Crimes of Passion
Edge, Lita & Matt Hardy Take You Behind the Scenes of the Scandal that Rocked WWE
By Jeremy Brown - RAW Magazine, September 2005

It has all the makings of great drama. Love, hate, aggression, pain, anguish and pure, naked rage. It has a jilted lover, a broken marriage and friendships in upheaval. Indeed, all the makings of great drama.

If only it wasn't 100% reality.

Since February, the world of WWE fandom has been abuzz at the twisted and tangled web that has been woven by Edge, Lita and Matt Hardy, all stemming from the revelation that Edge had begun a relationship with Lita while Hardy was recovering from a knee injury. The discovery brought a sudden and shattering end to Hardy's relationship with Lita, which had spanned more than six years.

"It was the most serious relationship I've ever been in," Hardy says. "And I never thought that someone I actually cared about and believed in on the level of myself, if not higher, would do this to me. It makes you question the human soul, you know?"

While Edge and Lita both have expressed understanding towards Matt's heartbreak, Edge insists that the way Matt handled his grief was way out of line.

"Not to sound cold and callous, but the same thing's happened to me, and I'm sure it's happened to you," he says. "It happens in real life. And when you deal with it like a child, like it's sixth grade, OK, fine. You're 31 years old, maybe you should look in the mirror. I'm not saying what was done was right, but there's a way you handle yourself."

In recent months, Edge, Lita and Hardy have seen their personal and professional lives blend together to create an unstable Molotov cocktail - a burning powder keg that was ignited in February and finally exploded during the dog days of summer in a series of dust-ups on RAW that led to a one-on-on match between Edge and Hardy at SummerSlam. From Edge's perspective, whatever mistakes that he and Lita may have made, the blame for the situation's volatile state lies squarely with Hardy.

"This is being played out on national TV because someone couldn't separate between his personal and professional life - someone who's only been in one serious relationship at almost 31 years old, and I think it's showing why now."

The seeds of Edge and Lita's relationship were planted when Edge first approached her seeking advice about his troubled marriage.

"I was newly into a relationship that was already having problems," Edge says. "I didn't feel like I could go to any of my guy friends because they'd say 'I told you so,' so I went to my closest female friend. I thought, 'Amy (Lita) is the person I'm going to. I've got to get some advice here.'"

As the two began talking and spending more time together, Lita says their conversations brought to light things that she felt were missing from her own six-year relationship with Hardy.

"I realized what I was missing from my current relationship that I not only never had, but also never knew I was missing and never knew I wanted," Lita said in a candid interview only hours before she fell prey to a devastating tombstone at the hands of Kane. "That hit me pretty hard."

Hardy first uncovered the truth about Edge and Lita when she returned home for knee surgery following an injury sustained at New Year's Revolution. Driving to see Lita, Hardy received a call on his cell phone, a call he believed to be from Edge. "I pick up and say, 'Hey, man, what's going on?'" Hardy recalled. "There was a moment of silence and a voice said, 'Matt, it's Lisa.' It was Adam's (Edge's) wife, and she said, "I just wanted to tell you that I got a strange text message off Adam's phone. It was from Lita and it said, 'I'm going to miss being on the road with you. I love you. I love being with you.'"

From there, Hardy began to put the pieces together, confronting both Edge and Lita, who acknowledged that, yes, they had fallen in love. The disclosure led to heated verbal altercations with both Edge and Lita. "Looking back," says Hardy, "I wished I could have stayed calmer, but in that kind of a setting, it's hard to. This was the house that I built for us to live in, you know? I was looking at wedding rings, making long-term plans. And it was like, 'Why is this happening?'"

The fires of his anger now stoked, Hardy was quick to respond. He fired off a series of missives on his website excoriating Edge and Lita. "I basically said, 'I'm going to start making people eat words one way or the other.' Whatever it was, I was going to get my story out there. And that meant putting up videos on my website, doing autograph signings, posting on my message board, just getting a whole grassroots movement."

The videos in question, including one in which Matt runs over a poster of Lita in his car, fast became a topic of controversy. Looking back on the situation, Edge is perplexed why Hardy would choose to vent his anger in such a fashion. "Instead of talking to Lita and trying to show her he loves her," says Edge, "he's running over pictures of her with his Corvette and calling her a whore. To me that doesn't show a lot of love.

"We made a mistake," he admits. "Since then, Matt has made plenty."

Hardy's website soon began registering more and more hits, and the incident quickly became the talk du jour of wrestling fans everywhere. The buzz increased when, in April, Hardy was suddenly released from WWE. Instantly, speculation arose that his firing was a response to the posts on his website. Some even put forth the theory that Hardy's release may have been orchestrated by Edge himself. Edge flatly denies such a charge, maintaining that not only did he feel that Hardy shouldn't have been fired, but that he went so far as to approach WWE management in Hardy's defense.

"I didn't get him fired," he says. "Everyone's been saying 'You screwed Matt,' and yeah, throughout the whole thing, things have been done that have screwed Matt. I didn't get him fired, though."

For Hardy, being let go from WWE was a devastating blow. "Literally, since I was a kid, my dream job was to work for WWE," he says. "And then I lost it because of these circumstances. It was really unfair, but I just had to pick up the pieces and move on. You just can't lie down and die. I've been like that my entire life. Whatever hand I'm dealt, I'll try and make the most of it."

By this time, the so-called "Movement" Hardy had created was growing. In fact, with his sudden release, it all but exploded. Fans began chanting, "You screwed Matt" and "We want Matt" at events and holding up signs calling Lita "Slut" and Edge (among other things) "Homewrecker." In addition, Hardy supporters took to the internet themselves, filling up websites and blogs with posts and diatribes against the couple.

"It makes them feel better about their own lives and the problems that they have in their own lives," says Edge of the internet feedback. "There are a lot of people throwing stones at us that I could kick a boulder back at. Thankfully, I don't read the internet. It doesn't serve a purpose for me. I don't need to see what Jim McGillicutty from Boise, Idaho has to say about my personal life when he's only getting one side of the story."

While Edge is able to dismiss the criticism thrown his way, Lita has become more affected by it, feeling that it's a situation that should never have gone public. "I'm a private person," she said, "and I don't want to talk about my side and about conversations we've had. It would explain a lot if I did, but I'm not going to because it's private. All I think when I see those signs is, 'If you even knew the half of it, you wouldn't have that sign.'"

From Hardy's perspective, the fan support was incredibly gratifying. When a capacity crowd began chanting "We want Matt" at Madison Square Garden in April, he truly felt the groundswell of the Movement.

"I was just extremely flattered, because when you think about the top tier of wrestling fans, you have to think of Madison Square Garden," he says, recalling the incident. "Those guys are the most dedicated, die-hard and intelligent fans. And when Lita, who's one of the most popular girls, was up there and they booed her out of the building chanting 'You screwed Matt' and 'We want Matt,' it made me feel great. It was then that I realized that WWE and those two had created a monster. And I was happy to feed it."

The monster, now unleashed, began to wreak havoc. The chants increased, so much that anytime Edge and Lita appeared in the ring, their voices were nearly drowned out by the fans' rabid screams. "When I'm getting comments thrown at me that are personal quotes from Matt's ranting on the internet and things related directly to my personal life," Lita said, "it just makes it hard to concentrate out there."

When Lita and Edge's relationship was made fully public and the two appeared on RAW as a couple, the shock was too much for Hardy to bear. "The first week was really hard," he says, looking back. "I had to stop watching it. Especially because of the whole way everything came about and all the years and time I'd spent with Lita."

In time, Hardy's rage overtook him and he invaded RAW, attacking Edge and Lita before a stunned crowd in New Jersey before being hauled out by arena police. The run-ins continued, and after Lita was tombstoned by Kane, the path was clear for the two men to face off at SummerSlam and settle the score in the ring.

Hardy sees the return to WWE as nothing less than a total vindication of everything he struggled for. "For me, the most rewarding thing is the people and the way they literally brought me back," he says. "Knowing that WWE recognized that I had to get in the ring with Edge because the movement was something they couldn't control? That's a battle I felt like I won."

Edge sees the situation much differently. "Matt Hardy's career only got to a certain level, but never the main event," he says bluntly. "Without Jeff Hardy, he didn't get far. He was the Cruiserweight Champion. People didn't chant 'We want Matt' before this. He should be thanking us, because it's the most popular he's ever been."

Matt says the past several months have made him stronger and ignited in him a fighting spirit. From now on, no one will keep him down, and God help anyone who tries. "When bad stuff goes down, when people attack me," he says, "I don't curl up and hope it goes away. I come out swinging. I retaliate."

From Edge's perspective, he's not looking for pity, sympathy or understanding from anyone. In fact, he's not looking for anything at all. "I don't care if you side with me," he says. "I don't want you to side with me. But it's all been thrown out there except our side of the story. So here it is. Do with it what you want."
 
 
 

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