AEW’s Matt Hardy Comments on Retirement Rumors

Matt Hardy debuted for AEW in 2020 not long after his WWE departure. Hardy’s first appearance took place on the very first AEW Dynamite during the pandemic. As a singles star for the first half of his AEW career, he formed the Hardy Family Office, taking Private Party, The Butcher, The Blade, and The Bunny all under his tutelage. That group would eventually expand and mold into the AHFO (Andrade-Hardy Family Office) and later just the AFO. 

When his brother and long-time tag team partner Jeff Hardy debuted for the company, they began teaming together once again. It seemed that the decorated tag team were primed for one last big tag team title run until Jeff got hit with a DUI charge just months into his AEW career. It derailed their momentum as Jeff was indefinitely suspended. When he returned to television, they began tagging together once again and have spent time putting over a lot of the younger tag teams in AEW.

Earlier this month Fightful Select reported that Matt’s current AEW contract is set to expire at the end of March which he later confirmed on his podcast, The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy. “So, as far as that goes with my contract, people had asked about my contract,” Hardy said. “And obviously, I’ve got [messages] after that news broke earlier today, and it didn’t come from me because no one had known anything about it. So once again, Sean Ross Sapp breaking the news. Yes, it is coming up in March. And we’ve spoke about it and we’ve talked about it and I guess we’ll see what happens. So we’ll see. If you listen to the podcasts, just give me your feedback. Tell me what you think I should do next.”

He continued, noting that while he isn’t sure what the future holds for him in professional wrestling, he has a good relationship with the Young Bucks and AEW President Tony Khan. “Ever since I came to AEW, I spoke with The Bucks first, I’ve been close with The Bucks. I’ve just said that a minute ago we’ve been great friends for a long time. And I’ve really enjoyed working with Tony Khan, he’s legitimately a very very good human being, so we’ll see. Business is business. Sometimes things change, you never know. I love AEW, I’m cool with staying with AEW, I really enjoy the locker room there. I enjoy being there, but if that’s not what happens and that’s not what happens, life goes on. So I’m good.”

The news about his contract led to fans speculate that Hardy may be on his way out of AEW and possibly even into retirement. Hardy was quick to dispute the latter on his X (formerly Twitter) account. “No, I am not retiring from active wrestling anytime soon,” Hardy said in a short response.

H/T: Inside The Ropes