The APA wasn’t opposed to taking advantage of Matt and Jeff Hardy until the brothers learned to fight back.
In 1999, The Hardys dethroned Farooq and Bradshaw to win their first WWF World Tag Team Championships in a huge upset at the time.
On his “Extreme Life” podcast, Matt recalled working with the APA and the stiff shots that the two veterans gave them as part of the feud. He said,
“There was a time when we were working with The Acolytes, and they were beating the s–t out of us. They dropped the titles to us, we were the tag team champions, and we worked a couple of times after that, and I’m like, ‘Holy s–t, they can have these titles back. We’re in the record books — I’m good.’
“I was like, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can take this. This is like abusive!’ And then when we’re in there, Bradshaw beat me down in the corner. I remember beating him as hard as I could in the face, and the next thing I had was just a very soft [jab to the face].
“So, it’s one of those things where the old-timers — where guys would beat you up and take advantage of you … until you didn’t let them. Until, like, you stood up for yourself. I think that was kind of a case of that.”
Matt and Jeff’s first reign as WWF World Tag Team Champions ended after 26 days when they were dethroned by the APA at Fully Loaded 1999.
