AEW superstar Matt Hardy recently sat down with ‘Signed By Superstars’ to discuss a number of different subjects, including how WWE didn’t allow him to take an endorsement deal during his time with them, how Vince McMahon didn’t understand his pairing with Bray Wyatt, and how Brodie Lee thanked him for swerving fans during their AEW debuts. Highlights are below.
Says he was given a shoe deal during his time with WWE but WWE wouldn’t allow for him to take the endorsement:
Whenever I was first doing Version 1 and it got kind of hot, Troop, somebody at the shoe [company] was a fan of the Matt Hardy Version 1 gimmick and the whole Sensei of Mattitude deal and they offered to make a line of shoes for me with WWE and as you can see, it has like ‘Mattitude’ on the back and it’s like legit Troop shoes and I was sent about five or six pairs of these things and they wanted to give me a sponsorship deal but WWE ultimately didn’t let me have it. So they just sent me the shoes and I’ve had these sitting around and I just said, ‘I’ve got a few pairs of em. I should sell one.’ These are a very rare collector’s item. The Sensei of Mattitude, as you can see right there it says ‘Mattitude’ on the back, was gonna have his own line of shoes but I wasn’t allowed to have the endorsement deal.
Says Vince McMahon didn’t understand the pairing of Hardy and Bray Wyatt:
We did have input, but I don’t think Vince [McMahon] got what we were going for. If we would’ve followed what we wanted to do, we were gonna have Bray [Wyatt] kind of be homeless because he lost Abigail and Randy [Orton] burned his stuff down. He was gonna come to the Hardy Compound and we were gonna do a series of vignettes there, as opposed to just wrestlers on the show every week. I felt like that waters down so much. We wanted to do stuff that was gonna be [at] the Hardy Compound that was super entertaining. We had a lot of great stuff in mind but, it is what it is.
Says Brodie Lee thanked him for swerving the audience and making them think that he was the Exalted One of the Dark Order:
The thing I remember about Brodie [Lee] the most is that night after the show [their AEW debuts] was over, I was the last thing on Dynamite and came to the back and he said, ‘Hey man, I just wanted to say thank you for working so hard to make this a swerve and act like you’re The Exalted One and it kind of didn’t have any suspect it was gonna be me and it added to the shock value and surprise of it’ and he was just really grateful. I said, ‘Of course man.’ I like doing that stuff anyway so I’m glad and I said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here. This is a great opportunity for you to really shine and do your thing’ which he did so…
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)
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