During the first episode of his “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast, AEW Superstar Matt Hardy commented on pitching a group to face DX in 1999, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On having the two teams shake hands after their ladder match at No Mercy 1999: “They were very smart, and I would imagine this was a Vince call. Vince read the room correctly following that match and it was a new era of wrestling where fans were starting to dictate what they enjoyed more and they were going to start dictating who gets over courtesy of their work rate. There were all these times where WWE would push someone and they would force or manufacture some sort of superstar on the fans and sometimes they would buy into it. We were getting to that period, to where enough people understand wrestling to where they couldn’t manufacture a superstar. It has to happen organically. That’s what happened that night. Vince knew that myself, my brother, Edge, and Christian were going to be extremely respected. People dug our work ethic and we did something, we did some groundbreaking stuff the night before. He did that call to shake hands and have a mutual respect for one another and we were a mutual admiration society. It was the correct call.”
On the idea he pitched to WWE: “Going forward, I actually pitched, initially, my idea was to have us together as a group and work against DX. I wanted our group to be Version 1 of the Hardyz and Edge & Christian. That’s initially where I came up with the Version 1 concept. We were like the version one of the prototypes of wrestlers that you would see in the future. That didn’t end up happening, what ended up happening obviously, Edge & Christian would turn heel and we would continue our feud and go onto TLCs and whatnot. As far as that night goes and having that mutual respect, it was the right call. There is a look on my face where you see my eyes come up and they are opening wide, I was overwhelmed that the crowd gave us that big of a standing ovation 24 hours after our match. I was emotional. That look you see wasn’t working or manufactured. I couldn’t believe the people were applauding us to that level and so appreciative of our hard work and us busting our ass for them the night before.”
(h/t – Fightful)
