Matt Hardy says Vince McMahon wanted him to have a world title feud with former WWE star
Matt Hardy revealed that he was initially set to feud with Mr. Kennedy for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in 2007.
Mr. Kennedy was in the midst of a massive push as WWE handed him the Money in the Bank contract at WrestleMania 23. The former United States Champion was destined to become the world champion as he was heavily featured on SmackDown.
During one of the episodes after his monumental MITB victory, Mr. Kennedy interestingly lost a singles match to Matt Hardy. The AEW star explained that Vince McMahon went ahead with the booking decision as he wanted Kennedy to have an opponent after becoming the company's world heavyweight champion.
Here's what Matt Hardy recalled on this week's edition of his podcast:
"The reason Vince decided to have me go out and beat Mr. Kennedy at that point was that whenever he won the world title, he would have a competitor. Somebody to work with automatically. So, that was his mindset," revealed Hardy. "That's the reason that I won that match, and I defeated him. You know, they loved doing that. Like, 'Mr. Kennedy, you won the title, but I beat you two weeks ago, you son of a b****. I'm coming for the title now!' That was what happened." [28:41- 29:44]
Matt Hardy confirms WWE wanted Mr. Kennedy to defeat The Undertaker
Kennedy himself had stated in various past interviews that he was in line to be crowned the WWE World Champion before an untimely injury setback derailed his push.
Matt Hardy confirmed the nixed creative plans for Mr. Kennedy and noted that the superstar was supposed to cash in his MITB contract and win the promotion's prestigious title from The Undertaker.
WWE, however, eventually had Kennedy drop the lucrative briefcase to Edge as he was forced to spend some time on the sidelines. Hardy continued:
"All that went down, too, because Undertaker was going to be out to have surgery, and the initial plan at the time was for Ken Kennedy to cash the Money in the Bank in and win the title from The Undertaker. But, some things happened at that point, and that ended up changing." [28:24 - 28:40]
Mr Kennedy's personalised MITB briefcase was 🔥 https://t.co/ejDWSFp4yQ
Did WWE miss out on having a potentially great world champion in Mr. Kennedy? Sound off in the comments section below.
While using any quotes from this article, please credit 'The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy' and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.