Matt Hardy Recalls What Vince McMahon Said After Ultimate Deletion Match
On the latest episode of Talk Is Jericho, Matt Hardy discussed his storyline with Bray Wyatt starting from the their match at the Hardy Compound to them as a tag team. Hardy has talked about before about he and Wyatt pitching so many ideas that WWE management may have been tired of hearing from them so much, and Hardy detailed what the plan was for his tag team with Wyatt.
"Yeah, I mean we did it with the ultimate deletion and it's funny like I dealt with Ed Koski, and I just kind of I wrote the whole thing up and gave it to Ed," Hardy said. "I think he like just tried to like clean it up a little bit and kind of gave it to Vince. It took forever to get a Final Deletion type fight with Bray we both wanted to do.
"Every week, whenever we're the tag champs, we have these fun vignettes and like they can be funny but then they can be serious if we need to whatever and you build a bond and relationship between us, but like at that point we're doing three hours of RAW, and they had us on TV doing like three or four minute matches every week."
Hardy described Wyatt being ingrained within the Hardy family ultimately making him a likable character. Hardy said he had many plans for the Woken gimmick, but he says they were watered down versions of what he wanted. He said that Vince McMahon did not understand the gimmick and believes that Vince would not have approved of some aspects of the character like breaking the fourth wall.
"So I guess it was like, IP's that he would own whatever it was Woken Matt Hardy, but it was just so watered down from what we're doing originally, and I don't think he understood the concept of it," Hardy said. "I mean, I think one of the one of the things that was like so beloved by Broken Matt is like he would wink at the audience and kind of break the fourth wall and make jokes that would make the smart fans, the die-hard fan base, pop. And I don't think Vince totally understood that and I don't think he got it and I don't think he would even want to play to those people."
There were many segments where Hardy and Wyatt would laugh at each other for many minutes. Hardy said that Vince saw that laugh and liked it and wanted to use it over and over again.
"There was a point where I did the Broken Matt Hardy laugh and then Brad had laugh too, and when Vince heard the laughs together, he's like, 'this is this is funny s–t.' Let's let's roll with this, and then it was every week," Hardy said. "It was laughing at the end over and over to overkill."
It was reported, at the time, that Vince was surprised at the reaction of the Ultimate Deletion. Hardy told Jericho that he was glad to have gotten that through to Vince and everyone else and says that Vince didn't understand the concept and had said that if it did well, then he was truly out of touch.
"I really enjoyed the stuff that I did do as as Woken Matt and just the fact that I was able to convince Vince and company to do that Ultimate Deletion and have that fight with Bray," Hardy said. "It wasn't all that I wanted to be, but I am very proud that that got accomplished.
"He watched it in the production meeting and a few people in there had watched already, but after it was over and ended, everybody like clapped and stood up. And he was just kind of looking around and he told a couple people, 'I just I don't get it. I just I don't get it. I mean if it was good, if it does the number, then I'm truly out of touch.' I think he said that. It kept the audience over 3 million viewers, which was cool."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.