Jeff Hardy appeared on the latest episode of After The Bell, and the former WWE Champion had a lot to say about what he believes will be the final stint of his WWE career. Hardy returned to the company in 2017 alongside his brother Matt, but he spent most of 2019 on the shelf with a knee injury, surgery and a number of run-ins with the law. Hardy said he’d love to get one last run as world champion before he hangs up his boots, and pitched Brock Lesnar of all people to be his possible retirement match.
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“I would love to get my a— kicked by [Lesnar] again because he’s just intimidating and insanely gifted,” Hardy said. “To be as successful as he was in the MMA world, he’s amazing. That would be interesting, man. Maybe that could be my last match. I was his first match, he could be my last match.”
Lesnar’s first televised WWE match was actually against Matt, but Jeff was “The Beast’s” first pay-per-view opponent when the two clashed at Backlash in 2002.
Elsewhere in the same interview Hardy talked about how, now that he’s been through rehab after being arrested for driving while intoxicated, he is on his “last chance” in pro wrestling.
“…Being that I’ve been to rehab, inpatient rehab for the first time in my life, I’ve learned a lot about the disease known as alcoholism and addiction cause I went through the drugs back when I got arrested and even watching SmackDown last week, when they aired the mugshots and stuff, that’s some heavy stuff, but it’s gonna be good s— because this is my last chance to get it right and I want to just get a few more good years out of this body and do the best I possibly can but yeah, it was weird man,” Hardy said, mentioning how WWE has recapped his recent struggles with video packages on SmackDown. “So now I still have the legal situation, the black cloud that’s hanging over me, I haven’t been convicted.”
“When I got pulled over October 3 of 2019, the day before I called WWE and said ‘I need help. I need treatment. There’s something wrong with me, like with this alcohol thing,’ but yeah I’ve learned so much in recovery, just little things like one day at a time man, just focus on today, not drinking or not drugging and it’s just calling my sponsor everyday and talking to another alcoholic man,” he continued. “There’s something powerful about it when you admit what you are and you can like own that and just man, and there’s a huge piece in my heart and my mind knowing that if I never drink again I’m never going to get into any other trouble. Jeff Hardy plus no drinking equals no trouble cause all my troubles came from either drugs or alcohol. And like with the alcohol, I can’t drink like other people and I’ve surrendered and I’ve just manned up to that, you know and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
