and even a week or two after the fact people are still talking about it. Matt Hardy has made the bizarre transition from Team Xtreme to being professional wrestling's Ed Wood. I don't understand how it's possible that V1 would generate this kind of buzz in 2016, but here we are now, what's done is done. It's the Cannon Films of pro-wrestling, it's the Plan 9 of orchestrated sweaty dude swatting.
It's Matt freakin' Hardy.
How do I even rate this? The match itself was, I guess, in the high end of two stars, but you simply cannot judge a match that is just an element of a larger swath of story telling.
My official rating?
Aquamarine.
And if that doesn't make any fucking sense then welcome to The Final Deletion.
(Also, here's the aftermath that was released after we initially viewed TFD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJO8mpSUuVM and the Public Deletion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqsgAP9mx0 )
Muscle Museum