Matt Hardy Names His "Wrestling Daddy" From WWE

During the latest episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, the AEW star spoke about he and his brother Jeff's relationship with Michael "PS" Hayes that started during their first run with WWE. Hardy spoke about their "father-son" relationship with Hayes and why he's trying to pass on the same lessons Michael taught them onto AEW Tag Team Private Party.

"He was our wrestling daddy, we learned so much from him that in some ways we were his kids," Hardy said. "I almost do that same thing with Private Party. I joke with them all the time, them being my two oldest kids as opposed to my actual genetic family.

"Michael did that with us and we still oftentimes, when we talk to him, says 'Hey wrestling daddy, what's up man?' He was very proud, he was very proud of us and he knew we came a long way in a short amount of time."

When Hardy first came into AEW, he aligned himself with the athletic young team and took on a managerial role while also getting involved in matches. The comparisons between Private Party and The Hardy Boyz are very obvious, but Hardy mentioned that he wanted to instill confidence in the group and work on adding more aggressiveness to their arsenal.

"That was immediately my mindset when I was talking about doing things with Private Party," Hardy said. "They actually grew up fans of The Hardy Boyz, we were their favorite team and to be able to work with them was almost the same scenario where they did all this cool acrobatic, athletic stuff but they needed to work on their fundamentals more and also be more aggressive. That's what I tried to instill in those guys, to make sure they look physical and tighten up their game from a realistic standpoint."

Speaking of The Hardy Boyz, Matt Hardy recently spoke about Vince McMahon and the WWE's CEO constantly choosing his brother Jeff over him, comparing himself and Christian as the afterthoughts of their tag team. Hardy also recently revealed that he had an idea where he, Jeff, Edge and Christian formed a faction to face off against DX during the Attitude Era.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Extreme Life of Matt Hardy with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.