During a recent episode of Grilling JR, Jim Ross spoke on Jeff Hardy being released from his WWE contract in 2003. Here’s what he had to say:
I was really surprised at that decision and when I told Vince, he was surprised as well. You mean he is just going to walk away? You know we are going to push him. You know that he has a great opportunity. Apparently, he’d rather get high than come to work. And so, luckily for everybody involved, for many, many obvious reasons, he has climbed that mountain, and he is looking down on past drug and alcohol abuse. But man, he was primed. You know we talk about reliability thing. There is no reason that Jeff Hardy would not have been a great WWE Champion or any title. But he just wasn’t reliable.
How do you put your championship on somebody you don’t have full confidence that they are going to be cool? They are going to be OK. Can they take the pressure of being the champion? Can they take the pressure of going on last night after night? Can they take the pressure of putting their company on their shoulders and marching forward? And at that time, that was not the… it’s not what everybody thought. They just didn’t think Jeff was going to be able to hold on in that scenario. And part of that is just maturing and getting past it. Nobody was ever going to bail on him. If he raised his hands and said, ‘I’m ready to go to get help,’ we would have brought him right back after the help. After successfully completing a drug and alcohol program. So, it was a tough time, and I felt bad about that. Now you look back and say, ”Well, he wasted some time there that he can’t retrieve.’ But he was hard-headed as hell.
You can listen HERE.
Credit: Grilling JR. H/T 411Mania.