Bully Ray Recalls Infamous Jeff Hardy Vs Sting TNA Match

March 13th, 2011 marked one of the darker days in IMPACT Wrestling's history — or at least one of the most notorious.

That was the day Impact Wrestling, known at the time as Total Non-Stop Action Wrestling, put on a pay-per-View known as Victory Road. The highly-anticipated main event of the PPV for the TNA Heavyweight Championship was set to be the third singles match between Jeff Hardy and Sting, who had faced off twice before with Hardy winning the first match and Sting winning the second. On this night, however, Hardy showed up intoxicated, and it was immediately obvious that he was in no state to compete when he stumbled his way out to the ring. Eric Bischoff had to go out and inform Sting and Hardy of a new finish for the match.

During an appearance on "83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff," former Impact World Champion Bully Ray recalled the situation in conversation with Bischoff, including his proposed solution to the dilemma.

"Everybody's like, 'What do we do? What do we do?'" Ray said. "I said, 'Let me go out there ... I'll attack Sting and I'll pull out a table, but I'll have Sting turn it around and put me through the table so at least the people go home happy, and we create enough smoke and mirrors that people won't realize what's happening with Jeff and we can just get him out of there.'"

The match ended up being changed to a No Disqualification match — Sting defeated Hardy with the Scorpion Death Drop in a little under a minute and a half, grabbing Hardy's tights firmly to ensure that the Charismatic Enigma would not be able to kick out.

Hardy didn't wrestle for the organization for six months, eventually having his return match in September against Jeff Jarrett. Hardy would remain with the company until 2017.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "83 Weeks" with Bischoff and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription