On the latest edition of the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast the Broken One discussed his time in WWE, and how longtime director Kevin Dunn came up with the popular “Matt Facts” for Hardy’s Version One character back in the early 2000s. That and more can be found in the highlights below.
How Kevin Dunn came up with the “Matt Facts” during his version one character:
“I gotta be honest about this too. Like, I remember talking about having some sort of entrance that kind of related to the internet. I remember pitching that idea. They put together this tent of what was going on and I remember they had that great look where I’m so smart, which I always try and like redo that expression whenever I do kind of the half-smile. A little sarcastic, shit-eating grin. I remember they had that little image and they did the box like a little Windows Media Player, old school things. Oh, my God, this is great. Then Kevin Dunn is the one who said, ‘We can put like a little factoid up here about Matt.’ So I had to give Kevin Dunn credit for that. That was his idea initially, and then they said ‘Just give us a few Matt Facts and we’ll pick a couple. So every week at TV, I would submit like four or five different Matt Facts and they would pop two of them up on the screen during the entrance, and I love that. Just looking back in hindsight, I’m so glad that I was able to get that entrance and be able to call those things Matt Facts.”
Says he got angry at Dunn when he broke the formula:
“The only time they weren’t mine. There was a small period when our book first came out, Exist to Inspire. Kevin Dunn put up some of the Matt Facts — and I think I’ve shared this story before. Kevin Dunn created some of the Matt Facts. I remember, one time, the Matt Fact box said, ‘Have you read Matt’s book?’ and I was so furious. I didn’t know that was gonna happen. I was like, ‘Dude, I’m really passionate about these things. You broke the formula. Every one of these stories was like, ‘Matt…’ It has to have, ‘Matt does this, Matt does that…’ Matt Facts.”
Says the idea went against the character’s ego:
“You can’t have a Matt Fact that [ doesn’t start with] the word ‘Matt.’ This delusional cocksucker [the ‘Version 1’ character] would never let that happen. I was so passionate about the ego and the delusion of Matt Hardy, Version One, that I got so personally upset about that. It’s so funny because later on, it really wasn’t a big deal. But I was very passionate about this thing.”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)