AEW President Tony Khan released the following statement regarding Jeff Hardy following his arrest on Monday in Florida — “We were able to resume contact with Jeff Hardy this afternoon. AEW does not condone Jeff’s alleged behavior. We’ve made it clear to Jeff that we’ll assist him in getting treatment for substance abuse issues, which he has indicated that he’s open to receiving. In the interim, he is suspended without pay, and he can only return to AEW upon successfully completing treatment and maintaining his sobriety.” Hardy was booked on multiple charges including DUI and driving with a suspended license. His blood-alcohol level was reportedly over three times the legal limit.
Hardy was originally scheduled to compete alongside Matt Hardy in a three-team ladder match for the AEW World Tag Team Championships at AEW Dynamite: Road Rager on Wednesday. That match has since been scrapped.
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Reports have since popped up online stating that AEW held off on releasing a statement regarding Hardy until after they made contact with him, which turned out to be on Tuesday afternoon. While Jeff himself hasn’t commented on the situation, his brother Matt did so via Twitter.
“It was disheartening to hear the news about my brother yesterday. Recovery isn’t a linear process & I’ll continue doing whatever I can to help my brother be healthy. Being healthy & well is the most important thing for Jeff, his wife, his children & our family at this time,” Matt wrote.
The tag team legend also discussed reuniting with Jeff with Lucha Libre Online hours before Jeff’s arrest — “It’s been really great teaming with Jeff again. Especially in AEW, where I feel we get highlighted in a certain light that stays true to the legend status, that hopefully, we’ve obtained. People tell us that. We honestly don’t necessarily feel like that because we’re two young kids jumping on a trampoline at the end of the day. This was our dream of doing this. Now, October will be 30 years of doing it. So it’s very cool. I know for both of us, it was our goal, to go out the way we came in together — teaming up. Our dream was us together as a team. As little kids, we just wanted to be the world tag team champions one time. We’ve done that literally many, many times over exponentially. We want to cement our legacy as one of the best tag teams ever.”
Khan confirmed with ComicBook shortly after his announcement that the AEW World Tag Team Championship match would still take place, but only with The Young Bucks and Jurassic Express.
“I felt the most important thing we could do was contact Jeff and talk to him about getting treatment before we addressed the match. We were more worried about trying to get Jeff help before we thought about the wrestling,” Khan said. “But now that we’ve been able to get ahold of him, we can focus on the show at hand.”
