WWE Extreme Rules, New Orleans, LA
This is a ladder match for Edge’s world heavyweight title, a title some people take seriously. These two were tied together through their old tag team ladder/TLC matches, but this is their first one-on-one ladder match. Edge had a good line leading up about how Hardy might always steal the show with a highlight, but Edge always wins.
One of the main stories of this match is that Edge doesn’t like Jeff Hardy because Jeff Hardy is an actual rebel unlike The Controversial Rated-R Superstar™, who is in fact a good boy for corporate.
The early stuff is pretty slow. I say “slow” but I just mean they’re not going crazy right off, it’s a build to the bigger stuff. This isn’t MEGA INTENSE. I don’t know what this bit is or how to put it into words without it taking too many words so here’s a link. Hardy does a cool sort of swinging dropkick in the corner, shooting his feet through an opening in the ladder. That doesn’t look crazy tough at a glance but with how fast it goes, that’s tough to get right.
Edge with a ladder-aided sharpshooter. Can’t win with it but it looks cool and does some damage. Mostly looks cool. Edge tries to climb but Hardy dropkicks the ladder out from under him, and Hardy comes back with a cool and ugly spot where he leans the ladder, standing on its top and open, against the ropes, then throws Edge belly-first into it.
Hardy brings in a new mega huge ladder, then hits a Twist of Fate to lay Edge out. But since it takes Jeff a while to get up that ladder, Edge scoots away — so Jeff leans and grabs onto the hook holding the belt as the ladder falls beneath him. Edge jerks Hardy off.
Hardy hits Whisper in the Wind off the ladder. Of all the things Jeff Hardy has given to wrestling, one of the best is making dudes like Jim Ross say “whisper in the wind” with sincere conviction.
They do some fighting out on the floor, the culmination of which is both of them tipping a ladder, and falling through a ladder that is balanced between apron and barricade. Huge spot. HOW D’YA LEARN T’FALL OFF A TWENNY FOOT LADDER?
Back in the ring and on opposite ladders, Edge goes for a spear, but Hardy catches him mid-air and they crash to the mat in a cutter that Todd and Jim will be generous and call a Twist of Fate.
The finish is really cool. With Edge going up the ladder, Hardy manages to pull him through an opening by his feet, trapping Edge at the chest. Nothing Edge can do but watch Jeff climb up the other side and take the belt.
“THE HARDY PARTY HAS STARTED AGAIN!” Jim Ross screams, but it doesn’t go long. After the match CM Punk comes down and successfully cashes in Money in the Bank, so Jeff’s title reign lasts a couple minutes. Yet again the egomaniac CM Punk holding someone back.
I mentioned recently re-watching the 2001 Benoit-Jericho ladder match that by that point you’d already seen just about all you were gonna see done in ladder matches. Well, eight years didn’t open up any new possibilities, but I do like this one a bit better than the Benoit-Jericho match, which is quality but something I’ve always found overrated. Comparing the matches (which I know nobody asked me to do), Benoit-Jericho is louder and harder-hitting, but this one is I think more in line with what I generally want to see with a ladder match; it recalls the Shawn-Razor ladder matches more than Benoit-Jericho does, but with the advancement of crazy shit that Hardy and Edge helped bring to the format from 1999-2001, alongside Matt and Christian and the Dudleys, scaled back a bit from the biggest stuff in those matches, at least for the most part.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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