AEW superstar and former TNT champion Darby Allin spoke with the New York Post to hype this evening’s Dynamite from Long Island, where Allin battles the legendary Jeff Hardy in the quarterfinals of the first-ever Owen Hart Memorial tournament. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
How much of an inspiration Hardy was to him:
It’s one that has a lot to do with outside of wrestling. It’s the way I see him live his life outside of the ring, the stunts and the craziness that kind of draws me to him. I don’t get that from a lot of wrestlers. I don’t think I get that from any wrestlers. Nobody excited me outside the ring. To have that feeling with somebody, I’m like damn.
On his relationship with Hardy and how much fun it was to tag with him earlier this year in AEW:
So the first time I talked to him, we’re like, ‘Hey, you like to jump off of big s—t. I like to jump off of big s—t. You like dirt bikes. I like dirt bikes.’ It was really like an organic relationship. It was super fun. For us to have that one tag match, me, Sting, Matt and Jeff down in Texas, that was also a lot of fun. It just feels very normal. People thought this was a dream match and, yes, it’s a dream match for me, but man this came really quick. I was expecting it a little bit down the road to be honest. This came really quick, but now’s better than never. Wednesday, I don’t know what to expect. It’s gonna be an interesting one.
Says he thought the eventual match would have more build but is excited to deliver later this evening:
Asked about doing videos or vignettes with Hardy. It’d be nice. Like I said, this match kind of came very quick on me and I just thought originally it would have been crazy if we had a build to a singles match and like we had a promo battle were we could get crazier outside the ring leading up to the match. But here we are. We’re gonna get crazy this Wednesday.