PopCult Rudy Panucci on Pop Culture

Sunday Evening Video: Befuddlement

fdLast week TNA Wrestling (moving soon to Thursday nights at 8 PM on the POP! Network) presented what they hailed as an innovative new type of wrestling match, presented in a way that wrestling had never before been presented. It was called “The Final Deletion” and you can see the entire match, along with its set-up, above.

Justifying the fact that “The Final Deletion” may be one of the most moronically cheesy titles for anything ever, this wrestling match is a masterpiece of fine, grade-A schlock. Bringing together elements of Ed Wood movies, really bad 1970s Kung Fu and Sci-Fi flicks, backyard wrestling and country music videos, “The Final Deletion” is wrestling’s answer to Monty Python’s “Confuse A Cat” sketch, with it’s constant barrage of head-scratch-inducing non-sequitors.

It will leave you wondering what the hell you just watched. The acting is so bad that it’s instantly endearing. Matt Hardy, who looks like he’s trying out for a community theater production of “Sweeny Todd” and attempts to speak with a Spanish nobleman’s accent that doesn’t quite make it through his thick North Carolinian brogue, seems to be having fun, so you don’t feel bad laughing out loud at his performance. Jeff Hardy, his brother, and the apparent intended object of “deletion” demonstrates a disinterest in acting that is equally amusing.  Both brothers deliver in the ring, until the match deteriorates into a garbage-gimmick free-for-all. There is something so wonderfully crazed about this that you can’t figure out if it’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen, or the best.