12 Years ago today, TNA presented their Victory Road 2011 PPV. The main event of the show was “The Icon” Sting defending the TNA World Heavyweight Championship against Jeff Hardy.
Hardy was intoxicated and in no condition to compete. Sting forcefully pinned Hardy to end the match in 88 seconds and this became the most infamous match in TNA history.
After the match was over, Sting responded to fans chanting “Bullsh*t” by saying “I agree”. Hardy was abusing drugs & alcohol and completed a 120 day rehab after this.
To make up for this horrible PPV main event, TNA offered 6 months free service of “TNA on Demand” to the fans who bought this PPV event.
You can watch this match below:
During an episode of the ’83 Weeks’ podcast, Eric Bischoff talked about this infamous match.
Here’s what the former WCW President had to say about that night:
“About 3 minutes before he walked out through Gorilla, Jeff’s MO at the time was to get to Universal Studios, check-in and go hide until he was absolutely necessary and it was either interview or match time.
To this day, I don’t know where he hid. He’d show up, wave and hide until 6 o’clock. I think on this night it’s safe to assume he was hiding wherever he was hiding and doing whatever drugs he brought with him.
I’m not an expert on drugs, but I’ve seen enough of it from a distance and up close to recognize it, the agent looked at me like what the f**k are we going to do. It took forever to find Jeff, he was really late getting to Gorilla.
Knowing and hearing that they were having a difficult time finding Jeff, I made my way over to Gorilla. When I saw Jeff approaching I didn’t notice Jeff being twisted up as much as I did the agent’s face.
Once I got close to Jeff it was obvious he was f**ked up.
Whoever the agent was essentially said ‘He’s too f**ked up to work,’ then it became who’s calling this?
It wasn’t my job, I was the Executive Producer of the television show, I technically had no authority whatsoever and no official role in the pay-per-view unless I was a talent or asked to input on creative.
I was just kind of standing there waiting for someone to make a decision, no decisions are being made and now Jeff’s making his way down to the ring.
There was no captain of the ship in Gorilla, it was my exchange with Dixie that was the catalyst for me to say ‘F**k it, nobody else is going to do anything. The bell is going to ring and it can’t go down like this.’ I don’t want to make this sound like I’m putting myself over or I cared so much about Sting, it was the show.
I was concerned about the show. I didn’t want Sting to go out there and try and have a match with a guy who was completely f**king wasted. I wasn’t worried about Sting getting hurt, but the match would’ve been the sh*ts and I didn’t want Sting to be in that position. Sting had no idea that Jeff was going to show up f**ked up.
I’m looking for a decision, looking for somebody to come up with an idea. We don’t have a lot of time, folks can’t call a meeting. Somebody has to call the ball, who’s going to call it? F**k it. I literally walked through the curtain not knowing what I was going to do.
There were two things that crossed my mind and they happened simultaneously. My first thought because it seemed like the most easiest, direct line between A and B, was for me and my heel character to go out and knock him out, just drop him and then have the referee call the match and disqualification.
By the time I walked through the curtain, got half way down the aisle, I realized that wouldn’t work because of the No DQ thing. So I started improvising a story and laying out a promo.
What I was trying to do was buy time to figure out how to communicate to Jeff, the referee and Sting. Now I got to rewrite the show while I’m in the ring and the show is happening and one of the people in the match is completely disabled and unable to continue. So, I did what I did.
I basically told Jeff, ‘Take his finish. We’re going to shorten this up. Take his f**king finish.’ I went to Sting, now that’s where I had to get more creative because I was trying to talk to Sting while at the same time I was trying to cut a promo and hide it all and make it look like it was a part of the show.
I basically told Sting ‘Hit him with your finish, get him the f**k out of here. Let’s go home.’ Sting was able to communicate with the referee, so that was it.
I’m glad nobody came up to me and said ‘Hey, I could’ve jumped in,’ great, if we could’ve had 45 minutes to plan that and communicate it to everybody involved including the guys in the truck, including the guys that timed the show, oh by the way, we’d have to bring Sting into the equation so he could participate.
Yeah, fantasy booking that could’ve worked but not when you have 45 seconds to figure sh*t out.
The overwhelming fog that settled in backstage was disappointment for Sting, it was a horrible position for Sting to have been in at that stage in his career. At his level of stardom to subject someone like Sting to a situation like that was embarrassing and undeserved.
I think it reflected a tremendous amount of lack of professionalism within the entire TNA organization from top to bottom and I think people were genuinely sad for Jeff. It was disappointment for Sting and sadness for Jeff.
That was the overwhelming sense, nobody was second guessing anything or blaming anybody or pointing fingers. It was just really sad more than anything.”
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