Jeff Hardy was let go from the WWE back in early December following an incident at a Texas live event. Weeks after his departure, it was reported that Hardy was offered a spot in this year’s WWE Hall of Fame class, but he turned down the offer after learning that only he would be inducted rather than both members of The Hardy Boyz. The former WWE Champion officially arrived in AEW on March 9 and on the latest episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast he explained to Jon Alba why he turned down WWE’s offer.ย
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“It just felt completely wrong, it just didn’t feel like the time at all,” Hardy said (h/t Wrestling Inc.). “I almost felt offended, I was very emotional, but almost felt offended like what? After my 90 days are up, the Hall of Fame is in April and I do go to AEW, how’s that going to work? What are y’all trying to hit me with as far as if I sign with AEW when I’m free and me going into the Hall of Fame and howwould that even work? My mind and my emotion went crazy and I was in tears man, like this is my career. I know I had been a very influential person to a lot of young misunderstood individuals but yeah, it just felt so wrong. Like how dare you?”
“I know that sounds crazy because I guess when people get offered the Hall of Fame it’s like ‘oh, I’m a Hall of Famer’ but it’s never really meant that much to me. It’s not time for that, that’s why it was a hard no,” he continued. “Especially, it feels like something Matt and I should go in together as The Hardy Boyz when the time is right. It was just weird man,I still don’t know how I feel about that overall. It just felt so wrong.”
Matt Hardy later added, “You are one of the most beloved wrestling superstars of all time and that lack of feeling valued to your maximum ability and just being able to leave and come here [to AEW] and seeing how this is. Just like the Hall of Fame thing, I almost feel like they jumped the gun before they let you go and got the drug test results back and it was almost like what can we do to reel him back in and that’s probably what was emotional about it too. I want people to offer things like that because it’s coming from the right place, not because there’s so motive behind it or they’re trying to reel you back in.”
Together the Hardy Boyz won their debut match against Private Party on last week’s AEW Dynamite. This week’s upcoming Dynamite will have the pair team with Darby Allin and Sting to take on the AFO in an eight-man tornado tag match.
