AEW star Matt Hardy was a recent guest on the “Under the Ring” podcast and commented on his brother Jeff recently signing with All Elite Wrestling, telling him about the creative freedom the talent in AEW have, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On The Hardy Boyz reunion: “It’s extremely special, and I feel like the deeper we get into our career, the more important it is because we know we have a finite amount of time left to do this, especially together. And it was very important to both of us that we go out the same way that we came in, as a tag team together. And I really feel here at AEW gives us a great opportunity to really cement our legacy as one of the greatest tag teams of all time.”
On the AEW tag team division: “The AEW tag team division is loaded and one thing that I really appreciate about AEW is that they really respect tag team wrestling, they’re willing to treat it like the main event,” Hardy said. “Like the main event program, it can be (that). And I think a lot of that stems from The Young Bucks because they’re two guys who, when forming AEW, really wanted to stress the importance of tag team wrestling. These are two guys that never want to become singles stars. They don’t want to be the World Champion. They want to be the greatest tag team they can possibly be, and I think that’s cool. There’s kind of a different mentality at WWE. Even if you are a great team together, huge as a tag team, Vince ultimately would want to turn you into two singles stars because that’s where he feels all the money is, you know? And I do think there is money in tag team wrestling. I think when, myself and my brother, Edge and Christian, and the Dudley Boyz were in our thing in the Attitude Era and the whole TLC era, I mean, we were a huge draw on the show. We were one of the reasons why people would tune in, and tag team wrestling can create that. And I’m very excited for the possibility that AEW is going to have a tag team division that is going to draw a big fanbase coming up in the future.”
On Jeff learning about the creative freedom they have in AEW: “AEW is on a higher platform than a Ring of Honor or TNA. Especially with their television deal, which is lovely and is fantastic to have, and here, just being able to have input and help control your own destiny, it’s just an amazing feeling. Like my brother when he came in yesterday, or last week and we were talking about the segment I was doing with Andrade, he was like ‘oh, you know, do the writers have it how they want this to go?’ ‘Dude, there’s no writers here. They don’t have writers in AEW, that doesn’t happen. Literally, there’s a segment and this is kind of outline of what they’re thinking, and then you put the meat on the bone. You and your crew.’ And that’s what we did. The little segment that myself and Andrade with Private Party, I was really happy with that. Especially when Private Party did the whole thumbs deal and they went down. Just the fact that people were invested in the relationship of Matt Hardy and Private Party, which are two guys that I genuinely do love and really do like a whole lot. The fact that they reacted so strongly to that was very rewarding to me. It was the ultimate compliment.”
On Jeff’s return: “And then Jeff just showing up, and taking back off into the Hardy Boyz and the emotion that we had, and the genuine hug, there was so much reality in that as well. And I think this is very telling, at this point in our career, how much we really do appreciate having one another and how much we help one another. And I’m really excited about what is coming up and going forward. And AEW is just a place where you really do get a pretty open canvas and you get a fair opportunity to paint your own picture or play your own music, and that is one of the most amazing things about it.”
(h/t – Wrestling Inc)
