On the latest edition of the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy the Broken One turned back the clocks to 2002, and discussed his “Version 1” character in WWE, one that he says Vince McMahon was a big fan of during that time. Check out Hardy’s full thoughts on the subject, which include how Vince wanted him to defeat Undertaker, below.
Recalls his run as Matt Hardy 1.0, and how high Vince McMahon was on him:
“Vince was very high on what I was doing there. I had a great relationship with them at that time. It almost reminds me of when myself and MVP had a run on SmackDown. The door was always open to us because we were like the highest thing on the show and he loved us. It was a little bit of the same deal on SmackDown. I love the fact and I was very grateful that Vince inserted me into the top feud on SmackDown, which was Brock and The Undertaker, it’s almost like Brock and Paul Heyman were using me as an underling, taking advantage of me to where I didn’t realize it. because I just realized that was a big deal. You know, Matt Hardy, Version One, Brock, Undertaker, the three big stars on SmackDown. Vince understood I was very aware of everything I was doing. I remember as we were doing that day, it was somewhere in Louisiana. I remember but we fought to the back and there was a deal where I kind of want a cage to get away from Undertaker Brock comes out he ends up F-5ing him and I feel like they were gonna do it on the floor, and they did it on the popcorn bags if you remember that. It was very weird, strange, you know? That’s where I ended up pinning Undertaker after.”
Remembers when Vince told Undertaker that Hardy would be beating him:
“But I remember we’re talking about the match and it was me ‘Taker, Brock, and Vince, and we’re kind of walking through there and looking what we had to work with whatever,” Matt continued. “I’ll never forget Undertaker saying, ‘Well, you know what if we did this, this thing comes up, and Brock fights me, and he does this and then we end up fighting out of the building [Brock drops] me out there somewhere.’ [Vince] said that’s fine. ‘He said, he can drop you wherever, but at the end of this match, Matt Hardy has to get a pin on you.’ He was very adamant about that. Undertaker didn’t say he wasn’t going to do it or whatever, but he threw an idea. But it was very cool to see VKM going hard for me. He said, ‘I don’t care how we do it, but at the end of this match, Matt Hardy has to be on top of us and get a pinfall on you.'”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)