I'm not a perfect person, nor have I ever claimed to be. I've made a lot of mistakes in my now 19 years on the planet, and I'm sure my days of screwing up aren't over. Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment have also had their fair share of mistakes through the years, with one of their more interesting ones taking place as I type this. It's a storyline that isn't brand new to the world of professional wrestling, but the twist that has been put on it this time around is what's a bit questionable in my mind.

In one corner, you have the current World Heavyweight Champion, Jeff Hardy. In the other corner, you have the "Straight Edge Superstar", and former World Heavyweight Champion, CM Punk. Hardy, for those that are completely new to the world of pro wrestling, has had some pretty well-discussed battles with painkiller addiction, as well as some pretty well-speculated battles with other types of drugs. Punk, on the other hand, lives his life without any of the "vices" that others deal with.. he doesn' drink, he doesn't smoke, and he doesn't do drugs. They're very different people, who have made very different decisions in life, yet have an incredibly similar goal.. to be the absolute best at what they do for a living even though CM Punk is a thousand times better Jeff.

When I first read that there was a possibility of those two feuding with each other, I must admit that I cringed, because I had a nagging feeling that the storyline was going to take a wrong turn somewhere along the way, and that wrong turn looked to have finally taken place on Smackdown a mere four days ago with Jeff's in-ring promo to start off the show, as well as with Punk's "official" heel turn to end it.

I'm not a big fan of WWE's switch to a more kid-friendly product, but I absolutely understand the reasoning behind the change. With that said, however, I really have to question the intelligence of this storyline taking place, effectively making the man with the clean drug-free lifestyle a "bad guy", while praising the addict for being "unique". Without actually coming out and saying it, the point of Jeff Hardy's recent promos has basically been the following:

"I am who I am today because I make my own decisions in life, and I do the things that I want to do, not what society tells me I should and shouldn't do. Rules are always meant to be broken. Living your life like CM Punk is just boring, and you don't want any part of that."

Quite the dangerous line of thinking, especially considering the fact that, perhaps more than any other superstar in wrestling today, Jeff Hardy's fanbase has some mighty impressionable people in it considering it consists of mostly children and retards. Is that really the message we should be putting out there for them to learn from? Is that really how we want people to think? What about the parents that bring their kids to WWE shows and have to sit through Hardy/Punk promo exchanges? Something tells me they probably aren't too happy with their kids rooting for the addict and booing the guy whose only real "bad" trait is that he doesn't do drugs.

A little over five years ago, a somewhat similar storyline was taking place between then WWE Champion Eddie Guerrero and challenger Kurt Angle. That storyline was done beautifully, in my opinion, and it's something that should've been looked at by Jeff Hardy, CM Punk, the WWE writers, and anybody else in charge of decision making before the current story took place. Back then, Kurt was preaching to the fans about Eddie's well-publicized battles with drugs and alcohol, and how Eddie's past made him a poor choice to represent the Smackdown brand as its champion. Eddie, in response, admitted to his problems and would talk about how he made mistakes. Mistakes that he then spent years trying to fix. It got heel heat for Angle, but it also helped Guerrero's face heat, because he was the figure that "Joe Schmoe" could relate to.. someone who was human, made mistakes, but tried to grow from those mistakes and become a better human being from them. He told people not to be like him and make the decisions that he made.

More recently, we had a fantastic storyline between Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho that involved Shawn's past ways before he devoted his life to Christ and became a Born Again Christian. One of Jericho's main points of attack was that he felt HBK's changes were a "fraud" and that he hadn't actually left his "sinful" ways behind. Michaels spent his promos trying to distance himself from the "old" Shawn Michaels, and paint a picture of the "new" Shawn Michaels.. the man who became a follower of Christ, found the woman of his dreams, settled down, and started a family. He came across as a man who admitted to his mistakes, but found a way to atone for them, and is now as happy as he's ever been because of it.

Would it really be so difficult to get Jeff Hardy to come across as being somewhat apologetic for his past? I get that he's a bit of a "free spirit", and I get that his character has been built that way for years. However, he's only one step away from saying "Hey kids, do drugs and you can be just like me!" at this point. I have no idea how much of this is Jeff's doing compared to how much of this is the doing of the WWE writers and producers, but it's a strange similarity to Jeff not admitting that he has a problem and turning down offers to go to rehab. This could've been avoided, quite easily, if one of Jeff's first promos in this feud had him "man up" and try to distance himself from his past. At this point, after several weeks worth of promos, it might be too late to believably get that point across to everyone.

The one minor detail of how the company is handling Jeff's point of view is what has me worried about where things are headed.

We shall see, I suppose.