Matt Hardy returned to TNA on Saturday night at Rebellion, but he remains a free agent and can still sign with another promotion. While speaking on the Busted Open Radio show, Matt praised the TNA roster and discussed how everything came together just a few days before the show.
“I will start and I will preface it by saying I love AEW. I love working with Tony Khan. He’s a great guy. My contract ended up expiring. We hadn’t reached a deal yet and we’re still in the midst of talking. I have literally in the last week, I have talked to every promoter from every promotion that there is. Last night was me showing that pro wrestling can still be unpredictable. This was done in a couple days notice. We kind of started talking about this on Wednesday. This is when it kind of materialized over a couple of days doing some shots for TNA and a little story arc. Pro Wrestling is at its best when it’s unpredictable. I didn’t tell anyone. My brother texted me this morning. It was late last night. He goes to bed super early. He’s like, ‘Oh my God. That was great last night. How’d it feel to be out there? That was killer’. If you want to keep a secret, just keep a secret. Just go about your business and do your thing.”
Matt Hardy’s thoughts on the TNA roster:
“I think TNA is trying to carve their own niche. I think they’re being very smart with how they use talent. They’ll bring guys in, they do a little run, maybe they leave for a little while and they can come back. I feel like they have a core group of guys that they have locked in they build around, and then they kind of shuffle guys in and out and that’s very cool. I was very happy to be a part of that.”
“I watched the majority of the show last night. They put me in a room and I had a monitor. I didn’t even leave the room because I just didn’t want anyone to text a dirt sheet or anything else just so it didn’t get out, just trying to overly make my appearance as unpredictable as possible.”
“I think it’s a solid roster, I thought they put together a solid card, and I liked the fact that they’ve been doing pretty solid old school storytelling in many, many ways. I think this thing that I’m going to do with Moose and The System coming up over the next few weeks, I think it’s going to be a very interesting series. They also really lured me in when they offered doing Broken Matt Hardy again and they said we’d love to do that, and also use some of House Hardy. My wife, she’s in great shape right now. She’d be up for a wrestling match she told me and you know, once again, King Maxel, Gothic baby, and I feel like my wife could even utilize some of TNA stuff, she’s a social media influencer. She’s huge on TickTok right now. I think she could even help boost the status and rep of TNA as well. So just selling my family and talking about a Hardy compound appearance, that’s what sold me on these dates.”
On choosing TNA:
“I feel like Broken Matt was the way to go because TNA is in my DNA when it comes to Broken Matt. I mean, that is the genesis of Broken Matt. They gave me that opportunity. They allowed me to think outside the box and really go crazy and do something special. They have a fan base that is very accepting of, you know, off the normal course of pro wrestling, which is cool. It’s very different than the die hard base of AEW. They’re obviously a lot more sports centric, a lot more wrestling based. So TNA is very fun for me to do.”
“Once again, I don’t have a lot of time left to do this, you know, a couple more years. We’ll see. I feel good right now. I’ve been taking care of myself. I’ve had time off, but I don’t want to squander the time I have left. I want to contribute as much as I can and I want to submit my legacy and hopefully myself and my brother’s legacy is my goal. I want to land somewhere where I’m going to be able to contribute as much as possible. That is my goal and while I can go, I want to go. I want to make an impact in pro wrestling. I want to help the next generation and the younger guys too. That is definitely a goal of mine.”
“So upon talking with TNA, Tommy Dreamer reached out to me. We started talking about things. We’d start talking about Broken Matt that came in the conversation. I talked to some of the writers. They were talking about some ideas for the Hardy compound, some stuff to do with The System, and it was really appealing to me. I was like, man, this would be fun, especially during my off time because once again, I’m not locked in anywhere. I’m not under contract. I am not the type of individual that’s going to sit at home waiting for the phone to ring. I’m going to go out and get it. That’s what I do. I go out and seize opportunities. That’s what makes Matt Hardy, Matt Hardy.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
