I think the issue there was that people traditionally have been sympathetic to Matt Hardy over his career, particularly "smart" fans.
Believe it or not, there was a period of time right after his WWE release where Matt Hardy was about as popular as Mr. Anderson (ie not very). The problem was, Matt was acting out on the internet posting really dumb internet videos and around that time even teased committing suicide which really pissed fans off.
When he first signed, he was cited as another tone deaf signing by Cornette and fans weren't happy that one of the bright prospects was stuck working this back and forth feud with Matt. Especially since it wasn't producing any quality matches (which the ROH fanbase was obsessed with at the time).
Fortunately Matt is too talented to keep down for long, he started cutting some of the best promos in the company, took that form into TNA and then really upped the ante with the Broken Matt persona. As great as the Broken Matt persona is, I find his previous gimmicks highly underrated and feel he was one of the best heels in the biz who was unfortunately lost in the black hole that was TNA.
Anyways, caught the 15th Anniversary Show. Daniels finally did it and captured the ROH World Championship in a quality babyface vs heel match which saw Kazarian double cross the Bullet Club and help his Addiction buddy out. A really cool feel-good moment and it maybe one of the best title changes we see this year. I doubt Daniels will hold it for long, but considering how under-appreciated he's been, it's nice to finally remove that albatross from around his neck. He's no longer the independent Roddy Piper...
Other highlights include...
- Lethal and Fish working a tight 15 minute back and forth match. Fish telegraphed a lot of Lethal's big spots and they worked off the back of that, with Jay crashing into a guard-rail from a tope. I'm not a huge fan of Lethal's work but this was one of his better outings.
- Rush vs Scurll had it's moments. The way Rush moves around the ring reminds me a lot of Ultimo Dragon and Great Sasuke, just a very fluid performer that makes everything look as dramatic as it can be. I thought they were on their way to the match of the night until Rush escaped out of the Chicken Wing and they had this extended finish which Colt Cabana completely buried on commentary. I think you guys might be able to enjoy it more than me, but when matches drag on it bothers me.
- The triangle no-dq tag between Roppongi/Bucks/Hardys had it's share of highlights and lowlights. Again if you're a fan of these teams, you can jot this down as another fun outing. However, if you're a Debbie Downer like me and infrequent comedy spots take away from a violent championship match than it may temper your expectations.
Otherwise outside of Kazarian earning a TV Championship match, the rest of the show was just there. A lot of matches on the card just seemed to be booked for the express purpose of giving their guys something to do. The obvious lowlight was TK O'Ryan shattering his leg on the guard rail from a kamikaze dive from the outside. Only seemed like a matter of time before that would go horribly wrong and unfortunately for TK he felt the brunt of it.