For AEW’s Matt Hardy, sport’s genius is in the details
During nearly 30 years in professional wrestling, Matt Hardy has been best known for his unique, sometimes outlandish characters.
He’s been one-half of the champion Hardy Boyz tag team; Matt Hardy Version 1; Broken Matt; and today, Big-Money Matt in All Elite Wrestling.
No one would mistake the wildeyed, wild-voiced Broken character Hardy portrayed in Impact and Ring of Honor with today’s more grounded AEW persona. But Hardy said it’s not the big things that make you believe, it’s the small stuff.
“Every time I do a character change, a reinvention, it has to vary from whatever I’ve been before,” Hardy told the Orlando Sentinel in a recent phone interview. “It can be as simple as my hair. Big Money Matt is cleancut, while Broken Matt had a big poof hairdo with facial hair gone wild, and Version 1 had a ponytail. It doesn’t have to be so drastic, but the nuances help a lot.”
Last month, Hardy began using another “persona” of sorts: podcaster. “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” premiered Jan. 7, with new episodes every Friday on the Podcast Heat network with co-host Jon Alba.
Hardy said now was the right time for a podcast, because he can still get in the ring for AEW, but can become more of an elder statesman and mentor to the locker room there.
“After this long, I start to look ahead and know I’ll eventually fade out of active wrestling,” Hardy said. “I can’t do what I used to. But if I can help the younger, fresher talent to learn, make the transition and interject myself into the current wrestling business, this podcast can be part of that.”
Hardy has often been known as a cerebral performer who knows his place in the wrestling business. AEW has proven to be a perfect match for Hardy, with its logical long-term storytelling and emphasis on the details, especially compared to the chaotic atmosphere he said he experienced during more than 15 years in WWE.
Scripts for “Monday Night Raw,” after days of work by a team of writers, were sometimes torn up late on Monday afternoons to start over because WWE chairman Vince McMahon didn’t like the direction of the stories.
“Oh, that happened,” Hardy said. “I’ve seen it. I was a victim of it. [In WWE] we were driving blindly a lot of the time. In AEW, we have a destination. Everyone knows where the story is going, so we can keep continuity and do things to get there.”
Case in point: Hardy’s recent involvement with Andrade El Idolo, cemented when Hardy “sold” controlling interest in his Hardy Family Office stable to Andrade.
“On the horizon, that could lead to a few different things,” Hardy said. “But the best part is, we have a plan that’s mapped out for a few months. Once we reach the destination, it could mean great things for Matt Hardy.”
Hardy said his perspective on his past, present and future make his podcast unique. Alba said they’ll mix stories from great moments in Hardy’s career and the current wrestling scene — from deep dives into iconic Hardy Boyz matches, to personal stories about Adam (Hangman) Page and others.
The debut episode looked at the Hardys’ relationship with Michael “P.S.” Hayes, whom Matt called his greatest mentor.
“I’ve always been a better character performer than a full-fledged acrobat in the ring,” Hardy said. “Michael Hayes taught me that the most important thing is to be fundamentally sound as a wrestler. They have to believe you can fight. There can be a lot of great acrobats, but if you can’t punch and kick and make it look believable, it tears the whole game down.”
Hardy said an upcoming multipart series on the development of his Broken character, born in Impact in 2016, has him excited. He said the original plan was to bring Broken Matt to AEW, but the pandemic scuttled that idea.
“The ‘Broken’ character is very fan-driven,” Hardy said. “There has to be an audience to play off of, but right as I came to AEW, we had 18 months of shows in front of virtually no one. We would have had a very difficult time doing ‘Broken’ with an empty arena, so I pivoted to Big Money Matt.”
The schedule — he typically travels to one show per week, except for pay-per-views like the one coming to Orlando on March 6 — also let Hardy fulfill his most important role: being a father to his four kids, ages 6 months to 6 ½ years.
“[The children] make me look at my life and want to be a better person,” Hardy said. “Sometimes I’m up at 5 a.m. with the little one [Ever], which is hard with another infant [Bartie, age 2]. It’s its own full-time job, and I sleep when I can.”
“The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast premieres new episodes each Friday on the Podcast Heat network. Find links on Twitter @matthardypod.