Jeff Hardy Comments On The Nashville Airport Incident, & More

Kevin Eck of The Baltimore Sun conducted an interview with Jeff Hardy during his autograph signing at the Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Maryland yesterday. Hardy had a lot of interesting things to say.

On his suspension and losing his home back in March: "Well, first of all, I have titled that the saddest day of my adult life ? by far. The night I lost the Intercontinental title I had been suspended, which is to everybody's knowledge now because I have been very open about that, and then that Friday night I lost everything, and the saddest thing is I lost my dog Jack. You hear about fires all the time, but then you experience it, man, it's just like, "Wow, this really happens to people." It's a night I'll never forget, naturally. A week or so later I found Jack's body in the ruins. I got a little closure to that and cried a lot, was sad a lot and had bad dreams. When I came back we actually made that somewhat of a story line, but I was confident enough in myself and with Beth and everything that we got past that. You know, you can't just die with everything you lost. You have to live for what you lost. So that's what I'm doing now and everything's much better. Our new house is under construction. It's looking great, and hopefully by spring we'll be in there. Thank God I had Matt, because if I didn't I'd be renting an apartment somewhere. Matt's been very cool to have open arms and invite us into his home."

Missing WrestleMania due to his second suspension: "It's so strange, you know, because I was going to be a huge part of that in the Money in the Bank match, and Matt was hurt at the time and he was able to return at Mania, so, naturally, I watched it. I would have watched it anyway because I'm a huge ladder match fan and just to see how good the match would be. In a sense I was kind of sickened by the whole thing. But I did something wrong according to the Wellness Policy and I had to pay the price. So here I am on my last strike right now, and one more and I'm out, so I'm just trying to keep it all good. As far as WrestleMania goes, as angry or sad as I was that I missed it, I also was supposed to take part in an art show down there. I think Jerry Lawler was in it as well. I missed out on that just over what to me was a small mistake, but to them it's huge.".

The recent incident at a Nashville airport in which was he denied boarding a flight: "That was extremely blown out of proportion. So many wrestlers drink at times, and I had been drinking a lot that night. I'm not going to lie ? I've been on planes a lot drunker than that. There was nothing rude done; I wasn't violent or anything like that. I guess I was stumbling boarding the plane or something, and somebody must have just said that I was drunk, because I was asleep on the plane. This is Southwest, you know, open seating and everything. The first thing I remember is just waking up and security ? it wasn't police, it was security ? saying, "Mr. Hardy, you have to get off the plane. We feel you've had too much to drink." Matt got up and was like, "What's the problem?" They were like, "He's had too much to drink." I go, "I was asleep. I'll wake up in Raleigh. I've been like this before." But I just cooperated and left the plane."

Internet rumors regarding the incident: "It does make me sick when ? especially with me ? anything negative, the Internet wants to highlight right away. One [site] actually said that Beth was with me and she was the one that was too drunk and she was handcuffed. I was never handcuffed. There were these crazy things like, "He got caught with contraband." It was nothing like that."

The one guy he'd like to wrestle: "Yeah, Rey Mysterio. I've tagged with him before. During the draft it was kind of a bummer because when he went to Raw I was like, "Yeah, me and Rey are going to get to tear it up." I had no idea I was going to Smackdown. Then when I got drafted I was like, "Oh well, throw that out the door."

Jeff Hardy also talks about his upcoming match with Triple H at No Mercy, whether it's the most important match of his life, if he has a rivalry with his brother Matt, turning down certain highspots, and more. You can read the interview at https://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/wrestling/.