AEW star Matt Hardy discussed his thoughts on the 2015 TNA (Impact Wrestling) World Title Series, potentially working in creative when he retires from in-ring competition, and more on the latest episode of his “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the filming of the World Title Series: “Yeah, they were putting that in the can, if they had [a TV deal]. They weren’t sure if Destination America was going to allow them to run the rest of the year, They didn’t know if they were gonna be taken off of TV or whatever. I know the working plan was to film this tournament, so they would have enough content to get them through the year if they were able to put content on television and if not, they would just pick up the store whenever we got a new network. Fortunately, Destination America did let us run that. So once they did run that, the story was definitely in the works that it was going to come down to me and EC3, because we’d been the main storyline in TNA for the last little while, so we’re still going to go with that.”
On sitting in on creative meetings at the time: “There was a lot of frustration with people at that point. I remember that and just actively, I remember telling management to just try and be honest with people and let people know what’s going on. I had a pretty good say and everything that was going on from a creative aspect, even in the way the company was going. I was sitting in on some of the booking meetings at the time to try and help out and do as much as I could. I was just like, ‘You guys have to be as honest as you possibly can be with the talent,’ and I feel like they tried to be, you know? I know guys were frustrated because they weren’t getting paid on time, checks were late, and people were just so unsure of what the future held.”
On potentially working in creative once he’s done wrestling: “Definitely. I enjoyed doing that. It’s a fun aspect and I feel like, even when you get older and you can’t physically wrestle anymore, it still allows you to be involved in the process and it’s — you still get something out of it. It’s like you’re involved to a degree.”
