Matt Hardy Recalls Vince McMahon’s Initial Reaction To ‘The Ultimate Deletion’

During his time with "Impact Wrestling," Matt Hardy created "The Broken Universe" which sparked massive interest in the company at a time "Impact" needed it most. Hardy established one of the most innovative and iconic characters in all of wrestling with his unique style of telling stories, which ultimately got the attention of WWE CEO Vince McMahon, who decided to bring back The Hardy Boyz at WWE "WrestleMania 33."

While at the time, the interest in the Hardys across the wrestling business was a major reason why WWE decided to bring back the illustrious team, Matt detailed why Vince didn't understand "The Broken Universe." The AEW Superstar detailed Vince's reaction to his and Bray Wyatt's Broken Universe-inspired match, The Ultimate Deletion, on the latest episode of "The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy," and revealed why it led to Vince allegedly saying an iconic statement about him being out of touch with today's product.

"I do remember they were very pleasantly surprised that it did do that good of a number," Hardy said. "I do remember whenever we were there, watching it at the venue, they were having the live show, and then whenever the match before us ended, they just put some other segment in there for the live crowd, they didn't play it on the titantron. I do remember earlier that day, they played in the production meeting, 'The Ultimate Deletion', for the writers, and coaches, and producers.

"There was a standing ovation at the end of it, and I remember Vince was like, 'I hope that means it's good. I just don't get it, I don't get it.' As he said that, I remember somebody told me [Vince said] in the production meeting, 'I'll tell you this, if this ends up doing a good number, I feel like I'm not on the pulse anymore. If this ends up doing a really good number, I need to change the way I do business because I'm not on the pulse anymore.' It was also very frustrating, the line that was fed to Michael Cole right from the jump, kind of downplaying it already so that was very frustrating and disappointing as well."

The line Matt referred to from Cole just before "The Ultimate Deletion" airing was "What you're about to see is disturbing," which downplayed the match from the get-go in Hardy's eyes. During the podcast, Hardy also detailed Wyatt and Vince's relationship, stating Vince treated him "like a son" during their time as "The Deleters of Worlds."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.