Pro wrestling legend and TNA star Matt Hardy discussed various topics, including Amazing Red, on an episode of his podcast, Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy.
Hardy said, “I think he does get a lot of the flowers he deserves from actual wrestlers, but I think the audience doesn’t realize how impactful he was to today’s pro wrestling style. He made a huge impact, and the whole X-Division did as well. The X-Division kind of set the pace for what wrestling would be in the future.”
On the reason he didn’t have a WWE run:
“I would say size, more than anything — his size was probably the issue. You could debate, ‘Could we have brought him in when the cruiserweight division was doing well?’ But everybody knows the cruiserweight division was not Vince’s forte. It’s not what he loved, not what he wanted to book around, because he wanted guys who were going to stand out in an airport. Where if people see some huge guy with a freakish look, they go, ‘Oh my god, who’s this guy? I’ve got to know more about him.’ He looks like a star, he’s special, he’s different. Vince wanted larger-than-life people, and cruiserweights didn’t necessarily fulfill that for him.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
