Matt Hardy Reveals When He Finally Felt Accepted In WWE
As noted, Matt Hardy appeared on the latest episode of Sean Waltman's X-Pac 12360 podcast, now online at this link and this link. Below are more highlights from the interview sent to us:
Hardy on when he finally felt accepted in WWE:
"I would probably say the very first time I felt that we were kind of accepted or like part of the machine was when we first got an opportunity to be with Michael Hayes and were repackaged and we won the tag titles. Even though obviously we weren't the best representation of the best tag-team in the world, but it was like the titles would help us at that juncture. Around that point and then working Bradshaw and Farooq. After being with them for a month and them kicking the hell out of us night in and night out and then kind of half-ass earning their respect. I felt that was kind of the turning point. And then once we had the tag-team ladder match with Edge and Christian and it was like, 'wow these guys did something special.' We definitely felt like we belonged and were part of the family of the WWE locker room at that point."
Trying to fit in the WWE locker room early on
"We came from a very very different world, I think we based a lot of our morals and what not from our mother whose like this super Christian lady who didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't even curse and then she died really young she had cancer. And she died when we were 9 or 11 and then our dad raised us and he was never like a loving dad he was more of a provider. He'd get up at sunrise, work till sun down, he'd make sure we had clothes, we had food, a roof over our heads, but he would never say 'I Love You' he was never really affectionate or emotional so when we came in we kinda lived off those morals. When we came into WWE at that time it was like a wild wild west era especially looking back at how it is nowadays. It was all new to us, we didn't drink, we said very few curse words, we were pretty straight narrow guys at that time. We were just trying to hold on to who we are, and just trying to follow our dream at that point, we wanted to fit in, didn't want to disrespect anyone but I felt like we also had these morals."
The Young Bucks
"I love both those guys so much, I think they are both great. I think they are great performers and both great as human beings. They are very open and honest about how they loved The Rockers and then once Jeff and I came along they were also big fans of the Hardy Boyz, and for them it was a big thrill to work with us. To get a chance to work with them later on and to know that they've become as big as they have now is extremely flattering and humbling."