Back in 1999, when 21-year-old Jeff Hardy and his brother Matt were called up from job duty on WWF weekend television, it took mere months, even weeks, before the fans were climbing over each other to call them the future of this industry. It wasn't long before internet fans the world over were calling Jeff, in particular, "The Next Shawn Michaels" - a label that smarks had been wetting themselves in anticipation of thrusting upon the first upcoming blonde-haired high flier they could find after HBK's retirement in 1998.

The world was in love with the Hardys; but I wasn't.

To me, Jeff Hardy has always been a lot of things. He's been powerfully committed. He's been genuinely passionate. He's been borderline certifiable in the attempts he's made to take highspots up to - and beyond - the line of reason. But more than anything else, Jeff Hardy has always been one thing to me.

Overrated.

You see, to be a top superstar, it takes a lot more than highspots. It takes even more than will, and passion, which deep down I've always felt Jeff Hardy had in spades. To be a top star takes a sixth sense; a shade of the kind of pure instinct that made Jake Roberts a star. Some guys, like Ric Flair and Ted DiBiase, had that uncanny sixth sense, that timing, in every promo, every match, every spot and every bump. They knew what to do. They knew when to do it. They knew how to do it, and most importantly, how to time it.

Other guys, just a shade below this level, like Shawn Michaels and Chris Benoit, have also risen to the top of the business. Guys like Shawn and Chris don't quite have that instinct when it comes to promos - they have to grasp for timing, they are not naturals, no matter how much they'd like to believe otherwise. But no matter how "uncool" it has become to say this, the fact remains that at the end of the day, where it really counts is in the ring; and in the ring, where it matters most, you will rarely see guys like these even an inch out of place. They are guided by a force, a raw performer's instinct, and they have sacrificed their bodies to follow that force to greatness.

To me, Jeff Hardy never had either of these qualities.

For years, day in and day out, Jeff Hardy cut promos with the passion that one would use to order a plate of pancakes at Denny's on a sleepless night at 3am.

For years, Jeff Hardy has come to the ring fired up and nailed some highspots in rapid succession. Then, invariably, the first second he lets up for a moment, the match falls apart. The crowd dies. The aura, the timing, the buildup evident when the Flairs and the Benoits take the ring - whether they're bumping, selling, or ever so slowly getting their breath back - the aura dries up, suffocating the fans, the performers, the energy from the match. After the highspots, Jeff has nothing else. He is empty. He needs highspots to get a pop - the same highspots that many wrestlers have gone through careers and won world titles having never performed. Jeff is the ultimate WWF wrestler - because he'll hit Raw or Smackdown, hit his three-minute repertoire of highspots, and take it home to the finish. The suffocatingly small timeslots that shackle performers like the Benoits and Michaels, Flairs and Malenkos, have given Jeff his career and saved him for being revealed as a one-dimensional hack.

Throughout his career, no matter how much I respected Jeff for his passion, I never, ever gave him a snowball's chance in hell of headlining; because the Jeff Hardy I saw on television could never wrestle a singles match. The Jeff Hardy I knew could never become a star based on his dopey interviews and bland character. The Jeff Hardy I knew could never draw a buyrate, develop a match or play on my emotions.

But after two years, Jeff Hardy may be ever so slowly changing my mind about him.

The first time I looked twice at him was during his "disaster" of a match last fall, when the Hardy Boyz went through their short-lived and ill-fated breakup. It was the infamous match Jeff wrestled against Matt on pay per view, which was void of all but the tamest highspots.

Stripped of everything that defined him, Jeff was different. The crowd was dead, for one thing - They couldn't relate to him. Whereas in the past, Jeff was either saved by multi-team tag matches, where he could take rests before highspots, or at least got pops for those highspots in between long periods of meaningless transition spots in his PPV outings, here he had nothing. The fans saw Jeff, and they didn't see highspots. They didn't understand. They had only ever known him as "Extreme." Suddenly, he was wrestling more like Ric Flair.

Ric Flair.

From his selling of a leg injury, to the psychology of the match, Jeff showed shades - shades - of a man who understood more than highspot pops.

Perhaps this was all booked by one of the road agents. Maybe he really didn't know what he was doing at all, and "fluked" his way to moments of inspiration. But for fleeting moments, he made me look twice. He made me think he could be more than a wrestler - that he could be, as Lance Storm eloquently referred to months ago, as a "worker."

That night was a long time ago now, and by the time I hit the bar for Raw on Monday night, it was a distant memory.

But shortly after 9:45pm on Monday Night, those memories of Jeff's performance in that one match last fall came flooding back.

For only the second time in three years, Jeff Hardy made me look twice.

First, he cut an interview with Terri, where somewhere between the cardboard delivery of his lines, a little bit of the passion that he brings with him to the ring every night finally leaked out. Just a little piece of Jeff Hardy, the world's biggest wrestling fan, was harnessed - a little piece of his heart made it through his body to his lips undaunted, and if even for a few seconds, Jeff Hardy became a character that I cared about. The passion in his soul could be seen in his eyes, and heard in his trembling words, as he anxiously climbed a backstage prop, foreshadowing his intentions for the match later on.

Going into his ladder match against The Undertaker, I wanted Jeff to win. I wanted him to win because he deserves to. I wanted him to win because The Undertaker has had the most amazing string of God-Awful performances I've ever seen in a long time, dragging even sure-fire bets like Austin and Rock down to slow, lethargic matches. And yeah, I wanted Jeff to win for the hell of it. Even though he'd certainly end up tapping to Kurt Angle on Smackdown faster than Curt Hennig's mouth on an international flight, the mere notion - notion - of deserved elevation was too sweet not to appreciate.

As expected, Jeff didn't win. Once again, Jeff did the job.

But the truth is, The Undertaker's handshake was a lot more valuable than winning the WWE title would ever have been to Jeff Hardy's career.

Remember, it was this time last year that Jeff won the Intercontinental title from Triple-H - and I'll bet that most people, like me, had long forgotten about that hiccup in the space-time continuum a long time ago. Hunter squashed him on the next show, regained the title, and one week after he captured the number two singles championship in the world from the most pushed wrestler in North America, Jeff Hardy was a mid-card jobber again. Sure, he gained a title reign; but no elevation, no respect came with it, and he certainly didn't become a better performer because of it.

But Monday night, Jeff Hardy, the character, the performer, the commodity - he was elevated.

Monday night, the man billed as the most hate-filled, vicious, dominating wrestler in the world put him over not as a one-time fluke, not even as a wrestler.

The Undertaker put Jeff Hardy over as a man.

More importantly, Jeff Hardy took a personal step towards being a "worker," when in both pre-match promos and his post-match interaction with a humbled Undertaker, Jeff Hardy showed the fans more heart than all his highspots combined.

Now, for the first time, I truly believe that Jeff Hardy has what it takes to become a headlining star in this business - to become World Champion, somewhere, someday, and make an impact on this business bigger than gimmicks and highspots.

Monday night, Jeff Hardy took a big, big step on the long road to greatness.

Now you've got me rooting for you, Jeff; so let's see you do it again, kid.