This week’s AEW Unrestricted podcast featured the legendary Matt Hardy as a guest, where Big Money spoke about a number of different topics, including why he decided to move away from his Broken Matt gimmick, and how his tease at being the Dark Order’s Exalted One helped give Brodie Lee a bigger reveal to fans. Highlights from the interview are below.
How he had to revert to a different character due to a lack of an audience for Broken Matt:
“There was a lot of buzz. I did a little YouTube series called ‘Free The Delete’ and The ‘Bucks actually did a cameo in it and showed up. We built a cute little story. I had an idea about doing a more vicious, more aggressive style of the Broken Matt character and the persona. But it obviously debuted in the pandemic era and that’s a character that is very driven by an audience and by fans. It’s a very audience interactive character. So, later as time went on we ended up pivoting, but that night was very good and very special.”
How he leaned into the idea of being the Exalted One because he knew it would make Brodie Lee’s reveal that much bigger:
“I tried to actually release stuff via social media that I was going to be the Exalted One. Because I had conversations with The ‘Bucks and Tony and I knew Brodie was going to do it. I thought Brodie was going to do amazing at it, which he did. I figured the more I could lean into that I was going to debut as The Exalted One, it would be a bigger reveal for him whenever he eventually debuts. Even if people got mad and someone did want Matt Hardy to show up on that show, they were going to get me later. So it was a win-win either way.”
Says Brodie Lee personally thanked him for giving him the rub:
“It was really cool. One of the things Brodie said after that was, ‘thank you for going out of your way to tease that it was going to be you so many times. I feel like that helped me and gave a better reaction because it was less anticipated.’ I was always really appreciative of that,” Matt admitted. “It was weird because I didn’t get to know Brodie at all until AEW. We had worked on different brands in the past whenever I had been around. What an amazing guy. I was so happy for him that night. It was so great that he came to AEW and got the opportunities that he deserved and he kicked ass.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)
