On the latest edition of the Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy the Broken One spoke about the Hardy Boyz merchandise sales in the early 2000s, and the mindsets of WWE talents when they started crushing WCW in the television ratings. Highlights from the episode can be found below.
How great the Hardy Boyz merchandise was selling in the early 2000s:
“I do know that we were one of the hot young acts because I knew our merchandise was doing so well. I know in the year 2000, we sold more merchandise than any other tag team in history over the course of that year, and we were breaking records at every level, which is very cool, and that was us in our prime or at our height, whatever you want to say.”
Recalls the mindset of WWE talents when they started beating WCW in the ratings:
“I do know that we had put the accelerator to the floor and we were blowing Nitro away. I do know that there was a feeling in the locker room where the gap was so far away that guys were worried that we were getting so far away that it was ultimately going to be bad for business because they wanted competition to stick around. I do remember when we were there in ’98, I felt like guys got treated a lot better. They were a lot more lenient if people wanted to negotiate deals or get better money because there was someplace else you could go and make big money besides WWE. You know, obviously WCW was there and they had deep pockets as well. So I know the further down the road we got and once we started pulling more ahead of WCW, a lot of guys really were worried that if WCW does end up going out of business, it’s going to be bad for business in the big scheme of thing because it’s going to take away a lot of leverage from the pro wrestlers who are classified as independent contractors.”
(H/T and transcribed by WrestlingNews.Co)