Matt Hardy Shares Questionable Vince McMahon Idea For Pairing With Mark Henry In WWE

Former WWE Superstar Matt Hardy has had various successful gimmicks throughout his career, from his days as a member of Team Extreme with his brother Jeff and Lita, to Matt Hardy: Version 1.0 that preached "Mattitude" during the Ruthless Aggression era, all the way through to the wild world of the Broken Universe.

However, there was one character pitched to him by former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon that Hardy is very glad didn't get past the pitching stage.

During a recent TikTok video posted by his wife Reby, she asked if he had any fun stories about John Cena following the recent news that he would be retiring from wrestling in 2025. Hardy explained that when Cena began his "Doctor of Thuganomics" gimmick, they would often perform freestyle raps, both against each other and with other wrestlers, on long bus rides during European tours to keep themselves occupied. McMahon, who already had the idea to pair Hardy with Mark Henry, heard Hardy's rapping abilities and thought of a potential new character for him.

"He had an idea, he said, 'Well, you can rap and act black, right?' And he was going to have me act like 'Mattitude' was something that was oppressed, like being a black person, and he had an idea about that, and fortunately, that never materialized. I think Mark would've shut it down anyway but I was going to team with Mark Henry and that was an idea Vince had because he heard about our epic freestyle rants on overseas buses."

Reby rounded out the video by saying that she wasn't expecting the story to take such a turn. Hardy and Henry eventually feuded against each other, which took place in WWE's ECW, with them fighting over the ECW World Heavyweight title.