Former WWE RAW Tag Team Champion opens up on why debuting with popular gimmick was a mistake
A former WWE Superstar recently pulled back the curtain on one thing he regrets about his debut.
Matt Hardy joined AEW in 2020 and was immediately thrust into prominent positions in the program. However, during a recent interview with Alex McCarthy of Daily Mail, Hardy said there is one major aspect of his debut that he would change if he could turn back the clock.
"Looking back, in hindsight, if I would have known there weren’t going to be any fans for a year and a half and if I knew there was going to be a pandemic, which obviously no one could have predicted that, I probably wouldn’t have started as Broken Matt Hardy." [H/T: WrestleTalk]
Brodie Lee debut
Matt Hardy debut
Yeah #AEWDynamite won tonight! #AEW https://t.co/LkoM6OqPgs
He continued, noting that the "Broken" gimmick requires a lot of crowd interaction to succeed:
"I would have started just as a regular version of Matt Hardy. Because Broken Matt Hardy is such a fan-driven character, you know, just everything he does from the taunts to the people of hearing him say words crazy, whatever it may be. It definitely is driven and fuelled by fans being in the arena."
Matt has since reverted to his more ordinary persona, with his brother Jeff joining him in the promotion.
Former WWE star reveals a surprising fact about AEW's Stadium Stampede match
During the pandemic, both WWE and AEW tried out a wide range of ideas to keep fans invested in their product, even without the atmosphere of a live crowd elevating the action.
In Tony Khan's promotion, one of these crazy ideas was the Stadium Stampede match, which former WWE Superstar Matt Hardy says he is proud to have been a part of.
"I remember when Tony Kahn proposed the match initially, we weren’t sure what it was going to be. There were different ideas making it some sort of football-based match. And we, we had different ideas. But then, ultimately, we kind of like settled on doing a cinematic match," said Hardy.
Today in wrestling history, AEW Double Or Nothing 2020’s main event, Stadium Stampede, was taped at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville, FL.
May 22, 2020 https://t.co/DsKALr7Bvu
Thankfully for the participants involved, the match was well-received and will go down as one of the most fun, unique matches in AEW history.