Matt Hardy has shared details about a major last-minute creative change ahead of his match with Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania 19, revealing that Vince McMahon altered the planned outcome just days before the event.
Speaking on TMZ Inside The Ring, Hardy was asked about memorable late changes during his WrestleMania career. He pointed to his Cruiserweight Championship program in 2003, explaining how the direction of his storyline shifted multiple times in a short period.
“There’s a lot of things that have happened that have changed, like last-minute WrestleMania. One of the wildest things that had changed was whenever I was wrestling Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania 19. I was kind of given that story of losing weight and dropping down to be a cruiserweight, kind of a bullshit cruiserweight. I was given that story kind of because one was taken away from me, that was given to someone else.”
At the time, Hardy was transitioning into a singles role following Jeff Hardy’s departure from WWE. His “Matt Hardy Version One” persona — which incorporated his real-life weight loss — had gained strong fan support and caught the attention of McMahon.
Originally, Hardy was scheduled to drop the Cruiserweight Championship to Mysterio at WrestleMania. However, according to Hardy, McMahon made a last-minute decision to keep the title on him.
“And Vince tried to reward me to a degree, but he liked the work I did so much as Matt Hardy Version One, losing the weight. I was going to drop the title to Rey Mysterio, and Vince changed that like two days out. So that was something that was pretty chaotic, which was pretty surprising, and it was very cool that Jeff had just left the company. Jeff was kind of going through a very rough period. He was in some dark days at that time. And it was very cool that Vince could see my value, and he rewarded me, and he let me have it throughout the summer. Then we eventually did the title change in Anaheim,” Hardy said.
Hardy would go on to hold the Cruiserweight Championship through the summer of 2003 before eventually losing the title later that year.
WrestleMania 19 took place on March 30, 2003, at Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington.
