WWE Intercontinental Champion Jeff Hardy recently spoke with Matty Paddock of The Daily Star and discussed how WWE has used his personal issues in various storylines over the years.
Hardy, who won the title from AJ Styles on last week’s SmackDown episode, recalled the recent feud with Sheamus and how he knew it would be worth it in the end. He also had a feeling their Bar Fight would turn out good.
“The stuff with Sheamus that’s happened most recently, I knew there was a great outcome in it,” Hardy said. “I knew that bar fight was going to be cinematic and good. All the stuff building up to that match, I just knew the outcome was going to be fantastic. And it’s good to face challenges like that because there’s so much negativity in the world.”
WWE was met with a lot negative fan feedback on social media for how they used Hardy’s issues in recent storylines, but Hardy said he didn’t see any of that because he’s not a social media guy.
“I’m not a social media guy at all, I don’t read comments or the negativity of people who thought it was wrong or that [WWE] were treating me [badly], I don’t read any of that,” he said. “I’m just confident in myself to get through it, and when I get a feeling that something’s going to be good, I just run with it.”
Hardy recalled the car accident that was staged on SmackDown earlier this summer and called it “very heavy stuff” for the storyline. He talked about being able to do good and inspire people that need to stay sober to survive.
“There was some heavy stuff there in the beginning, especially with the wreck scenario. It was just very heavy stuff,” he said. “I’m always interested as everybody is different in so far as how the viewer feels watching at home, especially hardcore fans of mine.
“Even thinking back to the stuff with CM Punk when I was failing drugs tests, they turned it into a storyline and that’s what I mean when I talk about roller-coasters of good and bad. Throughout all of that, so long as I can continue to do good, especially with this, my last chance to get it right, it is going to inspire people around the world that I’ll never meet, that need to stay sober to survive. Hopefully I’m doing that through the television screen and helping people I’ll never know.”
Hardy also revealed that he’s had some creative influence in some of his own storylines and matches, including the recent feud with Sheamus. He wrote the script for the Bar Fight with Sheamus, but most of his ideas weren’t used.
“When the idea of the bar match was thrown out there, I wrote up a whole script of how the match would possibly go,” Hardy revealed. “Most of it never happened, but I do love [doing] that.
“A lot of that stuff I said in that first meeting of me and Sheamus in the bar was stuff I actually wrote… it felt good to have ideas that they liked and bring them to life, just from being involved in the recovery world.”
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