Matt Hardy has revealed that WWE once removed him and his brother Jeff Hardy from television after Jeff rejected creative plans he found uncomfortable, an early episode in a tag team career that would go on to span three decades. Matt made the comments during an interview with The Stunner, where he was fact-checking details from his own Wikipedia page.
According to Matt, the fallout came at a formative stage for The Hardys, when WWE attempted to pursue a creative direction that Jeff was not comfortable with. Rather than adjust the plan, Matt said the company instead pulled the brothers from WWE programming as a response to Jeff’s refusal. The exact creative pitch and the timeframe of the benching were not detailed in the interview excerpts, but Matt framed it as one of WWE’s first attempts to break up the team.
The Hardys have weathered several splits and reunions across their career, repeatedly finding their way back together as a tag team even after pursuing singles runs and, at times, on-screen feuds with each other. Matt’s latest comments add another layer to that history, suggesting that tension over creative direction factored into the group’s dynamic with WWE management well before their more famous runs in the 2000s.
Matt also used the interview to reflect on the brothers’ earliest days in WWE during the 1990s, when they were used largely as enhancement talent before breaking out as a tag team. He recalled personally sewing the ring gear the pair wore on WWE television during that period, a detail underscoring how modest the Hardys’ circumstances were before they became one of the промотион’s signature tag teams.
Separately, Matt addressed the origins of the ‘Broken’ Matt Hardy character, telling Fightful he would have had “almost complete creative control” over the persona had he remained with TNA. The character debuted in May 2016 and became a career-defining creative success for Hardy, who had spent much of his career up to that point primarily known as a tag team wrestler.
In a separate update on his podcast, Matt said he believes his brother Jeff may take some time off in the near future to address an ongoing health issue, though no further specifics on the nature of that issue or a timetable were given.
