Matt Hardy Articles - Page 2

When news broke that Kazuchika Okada was basically a lock to sign with AEW after a promotion-defining run as the face of New Japan Pro Wrestling, fans around the world – literally – wondered how Tony Khan would present the five-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Would he come in and immediately slay the big boss that […]

Though it’s been a few weeks since Sting wrestled his final professional wrestling match against AEW EVPs, the Young Bucks, the wrestling world is abuzz over the bout, with wrestlers, podcasters, and legends alike all discussing what has already been billed as the greatest retirement match of all time. One such personality who checks all […]

After a short-term Adam Page fakeout nearly changed the AEW World Championship picture heading into Revolution, the card remains unchanged heading the biggest show of the month: Samoa Joe will face off against the “Hangman” and Swerve Strickland to see who comes out of Greensboro, North Carolina with the promotion’s top title around their waist. […]

As the professional wrestling community prepares to hear from the Young Bucks for the first time since Full Gear back in November, with Nick and Matt Jackson returning to Dynamite to effectively lay down the challenge for Sting and Darby Allin ahead of the former’s final match, the discourse has again opened up about just […]

When Cody Rhodes lifted his hands at the end of his first-ever run through his father’s signature match, WarGames, at the 2023 Elimination Chamber, it seemed like the world was the second-generation Superstar’s oyster in WWE. He’d just finished out the final Premium Live event of 2023 with a massive win, his seventh big win […]

When AEW Collision was announced for Charlotte, North Carolina, it felt like a borderline guarantee that Sting‘s manager, the “Nature Boy” himself, Ric Flair, would be a fixture of the program. A native of Memphis, Tenessee, Flair cut his teeth in the south working for Jim Crockett’s promotion and continued that trend into the 1980s […]

If there’s one complaint fans might have from MJF’s World Championship run in AEW, it’s that his reign was a little too much Sports Entertainment and not enough professional wrestling. On paper, it makes sense, right? MJF is by all accounts a massive fan of wrestling’s past, basing much of his presentation on old-school legends […]

During his two decades plus in WWE, Adam Copeland was involved in dozens and dozens of different storylines as Edge, some of them all-time greats worthy of being immortalized forever in the annals of professional wrestling history, and others, like his feud with Matt Hardy after Team Extreme’s valet, Lita, cheated on “Version 1” with […]

As the professional wrestling world turns its attention from 2023 to 2024, with new feuds, angles, and maybe even an in-ring return of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson just over the horizon, others, like Matt Hardy, are still engaging with one of the true breakout pieces of fictional wrestling media, A24’s The Iron Claw. Watching the […]

2020 was an incredibly important year for the WWE Universe, even if fans weren’t aware of it at the time. Bray Wyatt’s Fiend character was going strong, even if some fans were getting tired of the gimmick, Drew McIntyre was in the middle of a pair of WWE Championship title runs, and a number of […]

After making his massive return after a year and a half away at Survivor Series, Randy Orton officially made his future a whole lot clearer on SmackDown: Signing with the Blue Brand as his new home within the WWE Universe so he can go after The Bloodline. For Orton, the decision to return was a […]

After securing the signature W of his professional wrestling career at Full Gear, winning what fans and Dave Meltzer alike have called a five-star classic worthy of being called the greatest Texas Death match in AEW history, Swerve Strickland was feeling himself. Granted, he didn’t address the audience at the end of the match or […]

After taking a big loss to NXT in the ratings battle, 921,000 to 609,000, fans wondered how Tony Khan would handle the situation. Would the AEW CEO, who talked a lot of smack heading into the show, address the situation with grace, thanking fans for watching and vowing to get ’em next time? Or would […]

After leaving his time as Edge in the rearview mirror to go it alone as the “Rated-R Superstar,” Adam Copeland, in AEW, folks from all over the professional wrestling fandom, from casual fans to two-time WWE Hall of Famers, have commented on the decision and how it could affect the industry moving forward. Some view […]

Ever since MJF and Adam Cole started cutting video packages like they were working for Paul “Triple H” Levesque in prime-era NXT, a small but passionate subset of the AEW audience have been begun to compare their work to that of Roman Reigns, The Usos, Solo Sikoa, and Paul Heyman, aka The Bloodline. Now granted, […]

Well folks, it’s official: Michael Cole, Corey Graves, and Kevin Patrick announced on SmackDown that Jade Cargill is heading to WWE. That’s right, no surprise debut, no moniker change, or no nothing; when Graves said “a storm is coming,” the opening lines of Cargill’s AEW theme song, it effectively let it be known that much […]

When news broke that about a dozen WWE Superstars, ranging from OG future Hall of Famers like Dolph Ziggler and Shelton Benjamin, to often overlooked “niche” acts like Mustafa Ali and the Maximum Male Models, were released from WWE in the fallout of the company’s merger with UFC under the TKO banner, it turned heads […]

When Eddie Kingston takes the ring against Claudio Castagnoli at AEW Grand Slam in Flushing, Queens, he will have the entire city of New York behind him. A plucky grappler who never thought he’d make it out of the five boroughs, let alone become a champion in New Japan Pro Wrestling, Kingston has a chance […]

When the WWE Universe convened in Houston, Texas on September 13th, 2001, for an episode of SmackDown, few knew what to expect. As Matt Hardy recalls it, the company was in a holding patern, his fellow Superstars were unease, and more than a few of them, including his brother Jeff, wanted to rent a car […]

When Edge takes the ring on SmackDown, he will be celebrating 25 years in WWE. Originally debuting for the promotion under the Edge moniker in 1998, two years after he worked his first house show under the very 1996 moniker Sexton Hardcastle, the “Rated-R Superstar” was an Intercontinental Champion by 1999, a seven-time World Tag […]

Brock Lesnar isn’t just a wrestler; he’s a force. When he shows up in WWE for the few matches he wrestles a year, he rolls through, collects his million-or-so dollars, and runs through the hits – the F5s, the trips to Suplex City, the Kimuras – before doing his job one way or another. Though […]

When Jimmy Uso made his surprise return at SummerSlam to help Roman Reigns, not his twin brother Jey Uso, secure the win in the main event match for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, it turned heads around the professional wrestling world, with even former mainstays of the promotion, like Matt Hardy, weighing in on whether […]

After securing a technically legal victory at The Great American Bash versus Wes Lee and Mustafa Ali, Dominik Mysterio returned to NXT with the North American Championship over his shoulder and his “Mami” Rhea Ripley by his side. Taking the ring to celebrate their win – keyword their – Ripley complimented her “Latino Heat” for […]

In the opinion of future WWE Hall of Famer Matt Hardy, before there was the Blackpool Combat Club, Jon Moxley’s collection of violent gentlemen that also features Bryan Danielson, Wheeler Yuta, and Claudio Castagnoli, there was the BAR, a fighting faction back in The Fed that featured Sheamus and the current Ring of Honor World […]

Though Matt Hardy no longer works for WWE, as he’s been a happy member of the AEW roster since March fo 2020, he still keeps up with the goings-on of his former employer for his podcast, The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, and has absolutely no issue putting over his former co-workers when the situation […]

Growing up in Cameron, North Carolina, Cameron Grimes was seemingly a world away from the glitz and glamour of professional wrestling, where performers spend their lives flying from major metropolitan city to major metropolitan city to perform for legions of fans across the country and even the world. And yet, the kid from Cameron, – […]

In the history of professional wrestling, few men have encompassed what it means to be a sports entertainer more than The Undertaker. For the better part of 30 years, “The Deadman” was a big-match grappler, a certified fan favorite thanks to his gimmick, and the sort of reliable performer that Vince McMahon could put in […]

When Jeff Hardy took the ring at Double or Nothing for his first non-cinematic AEW match in almost a year, excitement was through the roof at the T-Moble Center in Las Vegas. Suddenly, after a DUI halted a potential tag team championship run alongside his brother Matt Hardy, the Hardy Boyz, or should I say […]

After almost a year away following a suspension from AEW for drunk driving, Jeff Hardy made his triumphant return to the ring at Double or Nothing, working a trios match alongside his brother Matt and Hook for the rights to “All Ego” Ethan Page’s contract. *spoiler alert* this was a Hardy Boyz greatest hits match. […]

While he was technically on AEW television for a special Saturday night edition of Rampage, even if it was pre-recorded, online, Matt Hardy‘s Twitter was going wild, as someone – no one really knows who – decided to hack into his account and go on an absolutely wild NSFW rant that got fans absolutely buzzing. […]

As the WWE Universe prepares for the 2023 Draft, where Roman Reigns’ fate will be decided, and the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship will find its brand home, fans, pundits, and wrestlers alike have discussed the forthcoming brand split and how the company has handled the effective desolation of the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, even […]

When Jeff Hardy returned to an AEW ring for the first time since June of 2022, it turned heads around the professional wrestling world, from WWE, to Impact, and beyond. Finally, after throwing his life and another Hardy Brothers run off track with a mid-2022 DUI charge, the master of the “Swanton Bomb” was back […]

After being suspended from AEW in June of 2022 for a DUI, Jeff Hardy made his surprising return to the ring on AEW Dynamite to help his brother Matt and Isiah Kassidy in their fight against “All Ego” Ethan Page against The Firm. The segment started off normally enough, with Ethan Page heading to the […]

2022 was an incredibly weird year for Matt Hardy. It began well enough, with his brother Jeff leaving WWE to join him in AEW, and the duo found near-immediate success, with the team no longer legally allowed to be called the Hardy Boys securing a win at Double or Nothing over the Young Bucks and […]

Why Cody Rhodes lost to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39, especially after literally months of building up goodwill with the WWE Universe, might just go down as the biggest mystery of 2023 within the wrestling world. Did Paul “Triple H” Levesque and company really believe that the time wasn’t right for Rhodes to win “The […]

Despite being a fixture of AEW television during the 2023 calendar year, Sammy Guevara has only really had one actual match of note since January 1st, when he took part in the Face of Revolution Ladder match to decide on the number one contender for the TNT Championship. Working largely as Chris Jericho’s right-hand guy, […]

On Wednesday, AEW Dynamite cracked one million viewers. The show had its most viewers since October 5th of 2022, and its highest rating, 0.35, since September 21, according to 411 Mania. For a show with a big announcement regarding even more AEW television, with AEW: All Access coming to TBS in March, this was very […]

When news that “The King” Jerry Lawler had suffered a medical emergency initially characterized as a stroke before later being characterized as a blood blockage to the right side of his brain by Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer, it sent shockwaves through the professional wrestling world. While Lawler’s prime has long since past, the […]

Though it’s officially been announced that Mercedes Moné isn’t going to be Saraya’s mystery partner on Dynamite, fans of AEW, NJPW, and beyond are still holding out hope that “The Boss” will be in Los Angeles on January 11th either in the ring with Hikaru Shida or someone else or as a guest sitting ringside […]