Pro wrestling veteran Matt Hardy recently discussed various topics on his podcast, “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy.” One of the subjects was his happiness regarding Ron Killings’ return to WWE.
Hardy said, “First and foremost, I’m happy for him that he’s back. I think that the backlash showed just how much he is loved, how much he is adored as a performer and as a person. So I was very happy for him. And I think the fact that now he is going by Ron Killings, his real name, is great because it helps put a lot of equity into his real name, especially if he is looking to branch out and do something different down the road as he gets older. So I’m very happy he has the ability to go by the title of Ron Killings, and now that is his. That is his shoot name, and he’s using that as his character on WWE TV.”
On the backlash to Killings’ release:
“I was just excited for him, and I’m happy that he ended up resigning a new deal. He was able to come back to work. And I think the thing that probably makes me the most proud of it is just that there was so much backlash, there was so much fan love, there was so much outrage towards WWE for just like, letting him go like that. They kind of forced their hand, and they were forced to bring him back. And I think he’s someone who’s deserving. Once again, he’s a model employee. Regardless of what you would give him, what you would ask him to do, he would do it. And he wouldn’t bitch, he wouldn’t moan, he wouldn’t complain. He was like a perfect model employee. And it’s just — a guy you have like that that gets the love he gets, is such a unique niche performer in so many ways, who’s doing stuff that nobody else is doing. Like, it blew my mind that he just wasn’t a WWE lifer, that they wouldn’t find some way to keep them around. Even if it was like, offer him a lesser deal and make him like a legend and only appear here and there once in a while, whatever. But just the fact that they were able to just like open up and say, ‘Okay, well we’re not going to renew your contract,’ without even talking about it or offering something to stay around. I love the fact that just the fan backlash is what brought him back.”
On his belief that it wasn’t a work:
“No, this was not an elaborate work, no doubt about it. I mean, it couldn’t have been an elaborate work just because — after his booking with John Cena, if you have plans for someone, you’re not going to send them out to get squashed by Jeff Cobb just randomly. You wouldn’t utilize them on there if something was a grand work. That doesn’t add up. The fact that he tweeted it, and I don’t know, like later wasn’t his son came out and was posting stuff about how upsetting it was to him, whatever? And I mean, I get the fact that they kind of want to soften the blow and make it seem like it was a work or some sort of master plan, whatever else. But especially to the trained eye, to people who are in the know, it’s obvious what it was, fan backlash, bringing somebody back. Imagine that. How could that happen to anyone? I think, I think I have a bit of experience and can speak on it.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
