Matt Hardy Was Annoyed By WWE Attitude Era Creative Decision

The words Tables, Ladders, and Chairs are synonymous with three WWE Hall of Fame level tag teams, The Dudley Boyz, The Hardy Boyz, and Edge and Christian. The three teams worked a triangle ladder match at WrestleMania 2000, which started the creation of the TLC match, leading to two TLC tag matches at SummerSlam 2000 and WrestleMania X-Seven.

Although the teams worked in trio tags thrice during the Attitude Era, there was one constant in all of them: the winners. Edge and Christian successfully won all three encounters, solidifying without question that they, in Vince McMahon's eyes at least, were the best team of the three. One of the members of the match, Matt Hardy, detailed his frustrations with having the team of E&C win all three, revealing that he and Jeff were scheduled to win in their hometown before Vince changed his mind.

"I was very annoyed by it, I'll be honest," Hardy said during the latest episode of the "Extreme Life of Matt Hardy" podcast. "It's so funny, Christian says all the time, 'Like, I can't believe they had us win all three of those matches. It's so crazy.' But it is what it is, and at the end of the day, the first time they won, it was up in the air who was going to win. I think those guys winning in that match was the right call.

"The first TLC, Jeff and I should've won that, and I think that was a mistake for us not to win there. I would've been okay if we would've done the last one, and then The Dudleyz would've won that too, and then it would've made it even with all the teams and helped the legacy of the match that each one of the teams won one match."

The former WWE CEO and Chairman have been known for having a different mindset on hometown returns, usually making the hometown hero lose in their match. This is a constant theme throughout Vince's career. One of the more recent examples is when Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair feuded in each other's hometowns, dropping matches in eaches' birthplace.

"At the end of the day, Vince just does not give a shit about that," Hardy said. "We got this a lot because we were so incredibly over and beloved, he was like, 'It's okay if you lose, people don't care, they're still going to love you, they're still going to pop huge. They don't care, you're bulletproof, and you can't be stopped. If you lose, it's no big deal.'

"That was his mentality. It's great that fans reacted to us like that, but it's kind of like a blessing and a curse if you're working for WWE because if they know you're so over, they're like, 'Oh, they don't have to win. It's no big deal. They'll still be over.'"

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.