cover image The Hardy Boyz: Exist 2 Inspire

The Hardy Boyz: Exist 2 Inspire

Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy. It Books, $24.99 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-06-052154-7

Known for their high-flying antics and a particular affection for the ladder-as-weapon, sibling wrestling duo Matt and Jeff Hardy stake out new terrain with this double memoir recounting their young lives in professional wrestling. Beginning with a hardscrabble upbringing on a North Carolina tobacco farm, shaped by their father's tough love and their mother's premature death by cancer, the book goes on to detail the brothers' rise through the ranks of the wrestling world, from indie circuit to professional wrestling federation. With loads of action photographs to underscore the bone-crushing journey, the book recounts a litany of hard-fought matches and even some romance interludes, told in rotating first-person paragraphs. Overall, brother Jeff comes across as the more creative of the two, expressing his individuality through hair dye and tattoos, while Matt comes across as the tougher, more hard-nosed of the siblings. Full of gym-class motivational diatribes and exhortations to ""extreme"" living (i.e. jumping out of hotel windows into the snow wearing only boxer shorts), this book is part star bio and part inspirational tract for the burgeoning road warrior. It also, perhaps sadly, marks the break-up of the team, as the Hardy Boyz head off to build wrestling identities as solo performers. (Mar.)