Matt Hardy Talks Leaving WWE And His Future

Source: Monday Night Mayhem

Setting the record straight on the Internet reports from last Sunday's TNA Final Resolution Pay-Per-View involving his brother, the story creating a life of its own online, & the latest update on Jeff's status: "Jeff's doing great. The whole thing with that scenario was so blown out of proportions it was crazy. Jeff's been working on the road with a full schedule for TNA. He actually has a deal where he doesn't have to do every show, but since Jeff is the champion, he has committed himself to the product & the company. He really believes in them, and he actually said that he would do all the shows that he possibly can for them. It was very cool that they allowed him to be off during the last half of the month of October when his child was born. Basically he did the house shows, they flew over to do the shows over in Abu Dhabi, flew back over, he was at home for less than 24 hours, he flew to Detroit where he had to do a lot of promotion that day for an appearance at a Monster Truck deal thing, he went to the Monster Truck thing that night, slept two or three hours, he had to go to Orlando and actually go straight to the building when he got in, because he had three Make-A-Wishes that morning. He met his Make-A-Wish kids, and instead of going back to the hotel to crash and sleep there where he was afraid he was going to oversleep and not make it back to the building before call time, he actually crashed in one of the executive's offices there, and was just sleeping to catch up on sleep, someone walked in, saw him sleeping, and from there, the story got exaggerated & blown out of proportion, because that morning he was taking a nap that he 'wasn't in a condition to wrestle.' Anyone who watched the match could obviously tell that he was 100% fine. He actually had a hell of a match with Matt Morgan that night, and I thought he did a great job."

Why the WWE is "going to find themselves in a really strange position" in the next several years, "the changing of the guard," in the industry, & his take on the recent online debate/argument of the push of the WWE's recent "youth movement": "The business is in a really weird position now, where there's really getting to be a changing of the guard. The Undertakers, the Triple H's, the Shawn Michaels, who's retired already, those guys are really & truly on their last legs. It has to be new guys that completely uprise and come around. The WWE is going to find themselves in a really strange position in the couple of years, because they have pushed this youth movement. Kevin Nash made a statement saying 'Youth isn't what sells.' I think that myself & Christian were two guys who have gained the respect of the fans. People know us, and they respect us, and we're very believable in the ring. You have to take guys like that, and you have to utilize those guys and get the most out of them. You can't take new guys, just because they are fresh faces, and expect the fans to accept them, and appreciate them, and buy tickets for them overnight. The WWE has tried to do that youth movement; you could do that, but there has to be a very fine line: a mixture of veterans & younger guys. It's funny, because I know Kevin Nash had one side & Chris Jericho had one side, and I kind of fell in the middle of both of those (to the argument/debate). I think you truly need a combination. I think the WWE is trying to push so many young guys at one time right now that they're going to find themselves in a really weird spot in a year or so, where all of their older stars that are extremely over, if you have an injury to a John Cena or a Randy Orton, you're in a tough situation."