AEW superstar Matt Hardy recently spoke with WrestleZone to hype up tomorrow’s Revolution pay per view, where Big Money Matt will be taking on Adam “Hangman” Page in a high-stakes grudge bout. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Being an advocate for long-term storytelling:
I’ve always been an advocate of long-term storytelling. I’ve also been a big advocate of very detailed, subtle storytelling. And that’s one of the things that I’ve loved so much about this story with myself and ‘Hangman’ Adam Page. There’s a lot of things that we have left to the viewer to figure out. Much like if you’re watching some show, like if you’d watch a Game of Thrones, it’s one of those deals where, in Game of Thrones, you have to watch every single step, every scene, catch every detail because there’s a lot of things that will be called back later on and if you weren’t paying attention, you didn’t get it,” Hardy explained, “and that’s kinda like what we’re trying to portray from a pro wrestling storytelling standpoint in myself and Hangman Adam Page.
How it’s rewarding for the fans:
It’s been fun and I think it’s been cool, and even like, just recently I went back to explain part of the story online, which I did myself to clue people in if they weren’t following. Because I just feel like for the longest time—and I know WWE, they are big believers in it—you almost have to hammer the audience over the head. It just has to be simplified, it has to be a very easy story to follow and I feel like we’re at the point where there’s so much great entertainment out there, pro wrestling audience really is a niche audience in many many ways and you do wanna do things that are going to attract casual fans in. But I think the people who have been watching, who have been watching long-term, I think you need to reward them by telling these stories that are intelligent, long stories that also have subtle details that they have to pay attention to.
Whether the storylines are too complicated for kids:
I feel like kids who are watching, they’re gonna say, ‘This guy’s probably the bad guy, that guy’s the good guy, I wanna see my good guy win’, you know, kids aren’t going to get too thoroughly into it. They kinda want to understand a little bit of what’s going on but I feel you can still tell these more complex stories that have nuance and have twists and turns in it.
Says the Matt Hardy he brings to Revolution should have been the one he started with in AEW:
I love the idea of me setting Adam Page up to sign a contract where he’s going to get 30 percent and I’m trying to act like I’m his friend and I really care and I’m trying to take advantage of him,” Hardy said, “but yet he’s still the smart babyface and he outsmarts me and switches out the contract. But then I’m the smart heel and I catch up to what he’s done because I actually watched the show back, you know? And I feel like that’s something too that is very important in this day and age. Like in real life, if that happened in a scenario, at some point, this talent that got screwed over, they would see it back on video footage because everything’s documented in this day and age. I’ve enjoyed this kind of storytelling and I’m very excited and very hyped for this match. I feel like this is going to be the Matt Hardy that I probably should have started AEW with, when it was all said and done, that shows up at Revolution.