Posted in: Hustle Is Posting Right Now Hustle Is Posting Right Now: Volume 28 ("Whodunnit" Edition)
By Hustle
Jan 9, 2009 - 7:14:08 PM
Good lookin out for the banner, Noc-deeeeeeeeeeeeeezel
"I'm like a rose in the desert, but how can one grow without rain?.. how can one experience happiness without pain?.. I'm back.. and how could I fall to the violence of hell and still remain sane?.. and how could I still remain on top of my game?.. I'm back.. when both the black and white devils seek the power to rebel.. seek to defy my radiance, I shift gears to another level.. I'm focused, but it's like I'm playin a cold hand of spades.. I'm back.. I got a lot of hearts, but these fools tryin to cut me, and I'm tired of these jokers.. I'm back.. vengeance is mine.."
Can it be? Can it actually be? They just can't keep me away, can they? Word Motherfucking Life, ladies and gentlemen.. ya boy, Hustle, is back in the building once again with another edition of Hustle Is Posting Right Now, the column that keeps your baby mama coming back for more. And more. And more. AZ gives us our newest intro lines, and it's relevant real deal Holyfield.. I'm back. How's everybody doing out there in ReaderLand? It's a brand new year, and I hope everyone squeezed what they could out of 2008, and are ready to go toe-to-toe with 2009. Due to a string of unfortunate circumstances to end the year, I'm back at Kinko's (shouts out to the staff here at the Pearl Highlands Kinko's for holding me down one more time) yet again to deliver this column to the masses, trying to gain back some of the readership I've been losing due to my lack of a set posting schedule. It's all good, though. I'm alive, it's a beautiful day, and, uh, I think it's about that time. Shall I proceed? (Yes, indeed.) Less dew eet!!
It was set to be one of the biggest nights of my entire life. A night that I had been looking forward to for a long, long time. A night that I had worked for ever since I could even remember. The 2008 edition of the annual Survivor Series pay-per-view. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was November 23rd, and the holiday season was upon us. During the holidays, many people hope and pray for different things that they'll receive as presents, and I only had one thing I was looking forward to getting.. the WWE Championship. I was in a Triple Threat Match, competing against WWE Champion Triple H, as well as the man they call the "Moscow Mauler", Vladimir Kozlov. I was focused. I was ready.
My arrival in the city of Boston was probably a little later than it usually would've been, but I felt that an extra day of training would do wonders for me, so I returned home to Cameron, North Carolina for one last session, as well as some of that down home cooking I love so much. Nobody makes lasagna like the women of the Hardy family. The "down" time allowed me to charge my batteries to the level that I felt would serve me best, and I felt good when I finally did get to Boston. Really good.
After I checked into my hotel room, and had gotten myself cleaned up a bit, I called my brother to see what he was up to. It was almost time for lunch, so we decided to meet up in the hotel lobby and go grab a bite to eat. It was always good to spend time with big brother Matt. With him on the ECW roster and me on the Smackdown roster, we got to spend more time now than we did when I was on Raw and he was on Smackdown, but we're both so busy doing our own thing, and we don't hang out as often as we'd like. Even something simple like going out to eat together was a special treat.
"You ready for tomorrow night?" he asked me.
"I've never been more ready for anything in my life", I told him. It was the truth.
"Look, one way or another, I just want to say that I'm really proud of you. You're fighting your personal demons, and you're on the verge of achieving your dream. As your brother, you have no idea how it makes me feel to you get this kind of success, and to get this kind of love from the fans", he said. Matt always took care of "little bro", and he was never shy about keeping it real with me like that. I know a lot of people that have never been able to open up and praise their siblings like that, and that's a real shame. Matt and I have always been close, and from what I've been told, it's been that way since I was born.
Not to brag or anything, but I'd always been pretty popular with wrestling fans, for one reason or another, but what I'd been dealing with in the months leading up to the Survivor Series was something I couldn't prepare for. Every night wrestling in front of the WWE Universe was almost like having a Sally Field moment for me.. You like me, you really like me! People were coming up to me these days and complimenting me on wrestling better than I had ever wrestled before, saying that my matches were becoming much more well-rounded, and telling me that even my promo work had improved tenfold in recent months. I loved hearing that from the people. I thrived on that. They're the reason we, as wrestlers, do what it is we do, and I was really glad to see that my work was being noticed by people. It probably wasn't a good idea, but I was always one of those wrestlers that would pay attention to what the internet fans were saying, whether it be on message boards, in chat rooms, in columns, or just on various news sites. A lot of the boys in the back hated that stuff, and couldn't care less what the majority of "smart fans" had to say, but I always felt that it wasn't too wise to completely ignore that large of a portion of the fan base. Basically, I knew when I was doing something right, and I also knew when I was doing something "wrong". Seeing that people were basically demanding that I win the WWE Title made me felt good. I was doing every possible thing I could to make sure their demands were met.
The night before Survivor Series was hectic, as I expected. In between the radio interviews, meet-and-greet appearances, and local charity work, I still needed to find time to mentally and physically prepare myself for my match. Back at my room, I had a few hours worth of tape to watch, where I could study my opponents for the next day, and break down their every move, why they did what they did, and when they planned to do it. When it was time to take a break from film studying, I got a bit of running in to help keep my cardio up to par. Since it was cold outside (and because it would probably draw too much of a crowd), I liked to run up and down the stairs in the fire exit of whatever hotel we were all staying in. It was quiet enough so that I could keep focused on what I had to do, but it was still enough work to keep me ready. I had no idea that this little activity would go on to throw my personal and professional life into disarray.
Head to the hotel lobby.
Open the fire exit door and enter the stairwell.
Run up the stairs, every single floor until I reach the top, whether it was five or fifty flights.
Turn around and run back down to the lobby.
Turn back around and run up the stairs to the top floor again.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
That was my routine for running the hotel stairs. Simple, I know, but deep down, I'm a simple guy, so that worked for me. I was halfway up to the top floor on my first run through when I heard what sounded like someone else entering the stairwell. I didn't think much of it, of course, because it was a public place, after all, and it was something that had happened on many occasions before. The person who was in the stairwell had entered about four floors below where I was, so I wasn't too worried, because even if they were going up, I'd be long gone by the time they reached their destination. When I finally got to the top floor, I took a few deep breaths, and you know how people have some sort of a "Spidey Sense" that alerts them when things just aren't quite right? Well, mine was going off, but I paid it no mind, and I just made my way back down.
Things became a little fuzzy for me after that. I remember very brief patches, but for the most part, my memory doesn't become clear again until I was on a gurney, being loaded into an ambulance, and even then, I was barely holding on to being conscious. I remember hearing the EMT's talking to each other, and I began to piece things together, trying to figure out what happened to me. Apparently, someone had attacked me in the stairwell and ran off. The commotion was heard by a hotel worker, who found me lying in a pool of my own blood. As they were about to close the doors of the ambulance, I saw Matt hurry up to the doors.
"Jeff! Jeff!" I heard him say.
"Sir, calm down" one of the EMT's told him.
"That's my brother! What the hell happened?!" Matt asked as he forced his way into the ambulance to ride along.
"We don't know yet. Your brother was found in the stairwell by hotel staff. There was, apparently, a bit of a commotion. People heard yelling, and it appeared that a scuffle of some sort took place", was the response. With that, the doors closed, and we were on our way to the hospital, less than 24 hours away from what was supposed to be the biggest and best moment of my entire career. Even before this incident, people were saying that I was cursed and that my career would go down in history as being star-crossed. Obviously, this wouldn't help to change that opinion any.
My room in the hospital was a constant blur of people going in and out, whether it be hospital staff or WWE employees, all trying to see how I was doing. I was given some good news and some bad news upon receiving my test results. The good news was that I was able to avoid being injured too badly.. just some stitches, a minor concussion, as well as some bumps and bruises. The bad news was that, because of the injuries I sustained, as well as the suggestions by everyone with some sort of a "professional" opinion, I was out of the title match. Vickie Guerrero herself called my room from the arena and said Triple H would be defending the title against Vladimir Kozlov in a one-on-one match instead of the scheduled Triple Threat. When I heard that, it felt as if someone reached into my chest and ripped my heart right out. Title shots like that weren't exactly easy to obtain, and my immediate thought was that I had just lost my shot for the foreseeable future. I had no idea how trustworthy I was in the eyes of those who were calling the shots. My next phone call nearly made me sprint out of the hospital and run straight for the arena.
"Edge is here," said the voice on the other end. It was Matt.
"Wait.. what?? Edge is at the arena??" I asked.
"Yeah. He just got here, and people are surprised as all hell. The agents are getting word that Vickie is trying to see if she can insert him into your match." he said. I couldn't say anything. As soon as the word "match" was said, I hung up the phone and was working on getting released. The entire thing just wasn't sitting well with me.. I have a big title shot, I'm attacked in a hotel stairwell, Edge just so happens to show up and was now set to take my place in the title match.. "Ultimate Opportunist", indeed. The hotel attack was done by someone who knows me very well, because the stairwell routine wasn't something that I just went out and told everyone about. Edge knows just about everything there is to know about my brother and I, and you could say the same thing the other way around.
The doctors said they weren't quite 100% confident in releasing me because of the concussion, but really, they couldn't force me to remain in the hospital. I was warned that the fuzzy memories I had of the attack could be triggered to replay in my head because of excess stress, anger, or strenuous physical activity that involved any sort of hit to the head. Upon leaving the hospital, I got into a cab that one of the nurses called for me, and it was off to the arena. As the ride continued, I was trying to think back to the attack, just to see if I could piece things together and know, for sure, that it was Edge who was behind the entire thing.
I began making my way back down the stairs, floor by floor. As I went down, I didn't see whomever it was that had entered the stairwell as I was going up. I didn't think it was too big of a deal, so I continued my run. I turned the corner to head down one more floor, and I was hit in the side of the head with some sort of a blunt object. I fell to the ground instantly. My attacker was all over me, and my attention went to trying to stop the blows. I couldn't get a good look at the guy, but he was slightly bigger than I was, mass-wise. After what seemed like 20 minutes, he finally left, and by that point, I had already begun blacking out. There was also blood running into my eyes, but I do remember seeing long hair on the guy as he ran out of the stairwell and back into the hotel itself.
It had to be Edge. It just had to be. I called Matt and had him meet me at the back entrance of the arena when I got there. When he saw me, he told me that the title match was already taking place and that Edge was, indeed, added to it. I didn't hesitate for a second, and I took off for the ring. I remember the crowd absolutely exploding when I ran out to get a small measure of revenge on Edge.
"You son of a bitch!" I yelled at him as I made contact with him. The look on his face was one of complete shock, as if he had no idea why I was out here trying to remove his head from his shoulders. I was blinded by my rage, and it caused me to accidentally hit Triple H with a steel chair, which allowed Edge to become the new WWE Champion. That just made me even more angry.
As I'm blinking, trying to get the blood out of my eyes, I look up at the attacker as he's running out. Sure, my angle and point-of-view weren't the greatest, but from where I was, the guy didn't seem to be very tall. He appeared to be average, maybe slightly above-average.
It just had to be Edge, though. There's no way I was mistaken. The circumstances around how I was viewing things must've made it difficult for me to gauge the attacker's size. I was hauled back into the backstage area, where multiple agents were trying to calm me down. I'm sure they could piece things together on their own, but they were all asking me just what in the hell I was doing out there. I explained to them my theory about Edge taking my spot in the match, and how I felt that he was the person who attacked me in the early morning hours.
"I got bad news for you, Jeff. If Edge is the guy that attacked you at the hotel, he must have his own space shuttle, because I picked him up from the airport a couple hours after you were taken to the hospital. He arrived from Toronto. There's no way he made it back to Toronto after he supposedly attacked you, only to turn back around and make it back to Boston." said the voice, which was the unmistakable accent of WWE employee Pat Patterson.
"You've got to be shitting me, Pat" I said. He simply shook his head.
He opened the door to the stairwell, and he looked around to see if anybody was there. He turned his head to the side, and in between wipes of blood from my eyes, I saw a bit of his face.
It wasn't Edge. My memory was still extremely fuzzy, and I couldn't quite see things clearly, but I did finally realize that Edge wasn't the one that attacked me. All I "knew" was that it was an guy with average-height who had a slightly bigger build than me, and who had long hair. I was thinking about it as I was ushered into an empty locker room and told to cool down for a little while. After a few moments, the door opened, and it was Matt.
"Bro, you're crazy, do you know that? What are you doing here? When I called you, it wasn't so that you'd practically escape from the hospital and come down here like a maniac." he said.
"I know what you called me for, but I couldn't sit back and just let Edge steal my spotlight like that. I thought he was the guy who attacked me." I told him.
"What do you mean? He was the guy who attacked you. He had to have been."
"No. I was just told that Edge wasn't even in Boston until a few hours after I was sent to the hospital."
"I.. I.. I don't know what to say. Who the hell else could it have been?" he asked me. I couldn't quite gauge it, but Matt looked a bit nervous when he asked. He has this strange habit of licking his lips a bit when he feels guilty about something, and as I looked up at him, he was licking his lips.. no.. it couldn't be. Could it? Not even in my worst nightmare could I picture Matt doing that to me. It just didn't make any sense.
"I don't know. I just don't know. My memory is still blurry, so I can't fully remember back to the whole scene. I can kinda see bits and pieces of the guy, but not enough to tell who it was." I said.
He turned his head to the side, then looked back to the other side. By this time, I cleared my sight for a moment, and the only thing I could tell was that the guy's hair was dark. I couldn't tell if it was brown, black, or even something crazy like purple, but it was definitely a darker color.
"Well, whoever did this to you better hope that I don't catch them before you do. I'm not going to let them get away with doing this to my little brother." Matt said. He walked up to me, and we hugged. He had a cold, vacant look in his eyes. It was a look that I don't remember ever seeing him have before. He left, and my mind began to race with terrible thoughts. What if Matt really was the person who attacked me? The physical description of the attacker, or at least what I remember of it, definitely matched up to Matt. He was of average-height, and his build is slightly bigger than mine. He has long hair of a darker color. He even knows my routine of working out in hotel stairwells. I just couldn't shake the way he's been acting recently. The cold look in his eyes, the licking of his lips when I told him Edge didn't attack me.. things just weren't looking good, and it was the worst possible scenario that looked to be coming true. Even if he did do this to me, I don't know what would possess him to do so. It just didn't make any sense.
A few days went by, and I continued to think about the chain of events from Survivor Series Sunday. No matter what I could think of, it still didn't make much sense. As I was driving around before it was time to head to the Smackdown taping, my phone rang. I looked at the Caller ID, and it was a local number from the Boston area. Unless it was John Cena calling me from his old house, I had no idea who it was.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Hardy, my name is Mark Steinhoff, and I'm the Manager at the Onyx Hotel. I've already called your employer with this, and they directed me to your private number. I hope this isn't a problem, but we have some security footage you might wish to see at your earliest convenience." said the voice on the other end.
"I have a little bit of time to kill right now, and I'm in the area, so I'll be there in a few minutes."
When I got back to the hotel, the Manager escorted me to a private meeting room, where there was a big-screen projection monitor set up on one of the walls. There were two security guards there, one on either side of the projector, and I took a seat at the table. Immediately, the lights were hit and the projector was switched on. Surveillance footage was being shown, and looking at the timestamp in the corner, it was the moments leading up to me going for my run in the stairwell. I watched myself in the lobby, entering the stairwell, and the footage cut to one of the floors. The camera was placed near the elevators, but it had a clear view of the stairwell door, as well. It must've been a small camera, because I don't even remember seeing the elevator cameras during my stay. The footage was fast forwarded a bit, until a man entered the shot and walked into the stairwell. More fast forwarding, and the same door opened again, and the same man stepped out, looked to the side, looked to the other side, then quickly ran out.
I watched him run off as I was trying to pull myself up, and I thought the style of running looked familiar.
It was Matt.
"Has anyone else seen this footage? Other wrestlers? Any other employees with the company?" I asked.
"No, sir. Just the people currently in this room."
"Alright. Thank you for this information."
I was off again, and I had to think up some sort of a plan. The person closer to me than anyone else in my entire life had tried to end my career, and possibly even my life. Of course, he had no idea that I knew, and really, why would he have suspected I knew? It was too shocking of a conclusion for someone to just come up with on their own. I got to the arena and word got to me that Edge was planning on accusing Matt of attacking me because he was jealous of my success. Whether this was the actual reason or not, I didn't know, but I had a sick feeling deep down in the pit of my stomach. I didn't mention a word about the footage to anyone. When the "higher-ups" asked me about the phone call from the hotel, I just told them the hotel was checking to see how my condition was. Worried about lawsuits and all that jazz. I went off to visit "the boys", just to check in with most of them that hadn't seen me since sometime before the attack. I didn't say a thing to any of them about what had actually happened. I wanted to be one to do the confronting, and the one to get the measure of revenge. I just needed to come up with the right way to get that revenge.
This will be settled, Matt. You are your brother's keeper.
Writer's Note: Before anybody asks me, I have no idea where I was going with this column. An idea popped into my head, and my fingers just got to typing, and I sorta got caught up with the whole thing. This isn't necessarily what I think will be the outcome of the "Who Attacked Jeff?" storyline, nor is it necessarily what I want the outcome to be (and, yes, I read the news/spoiler about tonight's Smackdown in regards to this storyline, but I was already in the middle of writing the column, so I figured that I'd just continue writing it, and the obvious fiction sections of the column will show that this isn't too serious), but I figured I'd just have a little fun with the whole thing and post a column that actually has some sort of a personality that doesn't come across as being phony as shit. There's just not enough columns like that these days, if you ask me, regardless of where those columns are. That's just what I've been noticing during my time on the sidelines. Some people may view that as a personal challenge, and if it ups their game a bit, I'm all for it. If you feel that I'm referring to you, it's probably the guilt talking, and you should do something about it.
Writer's Note Part Deux: We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of my promotion to the LoP main page. Talk about time flying.. damn, that was an incredibly quick year. By the time the anniversary rolls around, I'll have over 50 columns churned out since my main page debut. Nobody grinds like me. I've had a few people ask me if I have anything special planned for my anniversary column, and the answer to that is quite simple.. no. Sure, there's still time for me to come up with something, but for the time being, it'll probably just be another normal column. Well, as "normal" as my columns could possibly be, I suppose. Why am I making this a Writer's Note, you ask? Because I can. Wanna fight about it?
Writer's Note Part Ekolu: Congratulations to the Florida Gators for winning the college football national championship last night. I've said it before, and I'll say it again.. Florida QB Tim Tebow is the best college football player of my lifetime, and perhaps the best college football player of any lifetime. Personally, I hope he returns to school for his Senior year, just so he can further cement his legendary status, as the Gators will be an overwhelming #1 pick for next year. What this win did, though, was show just how overrated Oklahoma was. Hell, it showed how overrated the Big 12 was, as a whole. They put up some astronomical offensive numbers, which is great, but those were numbers were racked up against defenses that were, for the most part, below average. Not saying that the Big 12 offenses aren't full of great players, but it's not a big surprise that Florida was the best defense Oklahoma faced this season, and they only put 14 points on the board in a loss. Oh, and to the Oklahoma players that were talking shit about Tim Tebow leading up to the game.. you now got beat by the guy who would only be the 4th best QB in your conference, according to you jackasses. I would've hated to watch how you got your asses handed to you by any of the QBs that you felt were better than Tebow. Way to tug on Superman's cape. While we're on the subject of the Gators, I would pay good money.. $20 or so.. to have my San Francisco 49ers draft Florida WR Percy Harvin. That guy is special, and he's absolutely electric when he has the ball in his hands. Even if Harvin doesn't declare himself eligible for the Draft, there's still Missouri WR Jeremy Maclin and Texas Tech WR Michael Crabtree to look at, and even deeper down the line are guys like Maryland WR Darrius Heyward-Bey and North Carolina WR Hakeem Nicks to look at later in the Draft process than the first few WRs will go.
Writer's Note Part Quattro: I ended the column abruptly because I plan on continuing this story somewhere down the line in a future column. I went back and read the entire thing before changing the original ending I had. This isn't exactly a cliffhanger or anything, but I guess I would like to see the feedback on this, just to gauge interest in the entire thing. I'd rather not make this writing style a normal occurrence for me, but it's just something different, and I'm always looking for something "fresh" to do.
What Hustle Is Listening To Right Now: "Mad" by Ne-Yo.. "War With God" by Ludacris.. "How We Rock" by Termanology & Bun B (Bun B rapping over a Preemo beat = classic).. "All My Life" by Jay Rock & Lil Wayne.. "Paid In Full" by Eric B & Rakim.. "Day N Nite" by Kid Cudi.. "Foe Tha Love Of Money" by Bone Thugs N Harmony & Eazy-E.. "Bad Day Worst Day" by Killer Mike.. "Fuck You Musick" by Killer Mike.. "A Dope Story" by Killer Mike.. "My, My, My" by Johnny Gill.. "Welcome To Jamrock" by Damian Marley.. "Dear Mama (Remix)" by 2Pac & Anthony Hamilton.. "Uppercut" by 2Pac.. "Peace" by The Game & Yukmouth.. "Somebody's Gotta Die" by Notorious BIG.. "Lost" by Gorilla Zoe.. "Through The Wire" by Kanye West (no song motivates me more than this one).. "By My Side" by Stat Quo.. "Heartless" by Kanye West
Words really can't express just how much I enjoy doing this for all of you. Say what you want about me, but one thing I can guarantee you is that nobody puts more into their work than I do. Although I haven't been around as often recently, I'm still grindin behind the scenes, trying to get things taken care of. I appreciate every single reader that has stuck around through all of the missed deadlines, time away, and other assorted adventures I've been through in recent times. Blah blah blah, I know. Another column is now in the books. I'm crossing my fingers because of the recent stretch of incredibly bad luck I've dealt with, but hopefully, I'll be back with yet another edition of HIPRN next week. Because of my circumstances, I don't know if I'll be able to fully get it done, but I'd like next week's column to be a preview of the UFC 93 pay-per-view with my MMA Guru, Treisk. If I can't get that done, I have another idea planned, so I'll be fine. The week after that, I'll be delivering a Royal Rumble-related column, seeing as how the column will be up two days before this year's edition of the Rumble, and I'm sure I'll find time to make my predictions for the event, as well. I have no idea why I'm telling you folks any of that, but at least you know what to be expecting from me in upcoming editions of my columns. For really reals, I can't drop the "Same Hustle time.." line, so I won't. Just keep your peepers peepin in a week, and if you've trained, taken your vitamins, and said your prayers, I'll be back. Until then, from the cubicle directly next to this hot Hawaiian girl that is probably reading this as I type it (she's been looking over here a few times.. hi, Girl-In-The-Red-Aloha-Dress-With-The-Plumeria-On-Your-Ear), I bid you farewell. Aloha and Mahalo Nui Loa.
”I'm exceedin expectations, you barely meetin quota.. I give it to em straight, you cut it with baking soda..”
"See, that's the difference between you and I.. you get money, and you get crazy.. I get crazy, and I get money..”
