Pro wrestling legend and former TNA World Tag Team Champion Matt Hardy recently covered various topics on his podcast, “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy.”
One significant point he addressed was the 2009 plans to work with 17-time World Champion John Cena in WWE.
Hardy said, “You know, there was actually talk — if I hadn’t have gotten hurt after my thing with Jeff whenever I broke my hand, and I also had to have a surgery because my abdominal wall ripped and I was hurt. And I was obviously going to be out for a while. There was a point where Vince had mentioned that maybe I work with John Cena after I did the heel run with Jeff. Because he liked a lot of the stuff that I was doing at that time. And then Jeff, his injury. He had that restless leg syndrome at this time. I was out for a while, and then by the time I came back, he knew Jeff was going to leave at the end of his deal, because he was going to take some time off. And he ended up bringing me back, and they turned me babyface again. But there was talk if I had been healthy going through that program with Jeff and we got through it, and I was a heel and had heat, that I could work with Cena. Which I would have loved, and that would have been fun to do. Because I worked with him back in the day, you know, when he first started, but it would have been fun to work with him on a much bigger level.”
On how he would have handled it:
“Once I went past Jeff and I kind of kept talking about being the black cloud over his head, I would obviously tried to change my direction and kind of what my trajectory was for what I was doing. And I don’t know, maybe I would have even leaned in to some of our history back in the day about, ‘Hey, he’s become such a big star.’ And I was one of the guys who helped work with him in the very beginning. And you know, ‘They trusted me to work with you and to team with you. And after all that I did for you, you never tried to help me later on. You just said, ‘To hell with you.” You know, maybe something like that. I felt like the being jealous of Jeff, maybe even being jealous of John, I could have came at it from a different angle or something, because that, that routine worked pretty good at that time.”
On people still being upset with him over his turn on Jeff:
“People still hate me to this day. You know, for that, that chair shot at Royal Rumble. They just said, ‘Man, I was so mad at you as a kid. I swore I would never, ever, I never, ever watch a match of yours again. I hated you so bad once you cost your brother the title.’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
