May 18, 2022 • 42 mins
AEW's Matt and Jeff Hardy have worked for a variety of companies and have won numerous titles. I finally got the chance to chat about our time at WWE and what the future holds for them at All Elite Wrestling.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to another episode of Wrestling
with Freddy, and today I have not one, but two guests.
One I had the honor and privilege of working directly with,
and the other punched me in the eye for no reason.
Whatsolept stuffing up for the mic. The Hope of Wrestling
(00:24):
with Freddy Freddie Prince June. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Jeff
and Matt Hardy, welcome to Wrestling with Freddy. Welcome to
the show. Boys. How are you doing well? Man? And
I just want to say when it when it comes
to the scenario where I punched you in the eye,
I just want to say this, it couldn't happen to
a better guy. That's great to be here. I appreciate
(00:48):
you both. In truth, it was my fault. You were
warming up and I was not looking, and I walked
right into your spinning arm that was taped to the gills,
and it am near gave me a black guy. My mom,
when I was a little kid, Legit used to read
me the Hardy Boys books. So the first time I
(01:10):
ever saw The Hardy Boys on TV and you guys
lost in the beginning, I was already kind of like
cued in and and locked into what you wanted to
do just on the name recognition alone, right, And so
then I started to watch what both of you did,
and you're so complete opposites as far as your presentation. Matt,
(01:36):
I've always found you to be more extroverted. Jeff's more introverted. Um,
Jeff's an expressionist. You're like this tech wizard. Like, so
you guys just have these like two little like you
were always thinking what's next. Jeff was always like, this
is who I am, this is what's right now. As
a as a fan member, that's that's that's what I saw.
(02:00):
And as I watched you guys grow from the dudes
that would lose, like, that's what guys like would say
to all of a sudden becoming one of the greatest
tag teams in the history of professional wrestling, and then
to be able to separate and have massive success in
(02:23):
solo careers at the same time and be able to
seamlessly sort of come back together and be great again.
I don't think anyone else has ever pulled this off.
And it may sound like I'm blowing smoke, but I
was just always so impressed by both of you before
I even got to the company. My question is, when
(02:43):
you guys got started, were you just happy to be
living the dream or did you guys legit see those
types of stories happening when we first started. I think
we're just very happy to be living the dream. And
I just want to say, as far as your description
of the two of us, we are are very different.
We are very different souls and you knowed it, like
(03:04):
you can tell you know us well just from that description.
But yeah, our dream was just to to to wrestle,
you know, on the w WF at the time, and
and and and and make it. And our goal ultimately
was to win the world Tag team titles one time,
you know, the on the highest level obviously over so
so we did, Okay, that was our goal. If we
(03:25):
did one time and then we were good, it's a wrap.
And uh, I feel like once we were there, we
were just so humbled to be there and to get
the opportunity to be in the ring, even if we're
gonna aspet. I remember, our goal was like, hey, let's
figure out a real awesome bump we can take for
this guy, you know, so so it'll make him look
good if we do that they'll bring us back. That
was our secret. And Jeff was just such a Jeff
(03:48):
is he was and is such an incredible seller, like
he was awesome in that role. And and we believe
there were a lot of independent people who said, like,
if you guys keep doing this, if you keep doing jobs.
There's a guy who told us that instead of doing
Carney and says, saying jazz obs, he just shortened his jobs.
He said, if you keep doing jobs, you guys are
gonna be labeled like that forever. I said, no, man,
I think we think we can make it if we
(04:08):
keep bust our asks and working hard on I guarantee it.
I believe we can make it. How old were you
when that conversation happened? How old were you when they
said you can't keep doing that? Jeff was six fifteen
years old, gidding there's tennis stars that have retired at
(04:31):
that age. Oh my gosh. Okay, So you come into
the wrestling company. I worked directly under Michael Hayes when
I when I started, And the way Michael speaks about
the two of you is the way a dad speaks
about his sons. He's our wrestling daddy. Well, That's how
(04:55):
he felt. When I was there and I had never
met either one of you, I was I was brand new.
I was not getting the what the writers would call
the good assignments. I was getting the ones that know,
the assignments that no one wanted. And as I started
getting a little better and and figuring stuff out while
still making a lot of mistakes, I started to have
a little bit more access. And I remember, Matt, when
(05:19):
you won the e c W Championship, when they changed
the belt that I loved the Some people didn't like it,
but I loved that big silver blon And it was
the first ever scramble match in W two B history,
So that that's a little piece of wrestling trivia that
always hold. I won the first ever scramble match, that
was the first one, and then they did it again
on SmackDown like a year later, right, So I remember
(05:40):
being in guerrilla position when you won that and came back.
And the reason this popped in my head was you
said something that you said the word humble or humility earlier,
and you walked back and Vince gave you the nod,
and you said, I just want to let you know
I appreciate this so much and I won't let you down.
(06:00):
And it was such a humble moment for a champion,
and his head kind of cocked and he gave you
that like that grunt, right, that all right? And he walked, yeah,
and you walked backstage, and I was sitting and I
had never seen an instance like that before. I didn't
have access to grill a position. Before that moment. I
was just like, whoa that was? That was intense, and
(06:24):
it was my first kind of taste of what it
meant for a wrestler to be a champion in that company.
And before that, like I had made mistakes. I didn't
understand the value of the belt and what it truly
meant outside of a fan going hey, that's cool. So
I'm getting schooled up on there, like learning on the fly.
And then Michael comes in and he says Jeff had
(06:49):
a lot of momentum at the time, and he said, uh,
to the whole writing team, we're gonna try to make
Jeff chance. And I remember there was a guy named
christ to Joseph If and he was like hyped. He
was so excited, right, and some of the other Writersom
was like, how are we gonna how are we going
to do that? And for me it was an opportunity
(07:09):
to get a better assignment. And I had never even
met Jeff yet outside of maybe like a head nod
like that. That was all we did, and I wrote
up a story and Jeff, you had been going through
ship at the time, and I thought, instead of hiding
from that, we should kind of lean into it. And
(07:30):
my philosophy, you know, my dad struggled in the seventies
with a lot of different stuff, like when he died,
he had enough coludes in his system to kill a
damn horse. I had a lot of experience with that,
and I had gone through psychologist after psychologist and a
lot of it. They talked about, you know, the brain
knows when it needs help, it goes to whatever the
(07:51):
quickest route to that help is, right, And so I
tried to come up with this thing that you executed
so beautifully where we talked about the gray area and
the world's not just black and white. That just doesn't
exist in the real world, and there is a gray area.
And it's not about good people are bad people, because
(08:11):
there's good people that make bad choices every day, and
there's bad people to make good choices in their life
and the rest of us are in the middle and
we're all just trying to get by. And I thought
that could be a truthful and honest and this may
sound weird, but a beautiful way to tell your story.
I just didn't know if we could get it approved.
(08:33):
What was going through your head as I'm kind of
throwing these these weird o promos your way? I mean,
was it exciting? Was it? What the hell was this guy? Like? Whatever,
You're not gonna hurt my feelings, even if you're like, dude,
they suck, Like I loved it no matter what. So
I'm just curious as to what was going through your
(08:54):
heart and head at the time. It was crazy exciting
and thank you for helping me become the world champion
for the first time. Is that it's for wrestling. It's
it's an amazing craft and man, I'm just me like
what you see is what you get. And man, but
when that happened, I was like, oh, I do have
something special about me and I don't know what it is,
like the connection between me and the fans, but there's
something The energy I guess is oh my god, there's
(09:15):
no gravity and like we can just soar to the
stars and and and take over whatever when I see
these people. But there's just something special about me, and
I thank you for recognizing that within me, and pro
wrestling is a is a crazy world. Man. It's like
a circus, is like a side show, and um and
I'm just so proud to be a part of it. Jeff,
(09:36):
you talked about that energy, you know, for me, it
was always like when you're when you're not the cool
kid and you're not the popular kid in school, which
I was not, you feel like an outcast and you
try to seek out others that are like minded. But
before the Internet that was impossible, so you legitimately were
(09:57):
an outcast. You you felt ostracized, right, And that's I
think something that people saw and connected with your character
out there, because, like you said, it's you. The character
is you. It's not Jeff Hardy is not out there
faking it and putting on some persona. Is just this
(10:17):
is who I am right now, and I hope you
love me. And it's like you feel that every time
you can, you climb up to the top, right. So
I always felt that connection was Wrestling fans have always
been like those sports fan that has been disrespected the most,
the one that's like discounted the most. I remember calling
Cowherd used to call us mouth breathers, and and then
(10:41):
Fox bought it, and all of a sudden he was
so nice and polite and respectful. Um. But I always
felt those fans kind of felt that way. And so
when they have someone where they can go, that's our guy.
All of a sudden, that's their guy. And that crowd
was always willing to go up to the top and
jump with you if need be. And I remember you
(11:02):
said that energy. I remember when the crowd believed that
it was gonna happen. I didn't watch from Guerilla, even
though I was supposed to. I got yelled at. I
went out to one of the side hallways so I
could see it, you know, the way I the way
I would want to see it if I bought it. Yeah,
and uh, and my phone was going crab free bird.
(11:22):
I was like, get back and where are you. I
didn't even like answer it. I'm just there, like watching
from the wings. And that crowd all of a sudden
when they realized it was Hunter outside the ring and
not you, and that the finish was about to actually happen.
You said there was no gravity, Like I literally felt
like I was floating in that moment because their voices
(11:47):
and the sound like reverberated so damn much that it's
like lifting you up off of the ground. And then
they did the finish, and because you're beautifully insane, you
then climbed the entire scaffold of Armageddon all the way
to the top, which came up just gave me a
heart attack. I was a new father, so like all
(12:08):
my bravery just vanished. And all I'm thinking is I
hope he's okay. Talk about that moment, man, because you
talked about just the regular energy that you get from
a regular match, which sounds like winning a championship. So
(12:28):
what was it like when you actually did like a
little boy's dream come true? Man, like up on that
castle at Armageddon and Armageddon iss coming eventually maybe I'm
getting okay, could help you go, what did Jeffy? But no, uh,
it's such a crazy world. But yeah, it's a little
little boy's dream come true man and God, and then
(12:49):
to do it over and over again. One of my
favorite things, as far as being like world champion is
when Punk and it's so crazy. We're in the same
company now, and there's a huge moment between me and Punk.
Yeah it's gonna I'm sure, Uh it has to. He was.
I mean, I remember when he walked out to your music.
I'm rocked out like jazz. Oh my god. The crowd
(13:12):
got so angry, like bro, you you guys gotta get
it on again, you gotta get I mean you you
tell me, man, And I think there's a huge moment,
like just in the hallway, like me and Matt beat
the Young Bucks or whatever it uh whatever pay per
views coming up or whatever happens. But then we were
me and Punk just have a face off. I love
faceoffs first of all, big hug, you know, but also
(13:37):
let him know, Yeah, I'm gonna see you though, Matt,
I've always had a question for this, and I guess
I could have asked Freebird over the years, but I
just I wanted to ask you. During Jeff's run, there
was this sneaky little thing that you and Freebird did
(13:57):
where Matt hard He's coming out to help his brother,
but Jeff gets hurt and we didn't show it at
that pay per view, we revealed it. I believe at
the next pay per view, But the Matt Hardy character
smiled and wasn't necessarily out there to help his brother.
(14:18):
Is what it seemed was this and this eventually led
to you turning on Jeff. Was this something that you
came up with, Michael came up with. The two of
you sat together and and came Because I wasn't even
aware of it until after it happened in Free Bird,
was like, well, that's just a little extra touch. Um,
so I know they pitched it to me, and it's
so funny. There was like these old rumors that float
(14:40):
around like, oh my god, it was supposed to be Christian,
but then they changed it. They made it mad. It
was always gonna be me, and they just I feel
like they felt the best path forward for me because always,
historically Jeff has always been more popular, probably always will
be more popular. I just want to tack on something
to what you're saying earlier. We do these massive autograph
signings now that we're back, you know the parties, you
(15:00):
know whenever we go to these uh you know, autograph
signings are like four hours four and a half hours
are long and massive, and there's so many people that
have watched us for so long in October of this year,
We've been doing this for thirty years, and you know,
we've been doing it like on the highest level now
for almost almost twenty five years, which is crazy and
and and like you said, is it's very special that
we can be a tag team and win multiple world
(15:23):
tag team titles together and then split off and when
other titles and come out the other one titles again, Like,
I don't think there's ever been a team that has
had that sort of success as as a team and
uh singles, you know when it when it when you
think about the big scheme of things. The only person
I can really think that's close is Edging Christian. But
they both had to take off, like you know, seven
to nine years because of their severe injuries and whatnot.
(15:44):
So Jeff has this thing about him. Whenever we're doing
these signings, people come up to all the time they go, oh,
my god, you inspired me to be me because you
were just someone who like this is who you are.
If you like me, great, if you don't, great, I
don't care. I'm me and I'm happy this moment. I'm
doing what I love in this moment, and I'm living
my life to the fullest in this moment, and I
don't care what anybody else says. And that's a huge
(16:06):
inspiration to him, and people all the time come and
say thank you so much. You helped me during a
tough period of my childhood or whatever, like you made
me not afraid to be myself. So I think that's
one of the very special things that goes along with him,
and that leads, I think to him being historically the
most popular of the two of us. And then Michael
Hayes had pitches. I think the best way forward for you,
Matt is now that you're the c c W champion
(16:28):
and he's the w B champion, if we did a
thing where like you were almost jealous, you know, he's
getting all the you know, he's getting all the light
shined on him right now as being the big champion,
and you've been a big champion even longer. Like, what
if we do a thing where you get so frustrated
and ultimately you turn on him and we do a
big match at WrestleMania and you guys can face one
another on the you know, the the biggest platform possible.
(16:49):
And I was all down for it and said, yeah,
that sounds good, and I didn't disagree, so they started
planning those seeds. I want to say. The first thing
was like you were found like uh out in a stairwell,
and it was almost like a play in real life, like,
oh my god, was was Jeff Hardy messed up? We
know he's had his demons and we know he has
had his issues, but it turns out in the backstory
that I was the one that did that to him.
(17:10):
There was a deal where there was a car crash
and remember the film that you some girl like as
your wife is bed and and and I ended up
being me as well. And then the Pyro thing, which
is one of my favorite deals because he made it
look so amazing the way he sold it. And then
ultimately ended up where my worst enemy, a guy that
I have historically hated Edge. You know, he is wrestling
Jeff and I screwed Jeff out of the match and
(17:31):
allow Edge to win, which really solidified that I was
a real piece of ship. Terrible bad guy. That's long
term storytelling that doesn't get done as much anymore. I
miss it, man, and that was done really well. I
feel like at that point, if we would have just
focused on me being jealous and my envy of him
being so popular when he has the title. The thing
I think where we we went a little too far
(17:53):
is because his house legitimately did burn down. Whenever I
burned down his house and killed his dog, I felt
like a lot of people say, I, I mean kind
of in on him being joles, but that's that's a
little too much, and I remember that became part of
the story. Yeah, I remember that too. I feel like
fans disconnected there a little bit, and that that was
my feeling from reading the crowd as well. Well. When
that's well, let's talk about that reading the crowd and that. Okay,
(18:15):
So to me, professional wrestling and stand up comedy are
the two most brutal forms of art. Okay. The crowd
lets you know right away if they don't like your joke,
because they don't laugh. They let you know right away
if they don't like your work in the ring, and
they'll scream at you, they'll start you suck chance, not
(18:37):
because you're the heel, because they genuinely hate you. So
when you talk about feeling that in the crowd, how
do you communicate that to creative Have you ever been
able to communicate that successfully is it? Does it fall
on deaf ears? What to talk about that real quick
if you could. There was one moment like before I
(18:57):
went out and the like I think Michael Hays is
up and advance and you know everybody, uh man, And
they played the video package and like Jack are dog
that died in the fire was the last visual of
that almost like broke down there. You gotta be fired
up that that was right before. I'm not getting fired up.
I'm going to have a stone cold because man, that
(19:21):
ship had really happened. This ship is fake. You know
what we're doing now, it's just an act, you know,
so to speak. And that was one I just went
on like just stone called us and I'm not I'm
not getting fired up at all. I I feel like
inserting reality in the storylines. It's important and it needs
to be done, especially now in the age of the
Internet and the age of information, because everybody knows everything.
(19:43):
I think you do. But there there's also some things
and I think we were right on the cusp of
this period of this time. That was an event that
was so tragic and so sad that it literally his
house burned out, you know, all the old tits, all
this old gear, his his dog died. I mean, it
was a really traumatic event on him, and just for
for them to put that in their storyline was almost
(20:04):
like where it was bad taste and that that's what
I felt whenever I see that, especially in high whenever
they had me come out and they had like a
I'll never forget them burning a dog collar and then
I held the dog collar like you know, the guy
who did the props, he was like, Okay, well he's
burning more sho. I said, I think it's fine. It's
like I remember saying like I don't know. I mean,
(20:25):
i'll do it. This is what you guys want me
to do. I'll do it, but like this could be
too much, and I could just feel like you guys
weren't alone the air. The air came out of the crowd.
They're like, it's not like we're not mad at you
because you're playing the bad guy in the story. We're
mad at you because this is a poor taste. So
that's how it felt, you're not alone in that. I
remember m v P and Jeff had a thing after that,
(20:46):
and m v P had some of that commentary and
his and he was even saying like, hey, I think
we've already kind of done this, and you know, I'm
not a good going there, and and they were still
you know, real real aggressive about about trying to make
that work. But I I see what you because it's
so easy to get to a good place and then
quickly say what's next when you work at W W
(21:08):
E instead of living in that moment and allowing that
moment to be more organic. A lot of times, when
it works, two weeks later, it's like, well, now that
has to evolve to something else, and it's like, man,
it's still so fresh, like they've literally only gotten about
ten minutes of this so far as far as like
TV time that you've allowed, like we can let this
play out. And sometimes they get it right, you know,
(21:32):
sometimes they do do a nice, slow, drawn out story.
A W did a great one this year with with
m JF and Punk. I thought that was slow and
and and beautiful as well. So let's let's transition to
a E W Jeff, you already planted the seed as
far as CM punk, but as far as tag teams go.
(21:55):
And look, this is me as a as a fan
and a guy who who got to work with both
you and has love for both of you. You guys
need to shoot straight to the top of this division.
You guys need to have all the belts around you.
I would even want the Ring of Hunter belts around you.
What's the goal for you guys as the tag team
right now at least in the coming year. I mean,
I agree with you. Our goal here in a W
(22:17):
is to submit our legacy. And the first business we
want to conduct his winning the a W World Tag
Team Championships. And on top of that, I love to
win the Triple A. I'd love to win the Ring
of Honor. I'd love to win the new Japan titles.
Will win them all, man. We really want to submit
our legacy. As you know, the legit goats one of
the greatest of all town. You guys are already subment,
just so you know. At this point, it's just layering
(22:38):
gold on top of the submit. But I had this
one out as far as like two Sweet or Delete
is one cinematic match that we never got to do
before we went back to WB in seventeen. But I
had this idea about us going into the ocean in
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and coming out and of the
Ocean in Long Beach, California, and then Man, the Young
(22:59):
Us and the Young let go out of you know,
brother complete an hour from Long Beach. Y'all could come
out like James Bond from the James Bond movie on
the or halle Berry Portals. Oh my god, I just
I just said what my dream match would be today
on our podcast on the Extreme Life mat Hardy. It
would be all the greatest tag teams. I would use everyone,
(23:20):
you know, like Totally and Arn and the Rock and
Roll Express, used the Young Bucks and and we have.
It starts at the Hardy Compound and then there's portals,
and it leads all over the world. We can be it,
you know. We can be in Japan, we can be
in the e c W Arena. We're making a worldwide
If you guys have all the belts, you can do it.
If you guys have all the belts. I've been looking
(23:41):
at some properties commercial real estate because I want to
have a home base for a little independent wrestling company
that I want to start in about a year and
a half out here. Yeah, yeah, I've heard these rumors. Man.
I was looking at a place in downtown Los Angeles,
that was like a rooftop supper club that had gone
out of business, and it was like the Downtown l
A skyline, and all I could think of was a
(24:02):
Hardy here and a Hardy here on turn buckles with
the l A. Scott's. The only skyline we got is
downtown with the l A Skyline behind, while both you
guys just jump off twelve feet in the air Atlanta.
But I remember seeing that being like wow, man, like
rooftop wrestling with the Hardy boys would be insane watching
you guys, watching you guys go mad there. I do
(24:31):
want to say this, and I got one more question
for you. But as you know, as soon as we
hang up, I'm gonna try to write a CM punk
Jeff Hardy storyline and I'm gonna send it to Tony
Cohn like submitted to submitted to Papa con Like that's
all my Once you said that, I literally like, oh
my god, Yeah, they're in the same company. Of course
they know there's so much they got it. I mean,
(24:53):
it was such a it was such a wonderful story.
But both you guys have been in some of my
favorite stories and what my well, he hated me when
I joined the company, but he's held both my baby since.
Uh one of the stories met that you were involved
in that I've loved and and the US title hasn't
meant anything since. Was you an m v P? I
(25:14):
thought this was it was basically competitive friendship rivalry. It
wasn't hate it first, and it allowed itself, in a slow,
long format, to develop into something more than you've got
what I want? Give it to me. It was it
(25:35):
was no, you're not better than I'm better than you,
or it was that old song anything you can do,
I can do better I could. I think that's literally
it had this old school field to it. Was that
something that was brought to you guys, or was that
something that you guys wanted to do that that ended
up being a touch we decided to put on it,
and I feel like at that time it was a
single m v P and single Matt. We were doing
that in real life too. We were like competitive. We
(25:57):
would go out to eat in by bar. Later we
would they see who could drink the most route, pick
up the most chicks or whatever. We were just super
competitive and everything really good and it almost like translated
way on a TV. So that was supposed to be
a short term thing for the U S title, and
then like later we added details and you know, I said, well,
what if you decided you wouldn't try to make me
(26:17):
your tag team partner and we go after the tag
team go with us, said, and that kind of gives
us a way to extend this and we can make
that happen. And Vince was so open to us there.
There would be times you remember the lines that would
be outside Vince's door. You know, there'd be eight or
nine people just wait and they were waiting for an hour,
ninety minutes outside his door to getting to see him
m v P. And I like, if we'd be at
the line, we'd say, hey, Vince, we should in the text,
(26:37):
Hey we're outside. He said he'd come in to there.
He said, Matt MVP, come right in and we'd passed
the whole line. We did that almost every single week.
He was like we were his favorites in that time.
Every time we kind of suggested something, he was always
open to it. That was one of that was one
of the most fun times as far as working with Vince,
and he was liking what we're doing and it was
succeeding on television, and he was always open ideas. When
I first did Matt Hardy v. One two, he was
(26:59):
very open I'd is and I got to interact with
him a lot too, which was which was very cool.
Do you think maybe that's the issue with some of
the younger talent these days, is not either having the
ideas or not having the confidence to bring their ideas
to the top people. Do you think maybe they're waiting
for ideas to come to them. I think so. I mean,
you have to be hungry, you have to be willing to,
you know, go out on a limb and try something
(27:21):
different and think out of the box, especially because in
pro wrestling now everything's been done, Like, how can we
switch up our storytelling in a different way which is
kind of fresh and creative, which will well, we'll have people.
And I think that's one of the toughest deals in
this day and age, and I feel like now it
w be it's even harder my last time that I
was back, and Jeff was there a couple of years
after me, but like, it's very hard to get in
(27:42):
and have that one on one FaceTime with Vince Snow
and I feel like that's very important because he he
has almost become like, you know, the Wizard of Oz.
He's like the man behind the curtain, and it's very
hard to get FaceTime with him. But I think guys
have to stay driven. They have to continue to submit
ideas even if you get if you have fifty ideas
shot down, you might get when they roll with. I mean,
I think you have to do that as part of
your obligation from creative aspect in this in this industry, Jeff.
(28:06):
But before I get to my last question, which is
more family driven and brother driven, did you ever hear
about the production meeting before you went over as champion?
Did anyone ever share that with you? I never did.
Is it ideas or politicking? I think it was politicing, right, Yeah,
well some of us had two politics, So yeah, I
(28:29):
know if Legends Stars make correct, I've read this and
heard the rumors. I would love to hear the official
story though. So this was like the craziest, coolest, most
passionate moment I ever had in not the wrestling business,
in show business. I'd never been in a position where
(28:51):
it was this like creative and realistic debate going back
and forth. And you've got those production meetings are like
forty people deep, right. So there was the group that
was pro Jeff winning the title, which was a larger
group in that room, and then there was a smaller
group that did not want that to happen. And it
was it was a smaller group, but their voices carried weight.
(29:16):
And all of a sudden, I'm sitting next to Freebird
and the conversation starts going away from all this work
and what I described out loud as sacrifice Jeff's made
as far as giving you real stuff. We can't take
this away. But I'm seeing it getting taken away, and
Freebirds starts squeezing my wrist, like, get get up, get up.
(29:36):
You gotta say something. You gotta because if he He's
like if I, if I do it, that they won't
go for it. And so I'm sitting there and literally
like he's got a wrestler's grip. You know, it's no joke.
I'm feeling it, man, I'm like, oh my god. So
I stand up and I start giving that that speech
where it's like, yo, man, this guy's sacrificed so much
and he's given so much, and I know there's been
(29:58):
you know, choices, We're not going to call him mistakes,
I'll call them choices, But damn, what did we do
this for if not now? And it keeps going back
and forth, And finally, and I had looked up the
numbers on your merchandise sales because I was paranoid that
something like this might happen. And over the last six months,
you had outsold everyone in the company at that time,
including the person that was most against this decision, and
(30:22):
that was my aces Spades that I that I had,
no not that one, and it was it was three letters,
They're all this, they were all the same. So I'm
sitting there, I'm like, man, if I pull this card,
it's it's my last move. Like I'm not gonna be
able to like outshoot that. So I had to wait
for everybody to get there saying and then finally I
just went All those armed bands out there, all those
(30:42):
crazy Spider Man looking things, they're on every single person
in the crowd. This man has sold more merchandise than
every single person, including the people in this room, over
the last six months because of the sacrifices he's put
in this story. Those people believe in him. That's why
they're buying that even though they already have three of them.
They're putting on four and five over that because they
(31:04):
actually believe in this. And I remember Kevin Dunn when
I mentioned the Mercht numbers because I'm not gonna throw
your business out there, but I said what they were
because we had access to all that stuff in the company,
and Kevin Dunn just went only ship and once he
said that, I was like, Oh, we're good. And then
Vince goes, all right, everybody get out of here, and
he throws us all out except you know a few people.
(31:25):
I wasn't in those people. Neither was Freebird. And we
go out and DJ and I are both like, it's
it's on, It's on. And I'm like, I'm going to
tell Jeff and Freeber. It's like, you're not telling Thatnie
to spot over again. You gotta wait till they come out.
And I'm like, well, what, what what do you mean?
He goes, if they if you come out, if they
come out here and they see you celebrating Freddy, I
swear to God to be the last thing you work.
(31:48):
And I'm like all right. I'm like, all right, I'll
keep it cool. I'll keep it cool. And so I've
tried to keep it cool in DJ's elbow and be like, dude,
I can't believe we're gonna get this because DJ shot
all this stuff, almost all the stuff that I wrote
for you, Like I remember where he took. He was
in London with you when you did that great Undertaker
bit with him at the London Show, and uh so
he was very heavily invested in this as well. And
(32:09):
then all of a sudden, the naysayers all came out
and none of them even looked at me, And so
that's when I knew. I was like, oh, we're good,
We're good to go. And you just hear Vinceco get
in there, and free Bird goes in, and we all
go in. It's just the three of us, and he
goes nobody touches Jeff to larm aged and that's and
Freebird was just like, well, I can't say what he said,
(32:30):
but dude, dude, dude, it's basically what he said as
we walked out, and then we were running from that
moment forward and it was such a crazy I had
so much fun. It felt like the stakes were so high.
I never felt like the stakes were high in any
movie I ever did, or any like job that I wrote,
(32:51):
or if I did, I just couldn't. It wasn't at
that level, but the stakes felt so high because of
that energy that you described in the beginning of this.
It was real old man like those fans when they
and I never had that. Like my fanship was more
girls who wanted to fall in love in the nineties, right,
but it was never but but for real like Matt's
(33:12):
were real about you know, like his popularity and who
loves him and who respects him. And I have a
good perspective on that too, probably because we're older Matt
and we have wisdom. But Jeff had this way where
you just give more than guys like me, and people
respect that and they love that. And that energy was real.
I've heard comedians talk about that, that energy, and it's
(33:36):
such a I said this before I think I even
said it to you, and we were working together. I said, dude,
you're wrestling is like a Jackson Pollock painting. It's like
it's like your vomiting emotion all over a literal canvas,
except it's actual blood, sweat and tears and face paint
on a literal canvas. I was like, it's the true
definition of our and I've always described you as that way,
(33:57):
as Jackson Pollock, whereas like hard Matt is literally like
Andy Warhol, like what's next? What are the people gonna
be looking for? What's next? And then he hits him
with it. And so to see these two complete like,
no way Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock ever hung out,
No way they could live on the same compound together.
So my my final question is I'm an only child.
(34:20):
My brother, my son, and my daughter fight all the time.
I'm sure you guys have as well. How have you
guys managed to keep this bond, to stay so tight
and to be like the true definition of brothers. I
used to ask my mom at Christmas, I don't want
any presents. I just want a brother. She's like, Babe,
I have my tubes, tide, that's not happening. So she
(34:41):
had twenty three hours of labor with me. She was done.
But how how have you guys done this? Man? And
maybe there's no answer, and that's fine too, but how
how have you guys managed you said thirty years used
eighteen and sixteen. That's insane. You guys are still doing
this at the highest levels. Yeah, it should be. It's
a beautiful history that will never bet. It's the story
(35:03):
you know of us, and he has the you know.
For me, it's just like faith and hope. I over
pray all the time. I talked to something more than me,
like every day, and I believe in that. I I
really feel like, you know, our mom died young, and
we we very much modeled ourselves after her in many ways,
um until we had in wrestling, and then those guys
(35:25):
kind of tour away hand us and get us all
all screwed up. But obviously we're not gonna blame that
on pro wrestling. UM. You know. I just feel like
from early on, we just realized, like whenever our mom passed,
I remember our dad said to us, and he was there,
and our dad's like a real hard Southern man. First
time we've ever saw him cry, and he said, like, guys,
we have to be strong, we have to go on
for her. That's what she would want. So I just
(35:46):
even from that moment on, I feel like there was
a very special bond where there's been times where we've
been at each other's throats, we've had disagreements or whatever,
but we always know our bond as brothers are is
very special and it will always come back and it
always be there. Even if we have a just agreement
or there's a period where we're on different pages, we
always get back on the same page every single time.
And I just think we understand how special it is.
(36:07):
And that's something I really try and reinforce in in
my kids. I have three young boys, you know, Maxwell,
Woffie and Barty his brothers. Like guys, your brothers, you're
gonna fight with them, You're gonna argue, especially when you're younger.
Now you're gonna fight all the time. But remember they
are the most important people in your life, Like you
can always depend on them, and I think we know
that we can always depend on one another, no regardless
of what the situation or scenario is. Yeah, for sure.
(36:30):
I have the hearty girls like Ruby and Near a man.
Eleven and six is crazy when you look back at
everything and it really does fly by. But like Matt's
like little boys, man, they're so entertaining. I'll tell you
a real quick story. They were on the motocross track
one day, like and they were all playing and Wolfie
wanted the snack, you know, so he was trying to
go in our house. We have dogs in the house.
We have a lot of too many dogs. Thinking about
(36:50):
he's he's not at home. We were like out on
the motocross track and they're running up down the hill
and was going towards my house to go go get
a snack, you know, and and Matt said, woof where
are you going? I need I need a snack. Where
you gonna get it from? He said, from the fridge,
of course, so broken, No you can't. There's dogs in there.
(37:14):
They'll they'll buy you or something. Matt, what you had
like a kangaroo, damn zebra? Yeah, kala, bears and all
kinds of ship Yeah, some of the best. What was
your kangaroo's name was smoking Joe Frasier, the kingoo man,
the Kingaroo, his vessel. It contained the essence, the joke
(37:38):
of smoking Joe Frasier. You know, I new smoking in
a minute decades ago, and now I've kept track of
his essence and his essences now in this kangaroo. So
he would teach us how to strike with his hans
and feet. Yo. That's what got me back in touch
with you on social media because I was like, yod,
what character is this guy created? Now? Like I legit
reached out to you. I was like, what what is
(37:59):
going on? Of the hell are you? This is years
ago now, but Lily Man, I can't say how many
people how many people said that was friends with Whenever
I started doing Broken Mat and I went all in
right method, acting all the way like they said, hey,
t NA said, hey, we want to put you on
Meltzer show. You know, he wants you to do the
whole show, you know, because it's gonna getting hot whatever.
I said, you know, it's like it's gonna be like
(38:20):
fifty minutes. He said, So it is that cool? You know,
they're just like talking wrestling, said, you tell Dave if
I'm gonna be on there. It's all Broken Mat, the
whole whow It's the whole gimmick. I'm not I'm not changing.
And I did everything in gimmick. People were contacting me
going like hey, bro, man, is everything all right? Like
I just want to see, like make sure you hadn't
fell off or anything. Man, it's everything cool, Like you
(38:40):
need me to come up and stay with you or
help you out. It's everything cool. And I was like, oh,
I'm good, I said, I've never been better. I said,
I'm just trying to suck everyone into into this broken
universe I'm creating. Bro. I would send those videos to
Karen Culkin, who used to be like my wrestling show
running mate back in the day, like he's been thrown
out of Wrestling Show. He was such like a psychophane
and um to the best actor on HBO, but he
(39:03):
started off as a psycho fan and I literally be like, yo, Checko,
what hard he's doing? And he literally straight back, you know,
what the funk is going on right now? But we
loved it, man, we loved it. So a little insight
into that there's this place like fifteen minutes from us,
which is so crazy because we live out in the
middle of rural North Carolina, obviously little po dunk Town, Cameron.
(39:24):
There's this place where there's a little privately owned zoo
and they had these couple of animals they had, like
you know, the giraffe was George Washington. He was always
a bit and like Jeremy boor Rash who was shooting
all that stuff. Loved going out there and I was like,
I mean, I would talk to these animals like I'm
talking to you right now. I would be fully invested,
you know, with whatever we're doing, and this is a
great story. The first sound with Smoking Joe, we were there.
(39:46):
I said, yes, I said, brother Nero, you know, I said,
I have established a very special boxing match. He's going
to help us with our strikes so we can take
out the books of youth. And I said, yeah, let
me to get into And I'm sure how Smoking Joe works,
I said. And then like they told us, they said,
this guy's an older Kingaroo. They said, he throws some
pretty vicious kids, but he's the most tame of the
three we have. So if you guys are gonna shoot
(40:07):
some with him and be best do with him. And
he one time rare up into a real hard kick.
And then I remember, I told you so, brother Nero,
you're such a spot monkey. You jump off the top rope,
off every purcabaable. You should fight him fust And the
cameras was like, and I had him the Kingaroo first,
I want to see how bad the damage was, Just
like I got, I'm sitting there with Dr Doolittle and
(40:28):
I gotta take a book from a real kangaroo. And
the jet locked up the man, I was like, and
he kicked the shot, and then and then after Jeff went,
I said, dude, I said, I said, dude. I said,
all right, man, I said, I'll go bad thank you
man for taking the first bull. I said, I'll go,
I'll go. And I was in there and I looked
up with him. He started kicking me and he was
kicking the ship out of my knee, and I thought,
(40:48):
he's gonna bug on my knee. I was gonna have
to go in and jale surgery and in character and brokemancing, Yes,
punish me, Joe, punish me. And I was like, I'd
getting wrong. I had to run out of there. You
to tap out, bro You gotta get locked up with
the room. Oh my god, Oh my god. No one
(41:13):
else could ever tell that unless they live in Australia.
Nobody else can tell that story. Listen to you, guys.
I appreciate both of you so much for taking time
out of your day, from taking time away from the
Animal Kingdom and from the Hardy Compound and from flying
all over the place. Matt, keep that active brain of
yours going, keep reinventing, keep evolving. I love it. Jeff,
(41:38):
keep living in the moment. Brother. I hope you're still painting.
I hope you're still making music. If not, please start again.
A balanced artist is a happy artist, so please continue.
I'm I'm playing at the Whiskey on June second. Yeah,
please come out if you can. Man the Whiskey. Where
where where on sunset and l a, get out of here.
The Whiskey the legendary place, my Whiskey. Dude, I haven't
(42:01):
been there, And dude, I would love to come see you.
Jazarian like Kazarians bands opening up for us, so it's
like a full band. Then it's like a ghostic a
second like Whiskey nice too. Oh dude, well ship l
A show up, show up? All right, you guys. I
appreciate you both. Lots of love to you both, and
uh to everybody listening, thank you for the time. And
this was wrestling with Freddy. This has been a production
(42:24):
of I Hearts Michael podcast Network. For more podcasts for
My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah,
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to another episode of Wrestling
with Freddy, and today I have not one, but two guests.
One I had the honor and privilege of working directly with,
and the other punched me in the eye for no reason.
Whatsolept stuffing up for the mic. The Hope of Wrestling
(00:24):
with Freddy Freddie Prince June. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Jeff
and Matt Hardy, welcome to Wrestling with Freddy. Welcome to
the show. Boys. How are you doing well? Man? And
I just want to say when it when it comes
to the scenario where I punched you in the eye,
I just want to say this, it couldn't happen to
a better guy. That's great to be here. I appreciate
(00:48):
you both. In truth, it was my fault. You were
warming up and I was not looking, and I walked
right into your spinning arm that was taped to the gills,
and it am near gave me a black guy. My mom,
when I was a little kid, Legit used to read
me the Hardy Boys books. So the first time I
(01:10):
ever saw The Hardy Boys on TV and you guys
lost in the beginning, I was already kind of like
cued in and and locked into what you wanted to
do just on the name recognition alone, right, And so
then I started to watch what both of you did,
and you're so complete opposites as far as your presentation. Matt,
(01:36):
I've always found you to be more extroverted. Jeff's more introverted. Um,
Jeff's an expressionist. You're like this tech wizard. Like, so
you guys just have these like two little like you
were always thinking what's next. Jeff was always like, this
is who I am, this is what's right now. As
a as a fan member, that's that's that's what I saw.
(02:00):
And as I watched you guys grow from the dudes
that would lose, like, that's what guys like would say
to all of a sudden becoming one of the greatest
tag teams in the history of professional wrestling, and then
to be able to separate and have massive success in
(02:23):
solo careers at the same time and be able to
seamlessly sort of come back together and be great again.
I don't think anyone else has ever pulled this off.
And it may sound like I'm blowing smoke, but I
was just always so impressed by both of you before
I even got to the company. My question is, when
(02:43):
you guys got started, were you just happy to be
living the dream or did you guys legit see those
types of stories happening when we first started. I think
we're just very happy to be living the dream. And
I just want to say, as far as your description
of the two of us, we are are very different.
We are very different souls and you knowed it, like
(03:04):
you can tell you know us well just from that description.
But yeah, our dream was just to to to wrestle,
you know, on the w WF at the time, and
and and and and make it. And our goal ultimately
was to win the world Tag team titles one time,
you know, the on the highest level obviously over so
so we did, Okay, that was our goal. If we
(03:25):
did one time and then we were good, it's a wrap.
And uh, I feel like once we were there, we
were just so humbled to be there and to get
the opportunity to be in the ring, even if we're
gonna aspet. I remember, our goal was like, hey, let's
figure out a real awesome bump we can take for
this guy, you know, so so it'll make him look
good if we do that they'll bring us back. That
was our secret. And Jeff was just such a Jeff
(03:48):
is he was and is such an incredible seller, like
he was awesome in that role. And and we believe
there were a lot of independent people who said, like,
if you guys keep doing this, if you keep doing jobs.
There's a guy who told us that instead of doing
Carney and says, saying jazz obs, he just shortened his jobs.
He said, if you keep doing jobs, you guys are
gonna be labeled like that forever. I said, no, man,
I think we think we can make it if we
(04:08):
keep bust our asks and working hard on I guarantee it.
I believe we can make it. How old were you
when that conversation happened? How old were you when they
said you can't keep doing that? Jeff was six fifteen
years old, gidding there's tennis stars that have retired at
(04:31):
that age. Oh my gosh. Okay, So you come into
the wrestling company. I worked directly under Michael Hayes when
I when I started, And the way Michael speaks about
the two of you is the way a dad speaks
about his sons. He's our wrestling daddy. Well, That's how
(04:55):
he felt. When I was there and I had never
met either one of you, I was I was brand new.
I was not getting the what the writers would call
the good assignments. I was getting the ones that know,
the assignments that no one wanted. And as I started
getting a little better and and figuring stuff out while
still making a lot of mistakes, I started to have
a little bit more access. And I remember, Matt, when
(05:19):
you won the e c W Championship, when they changed
the belt that I loved the Some people didn't like it,
but I loved that big silver blon And it was
the first ever scramble match in W two B history,
So that that's a little piece of wrestling trivia that
always hold. I won the first ever scramble match, that
was the first one, and then they did it again
on SmackDown like a year later, right, So I remember
(05:40):
being in guerrilla position when you won that and came back.
And the reason this popped in my head was you
said something that you said the word humble or humility earlier,
and you walked back and Vince gave you the nod,
and you said, I just want to let you know
I appreciate this so much and I won't let you down.
(06:00):
And it was such a humble moment for a champion,
and his head kind of cocked and he gave you
that like that grunt, right, that all right? And he walked, yeah,
and you walked backstage, and I was sitting and I
had never seen an instance like that before. I didn't
have access to grill a position. Before that moment. I
was just like, whoa that was? That was intense, and
(06:24):
it was my first kind of taste of what it
meant for a wrestler to be a champion in that company.
And before that, like I had made mistakes. I didn't
understand the value of the belt and what it truly
meant outside of a fan going hey, that's cool. So
I'm getting schooled up on there, like learning on the fly.
And then Michael comes in and he says Jeff had
(06:49):
a lot of momentum at the time, and he said, uh,
to the whole writing team, we're gonna try to make
Jeff chance. And I remember there was a guy named
christ to Joseph If and he was like hyped. He
was so excited, right, and some of the other Writersom
was like, how are we gonna how are we going
to do that? And for me it was an opportunity
(07:09):
to get a better assignment. And I had never even
met Jeff yet outside of maybe like a head nod
like that. That was all we did, and I wrote
up a story and Jeff, you had been going through
ship at the time, and I thought, instead of hiding
from that, we should kind of lean into it. And
(07:30):
my philosophy, you know, my dad struggled in the seventies
with a lot of different stuff, like when he died,
he had enough coludes in his system to kill a
damn horse. I had a lot of experience with that,
and I had gone through psychologist after psychologist and a
lot of it. They talked about, you know, the brain
knows when it needs help, it goes to whatever the
(07:51):
quickest route to that help is, right, And so I
tried to come up with this thing that you executed
so beautifully where we talked about the gray area and
the world's not just black and white. That just doesn't
exist in the real world, and there is a gray area.
And it's not about good people are bad people, because
(08:11):
there's good people that make bad choices every day, and
there's bad people to make good choices in their life
and the rest of us are in the middle and
we're all just trying to get by. And I thought
that could be a truthful and honest and this may
sound weird, but a beautiful way to tell your story.
I just didn't know if we could get it approved.
(08:33):
What was going through your head as I'm kind of
throwing these these weird o promos your way? I mean,
was it exciting? Was it? What the hell was this guy? Like? Whatever,
You're not gonna hurt my feelings, even if you're like, dude,
they suck, Like I loved it no matter what. So
I'm just curious as to what was going through your
(08:54):
heart and head at the time. It was crazy exciting
and thank you for helping me become the world champion
for the first time. Is that it's for wrestling. It's
it's an amazing craft and man, I'm just me like
what you see is what you get. And man, but
when that happened, I was like, oh, I do have
something special about me and I don't know what it is,
like the connection between me and the fans, but there's
something The energy I guess is oh my god, there's
(09:15):
no gravity and like we can just soar to the
stars and and and take over whatever when I see
these people. But there's just something special about me, and
I thank you for recognizing that within me, and pro
wrestling is a is a crazy world. Man. It's like
a circus, is like a side show, and um and
I'm just so proud to be a part of it. Jeff,
(09:36):
you talked about that energy, you know, for me, it
was always like when you're when you're not the cool
kid and you're not the popular kid in school, which
I was not, you feel like an outcast and you
try to seek out others that are like minded. But
before the Internet that was impossible, so you legitimately were
(09:57):
an outcast. You you felt ostracized, right, And that's I
think something that people saw and connected with your character
out there, because, like you said, it's you. The character
is you. It's not Jeff Hardy is not out there
faking it and putting on some persona. Is just this
(10:17):
is who I am right now, and I hope you
love me. And it's like you feel that every time
you can, you climb up to the top, right. So
I always felt that connection was Wrestling fans have always
been like those sports fan that has been disrespected the most,
the one that's like discounted the most. I remember calling
Cowherd used to call us mouth breathers, and and then
(10:41):
Fox bought it, and all of a sudden he was
so nice and polite and respectful. Um. But I always
felt those fans kind of felt that way. And so
when they have someone where they can go, that's our guy.
All of a sudden, that's their guy. And that crowd
was always willing to go up to the top and
jump with you if need be. And I remember you
(11:02):
said that energy. I remember when the crowd believed that
it was gonna happen. I didn't watch from Guerilla, even
though I was supposed to. I got yelled at. I
went out to one of the side hallways so I
could see it, you know, the way I the way
I would want to see it if I bought it. Yeah,
and uh, and my phone was going crab free bird.
(11:22):
I was like, get back and where are you. I
didn't even like answer it. I'm just there, like watching
from the wings. And that crowd all of a sudden
when they realized it was Hunter outside the ring and
not you, and that the finish was about to actually happen.
You said there was no gravity, Like I literally felt
like I was floating in that moment because their voices
(11:47):
and the sound like reverberated so damn much that it's
like lifting you up off of the ground. And then
they did the finish, and because you're beautifully insane, you
then climbed the entire scaffold of Armageddon all the way
to the top, which came up just gave me a
heart attack. I was a new father, so like all
(12:08):
my bravery just vanished. And all I'm thinking is I
hope he's okay. Talk about that moment, man, because you
talked about just the regular energy that you get from
a regular match, which sounds like winning a championship. So
(12:28):
what was it like when you actually did like a
little boy's dream come true? Man, like up on that
castle at Armageddon and Armageddon iss coming eventually maybe I'm
getting okay, could help you go, what did Jeffy? But no, uh,
it's such a crazy world. But yeah, it's a little
little boy's dream come true man and God, and then
(12:49):
to do it over and over again. One of my
favorite things, as far as being like world champion is
when Punk and it's so crazy. We're in the same
company now, and there's a huge moment between me and Punk.
Yeah it's gonna I'm sure, Uh it has to. He was.
I mean, I remember when he walked out to your music.
I'm rocked out like jazz. Oh my god. The crowd
(13:12):
got so angry, like bro, you you guys gotta get
it on again, you gotta get I mean you you
tell me, man, And I think there's a huge moment,
like just in the hallway, like me and Matt beat
the Young Bucks or whatever it uh whatever pay per
views coming up or whatever happens. But then we were
me and Punk just have a face off. I love
faceoffs first of all, big hug, you know, but also
(13:37):
let him know, Yeah, I'm gonna see you though, Matt,
I've always had a question for this, and I guess
I could have asked Freebird over the years, but I
just I wanted to ask you. During Jeff's run, there
was this sneaky little thing that you and Freebird did
(13:57):
where Matt hard He's coming out to help his brother,
but Jeff gets hurt and we didn't show it at
that pay per view, we revealed it. I believe at
the next pay per view, But the Matt Hardy character
smiled and wasn't necessarily out there to help his brother.
(14:18):
Is what it seemed was this and this eventually led
to you turning on Jeff. Was this something that you
came up with, Michael came up with. The two of
you sat together and and came Because I wasn't even
aware of it until after it happened in Free Bird,
was like, well, that's just a little extra touch. Um,
so I know they pitched it to me, and it's
so funny. There was like these old rumors that float
(14:40):
around like, oh my god, it was supposed to be Christian,
but then they changed it. They made it mad. It
was always gonna be me, and they just I feel
like they felt the best path forward for me because always,
historically Jeff has always been more popular, probably always will
be more popular. I just want to tack on something
to what you're saying earlier. We do these massive autograph
signings now that we're back, you know the parties, you
(15:00):
know whenever we go to these uh you know, autograph
signings are like four hours four and a half hours
are long and massive, and there's so many people that
have watched us for so long in October of this year,
We've been doing this for thirty years, and you know,
we've been doing it like on the highest level now
for almost almost twenty five years, which is crazy and
and and like you said, is it's very special that
we can be a tag team and win multiple world
(15:23):
tag team titles together and then split off and when
other titles and come out the other one titles again, Like,
I don't think there's ever been a team that has
had that sort of success as as a team and
uh singles, you know when it when it when you
think about the big scheme of things. The only person
I can really think that's close is Edging Christian. But
they both had to take off, like you know, seven
to nine years because of their severe injuries and whatnot.
(15:44):
So Jeff has this thing about him. Whenever we're doing
these signings, people come up to all the time they go, oh,
my god, you inspired me to be me because you
were just someone who like this is who you are.
If you like me, great, if you don't, great, I
don't care. I'm me and I'm happy this moment. I'm
doing what I love in this moment, and I'm living
my life to the fullest in this moment, and I
don't care what anybody else says. And that's a huge
(16:06):
inspiration to him, and people all the time come and
say thank you so much. You helped me during a
tough period of my childhood or whatever, like you made
me not afraid to be myself. So I think that's
one of the very special things that goes along with him,
and that leads, I think to him being historically the
most popular of the two of us. And then Michael
Hayes had pitches. I think the best way forward for you,
Matt is now that you're the c c W champion
(16:28):
and he's the w B champion, if we did a
thing where like you were almost jealous, you know, he's
getting all the you know, he's getting all the light
shined on him right now as being the big champion,
and you've been a big champion even longer. Like, what
if we do a thing where you get so frustrated
and ultimately you turn on him and we do a
big match at WrestleMania and you guys can face one
another on the you know, the the biggest platform possible.
(16:49):
And I was all down for it and said, yeah,
that sounds good, and I didn't disagree, so they started
planning those seeds. I want to say. The first thing
was like you were found like uh out in a stairwell,
and it was almost like a play in real life, like,
oh my god, was was Jeff Hardy messed up? We
know he's had his demons and we know he has
had his issues, but it turns out in the backstory
that I was the one that did that to him.
(17:10):
There was a deal where there was a car crash
and remember the film that you some girl like as
your wife is bed and and and I ended up
being me as well. And then the Pyro thing, which
is one of my favorite deals because he made it
look so amazing the way he sold it. And then
ultimately ended up where my worst enemy, a guy that
I have historically hated Edge. You know, he is wrestling
Jeff and I screwed Jeff out of the match and
(17:31):
allow Edge to win, which really solidified that I was
a real piece of ship. Terrible bad guy. That's long
term storytelling that doesn't get done as much anymore. I
miss it, man, and that was done really well. I
feel like at that point, if we would have just
focused on me being jealous and my envy of him
being so popular when he has the title. The thing
I think where we we went a little too far
(17:53):
is because his house legitimately did burn down. Whenever I
burned down his house and killed his dog, I felt
like a lot of people say, I, I mean kind
of in on him being joles, but that's that's a
little too much, and I remember that became part of
the story. Yeah, I remember that too. I feel like
fans disconnected there a little bit, and that that was
my feeling from reading the crowd as well. Well. When
that's well, let's talk about that reading the crowd and that. Okay,
(18:15):
So to me, professional wrestling and stand up comedy are
the two most brutal forms of art. Okay. The crowd
lets you know right away if they don't like your joke,
because they don't laugh. They let you know right away
if they don't like your work in the ring, and
they'll scream at you, they'll start you suck chance, not
(18:37):
because you're the heel, because they genuinely hate you. So
when you talk about feeling that in the crowd, how
do you communicate that to creative Have you ever been
able to communicate that successfully is it? Does it fall
on deaf ears? What to talk about that real quick
if you could. There was one moment like before I
(18:57):
went out and the like I think Michael Hays is
up and advance and you know everybody, uh man, And
they played the video package and like Jack are dog
that died in the fire was the last visual of
that almost like broke down there. You gotta be fired
up that that was right before. I'm not getting fired up.
I'm going to have a stone cold because man, that
(19:21):
ship had really happened. This ship is fake. You know
what we're doing now, it's just an act, you know,
so to speak. And that was one I just went
on like just stone called us and I'm not I'm
not getting fired up at all. I I feel like
inserting reality in the storylines. It's important and it needs
to be done, especially now in the age of the
Internet and the age of information, because everybody knows everything.
(19:43):
I think you do. But there there's also some things
and I think we were right on the cusp of
this period of this time. That was an event that
was so tragic and so sad that it literally his
house burned out, you know, all the old tits, all
this old gear, his his dog died. I mean, it
was a really traumatic event on him, and just for
for them to put that in their storyline was almost
(20:04):
like where it was bad taste and that that's what
I felt whenever I see that, especially in high whenever
they had me come out and they had like a
I'll never forget them burning a dog collar and then
I held the dog collar like you know, the guy
who did the props, he was like, Okay, well he's
burning more sho. I said, I think it's fine. It's
like I remember saying like I don't know. I mean,
(20:25):
i'll do it. This is what you guys want me
to do. I'll do it, but like this could be
too much, and I could just feel like you guys
weren't alone the air. The air came out of the crowd.
They're like, it's not like we're not mad at you
because you're playing the bad guy in the story. We're
mad at you because this is a poor taste. So
that's how it felt, you're not alone in that. I
remember m v P and Jeff had a thing after that,
(20:46):
and m v P had some of that commentary and
his and he was even saying like, hey, I think
we've already kind of done this, and you know, I'm
not a good going there, and and they were still
you know, real real aggressive about about trying to make
that work. But I I see what you because it's
so easy to get to a good place and then
quickly say what's next when you work at W W
(21:08):
E instead of living in that moment and allowing that
moment to be more organic. A lot of times, when
it works, two weeks later, it's like, well, now that
has to evolve to something else, and it's like, man,
it's still so fresh, like they've literally only gotten about
ten minutes of this so far as far as like
TV time that you've allowed, like we can let this
play out. And sometimes they get it right, you know,
(21:32):
sometimes they do do a nice, slow, drawn out story.
A W did a great one this year with with
m JF and Punk. I thought that was slow and
and and beautiful as well. So let's let's transition to
a E W Jeff, you already planted the seed as
far as CM punk, but as far as tag teams go.
(21:55):
And look, this is me as a as a fan
and a guy who who got to work with both
you and has love for both of you. You guys
need to shoot straight to the top of this division.
You guys need to have all the belts around you.
I would even want the Ring of Hunter belts around you.
What's the goal for you guys as the tag team
right now at least in the coming year. I mean,
I agree with you. Our goal here in a W
(22:17):
is to submit our legacy. And the first business we
want to conduct his winning the a W World Tag
Team Championships. And on top of that, I love to
win the Triple A. I'd love to win the Ring
of Honor. I'd love to win the new Japan titles.
Will win them all, man. We really want to submit
our legacy. As you know, the legit goats one of
the greatest of all town. You guys are already subment,
just so you know. At this point, it's just layering
(22:38):
gold on top of the submit. But I had this
one out as far as like two Sweet or Delete
is one cinematic match that we never got to do
before we went back to WB in seventeen. But I
had this idea about us going into the ocean in
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and coming out and of the
Ocean in Long Beach, California, and then Man, the Young
(22:59):
Us and the Young let go out of you know,
brother complete an hour from Long Beach. Y'all could come
out like James Bond from the James Bond movie on
the or halle Berry Portals. Oh my god, I just
I just said what my dream match would be today
on our podcast on the Extreme Life mat Hardy. It
would be all the greatest tag teams. I would use everyone,
(23:20):
you know, like Totally and Arn and the Rock and
Roll Express, used the Young Bucks and and we have.
It starts at the Hardy Compound and then there's portals,
and it leads all over the world. We can be it,
you know. We can be in Japan, we can be
in the e c W Arena. We're making a worldwide
If you guys have all the belts, you can do it.
If you guys have all the belts. I've been looking
(23:41):
at some properties commercial real estate because I want to
have a home base for a little independent wrestling company
that I want to start in about a year and
a half out here. Yeah, yeah, I've heard these rumors. Man.
I was looking at a place in downtown Los Angeles,
that was like a rooftop supper club that had gone
out of business, and it was like the Downtown l
A skyline, and all I could think of was a
(24:02):
Hardy here and a Hardy here on turn buckles with
the l A. Scott's. The only skyline we got is
downtown with the l A Skyline behind, while both you
guys just jump off twelve feet in the air Atlanta.
But I remember seeing that being like wow, man, like
rooftop wrestling with the Hardy boys would be insane watching
you guys, watching you guys go mad there. I do
(24:31):
want to say this, and I got one more question
for you. But as you know, as soon as we
hang up, I'm gonna try to write a CM punk
Jeff Hardy storyline and I'm gonna send it to Tony
Cohn like submitted to submitted to Papa con Like that's
all my Once you said that, I literally like, oh
my god, Yeah, they're in the same company. Of course
they know there's so much they got it. I mean,
(24:53):
it was such a it was such a wonderful story.
But both you guys have been in some of my
favorite stories and what my well, he hated me when
I joined the company, but he's held both my baby since.
Uh one of the stories met that you were involved
in that I've loved and and the US title hasn't
meant anything since. Was you an m v P? I
(25:14):
thought this was it was basically competitive friendship rivalry. It
wasn't hate it first, and it allowed itself, in a slow,
long format, to develop into something more than you've got
what I want? Give it to me. It was it
(25:35):
was no, you're not better than I'm better than you,
or it was that old song anything you can do,
I can do better I could. I think that's literally
it had this old school field to it. Was that
something that was brought to you guys, or was that
something that you guys wanted to do that that ended
up being a touch we decided to put on it,
and I feel like at that time it was a
single m v P and single Matt. We were doing
that in real life too. We were like competitive. We
(25:57):
would go out to eat in by bar. Later we
would they see who could drink the most route, pick
up the most chicks or whatever. We were just super
competitive and everything really good and it almost like translated
way on a TV. So that was supposed to be
a short term thing for the U S title, and
then like later we added details and you know, I said, well,
what if you decided you wouldn't try to make me
(26:17):
your tag team partner and we go after the tag
team go with us, said, and that kind of gives
us a way to extend this and we can make
that happen. And Vince was so open to us there.
There would be times you remember the lines that would
be outside Vince's door. You know, there'd be eight or
nine people just wait and they were waiting for an hour,
ninety minutes outside his door to getting to see him
m v P. And I like, if we'd be at
the line, we'd say, hey, Vince, we should in the text,
(26:37):
Hey we're outside. He said he'd come in to there.
He said, Matt MVP, come right in and we'd passed
the whole line. We did that almost every single week.
He was like we were his favorites in that time.
Every time we kind of suggested something, he was always
open to it. That was one of that was one
of the most fun times as far as working with Vince,
and he was liking what we're doing and it was
succeeding on television, and he was always open ideas. When
I first did Matt Hardy v. One two, he was
(26:59):
very open I'd is and I got to interact with
him a lot too, which was which was very cool.
Do you think maybe that's the issue with some of
the younger talent these days, is not either having the
ideas or not having the confidence to bring their ideas
to the top people. Do you think maybe they're waiting
for ideas to come to them. I think so. I mean,
you have to be hungry, you have to be willing to,
you know, go out on a limb and try something
(27:21):
different and think out of the box, especially because in
pro wrestling now everything's been done, Like, how can we
switch up our storytelling in a different way which is
kind of fresh and creative, which will well, we'll have people.
And I think that's one of the toughest deals in
this day and age, and I feel like now it
w be it's even harder my last time that I
was back, and Jeff was there a couple of years
after me, but like, it's very hard to get in
(27:42):
and have that one on one FaceTime with Vince Snow
and I feel like that's very important because he he
has almost become like, you know, the Wizard of Oz.
He's like the man behind the curtain, and it's very
hard to get FaceTime with him. But I think guys
have to stay driven. They have to continue to submit
ideas even if you get if you have fifty ideas
shot down, you might get when they roll with. I mean,
I think you have to do that as part of
your obligation from creative aspect in this in this industry, Jeff.
(28:06):
But before I get to my last question, which is
more family driven and brother driven, did you ever hear
about the production meeting before you went over as champion?
Did anyone ever share that with you? I never did.
Is it ideas or politicking? I think it was politicing, right, Yeah,
well some of us had two politics, So yeah, I
(28:29):
know if Legends Stars make correct, I've read this and
heard the rumors. I would love to hear the official
story though. So this was like the craziest, coolest, most
passionate moment I ever had in not the wrestling business,
in show business. I'd never been in a position where
(28:51):
it was this like creative and realistic debate going back
and forth. And you've got those production meetings are like
forty people deep, right. So there was the group that
was pro Jeff winning the title, which was a larger
group in that room, and then there was a smaller
group that did not want that to happen. And it
was it was a smaller group, but their voices carried weight.
(29:16):
And all of a sudden, I'm sitting next to Freebird
and the conversation starts going away from all this work
and what I described out loud as sacrifice Jeff's made
as far as giving you real stuff. We can't take
this away. But I'm seeing it getting taken away, and
Freebirds starts squeezing my wrist, like, get get up, get up.
(29:36):
You gotta say something. You gotta because if he He's
like if I, if I do it, that they won't
go for it. And so I'm sitting there and literally
like he's got a wrestler's grip. You know, it's no joke.
I'm feeling it, man, I'm like, oh my god. So
I stand up and I start giving that that speech
where it's like, yo, man, this guy's sacrificed so much
and he's given so much, and I know there's been
(29:58):
you know, choices, We're not going to call him mistakes,
I'll call them choices, But damn, what did we do
this for if not now? And it keeps going back
and forth, And finally, and I had looked up the
numbers on your merchandise sales because I was paranoid that
something like this might happen. And over the last six months,
you had outsold everyone in the company at that time,
including the person that was most against this decision, and
(30:22):
that was my aces Spades that I that I had,
no not that one, and it was it was three letters,
They're all this, they were all the same. So I'm
sitting there, I'm like, man, if I pull this card,
it's it's my last move. Like I'm not gonna be
able to like outshoot that. So I had to wait
for everybody to get there saying and then finally I
just went All those armed bands out there, all those
(30:42):
crazy Spider Man looking things, they're on every single person
in the crowd. This man has sold more merchandise than
every single person, including the people in this room, over
the last six months because of the sacrifices he's put
in this story. Those people believe in him. That's why
they're buying that even though they already have three of them.
They're putting on four and five over that because they
(31:04):
actually believe in this. And I remember Kevin Dunn when
I mentioned the Mercht numbers because I'm not gonna throw
your business out there, but I said what they were
because we had access to all that stuff in the company,
and Kevin Dunn just went only ship and once he
said that, I was like, Oh, we're good. And then
Vince goes, all right, everybody get out of here, and
he throws us all out except you know a few people.
(31:25):
I wasn't in those people. Neither was Freebird. And we
go out and DJ and I are both like, it's
it's on, It's on. And I'm like, I'm going to
tell Jeff and Freeber. It's like, you're not telling Thatnie
to spot over again. You gotta wait till they come out.
And I'm like, well, what, what what do you mean?
He goes, if they if you come out, if they
come out here and they see you celebrating Freddy, I
swear to God to be the last thing you work.
(31:48):
And I'm like all right. I'm like, all right, I'll
keep it cool. I'll keep it cool. And so I've
tried to keep it cool in DJ's elbow and be like, dude,
I can't believe we're gonna get this because DJ shot
all this stuff, almost all the stuff that I wrote
for you, Like I remember where he took. He was
in London with you when you did that great Undertaker
bit with him at the London Show, and uh so
he was very heavily invested in this as well. And
(32:09):
then all of a sudden, the naysayers all came out
and none of them even looked at me, And so
that's when I knew. I was like, oh, we're good,
We're good to go. And you just hear Vinceco get
in there, and free Bird goes in, and we all
go in. It's just the three of us, and he
goes nobody touches Jeff to larm aged and that's and
Freebird was just like, well, I can't say what he said,
(32:30):
but dude, dude, dude, it's basically what he said as
we walked out, and then we were running from that
moment forward and it was such a crazy I had
so much fun. It felt like the stakes were so high.
I never felt like the stakes were high in any
movie I ever did, or any like job that I wrote,
(32:51):
or if I did, I just couldn't. It wasn't at
that level, but the stakes felt so high because of
that energy that you described in the beginning of this.
It was real old man like those fans when they
and I never had that. Like my fanship was more
girls who wanted to fall in love in the nineties, right,
but it was never but but for real like Matt's
(33:12):
were real about you know, like his popularity and who
loves him and who respects him. And I have a
good perspective on that too, probably because we're older Matt
and we have wisdom. But Jeff had this way where
you just give more than guys like me, and people
respect that and they love that. And that energy was real.
I've heard comedians talk about that, that energy, and it's
(33:36):
such a I said this before I think I even
said it to you, and we were working together. I said, dude,
you're wrestling is like a Jackson Pollock painting. It's like
it's like your vomiting emotion all over a literal canvas,
except it's actual blood, sweat and tears and face paint
on a literal canvas. I was like, it's the true
definition of our and I've always described you as that way,
(33:57):
as Jackson Pollock, whereas like hard Matt is literally like
Andy Warhol, like what's next? What are the people gonna
be looking for? What's next? And then he hits him
with it. And so to see these two complete like,
no way Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock ever hung out,
No way they could live on the same compound together.
So my my final question is I'm an only child.
(34:20):
My brother, my son, and my daughter fight all the time.
I'm sure you guys have as well. How have you
guys managed to keep this bond, to stay so tight
and to be like the true definition of brothers. I
used to ask my mom at Christmas, I don't want
any presents. I just want a brother. She's like, Babe,
I have my tubes, tide, that's not happening. So she
(34:41):
had twenty three hours of labor with me. She was done.
But how how have you guys done this? Man? And
maybe there's no answer, and that's fine too, but how
how have you guys managed you said thirty years used
eighteen and sixteen. That's insane. You guys are still doing
this at the highest levels. Yeah, it should be. It's
a beautiful history that will never bet. It's the story
(35:03):
you know of us, and he has the you know.
For me, it's just like faith and hope. I over
pray all the time. I talked to something more than me,
like every day, and I believe in that. I I
really feel like, you know, our mom died young, and
we we very much modeled ourselves after her in many ways,
um until we had in wrestling, and then those guys
(35:25):
kind of tour away hand us and get us all
all screwed up. But obviously we're not gonna blame that
on pro wrestling. UM. You know. I just feel like
from early on, we just realized, like whenever our mom passed,
I remember our dad said to us, and he was there,
and our dad's like a real hard Southern man. First
time we've ever saw him cry, and he said, like, guys,
we have to be strong, we have to go on
for her. That's what she would want. So I just
(35:46):
even from that moment on, I feel like there was
a very special bond where there's been times where we've
been at each other's throats, we've had disagreements or whatever,
but we always know our bond as brothers are is
very special and it will always come back and it
always be there. Even if we have a just agreement
or there's a period where we're on different pages, we
always get back on the same page every single time.
And I just think we understand how special it is.
(36:07):
And that's something I really try and reinforce in in
my kids. I have three young boys, you know, Maxwell,
Woffie and Barty his brothers. Like guys, your brothers, you're
gonna fight with them, You're gonna argue, especially when you're younger.
Now you're gonna fight all the time. But remember they
are the most important people in your life, Like you
can always depend on them, and I think we know
that we can always depend on one another, no regardless
of what the situation or scenario is. Yeah, for sure.
(36:30):
I have the hearty girls like Ruby and Near a man.
Eleven and six is crazy when you look back at
everything and it really does fly by. But like Matt's
like little boys, man, they're so entertaining. I'll tell you
a real quick story. They were on the motocross track
one day, like and they were all playing and Wolfie
wanted the snack, you know, so he was trying to
go in our house. We have dogs in the house.
We have a lot of too many dogs. Thinking about
(36:50):
he's he's not at home. We were like out on
the motocross track and they're running up down the hill
and was going towards my house to go go get
a snack, you know, and and Matt said, woof where
are you going? I need I need a snack. Where
you gonna get it from? He said, from the fridge,
of course, so broken, No you can't. There's dogs in there.
(37:14):
They'll they'll buy you or something. Matt, what you had
like a kangaroo, damn zebra? Yeah, kala, bears and all
kinds of ship Yeah, some of the best. What was
your kangaroo's name was smoking Joe Frasier, the kingoo man,
the Kingaroo, his vessel. It contained the essence, the joke
(37:38):
of smoking Joe Frasier. You know, I new smoking in
a minute decades ago, and now I've kept track of
his essence and his essences now in this kangaroo. So
he would teach us how to strike with his hans
and feet. Yo. That's what got me back in touch
with you on social media because I was like, yod,
what character is this guy created? Now? Like I legit
reached out to you. I was like, what what is
(37:59):
going on? Of the hell are you? This is years
ago now, but Lily Man, I can't say how many
people how many people said that was friends with Whenever
I started doing Broken Mat and I went all in
right method, acting all the way like they said, hey,
t NA said, hey, we want to put you on
Meltzer show. You know, he wants you to do the
whole show, you know, because it's gonna getting hot whatever.
I said, you know, it's like it's gonna be like
(38:20):
fifty minutes. He said, So it is that cool? You know,
they're just like talking wrestling, said, you tell Dave if
I'm gonna be on there. It's all Broken Mat, the
whole whow It's the whole gimmick. I'm not I'm not changing.
And I did everything in gimmick. People were contacting me
going like hey, bro, man, is everything all right? Like
I just want to see, like make sure you hadn't
fell off or anything. Man, it's everything cool, Like you
(38:40):
need me to come up and stay with you or
help you out. It's everything cool. And I was like, oh,
I'm good, I said, I've never been better. I said,
I'm just trying to suck everyone into into this broken
universe I'm creating. Bro. I would send those videos to
Karen Culkin, who used to be like my wrestling show
running mate back in the day, like he's been thrown
out of Wrestling Show. He was such like a psychophane
and um to the best actor on HBO, but he
(39:03):
started off as a psycho fan and I literally be like, yo, Checko,
what hard he's doing? And he literally straight back, you know,
what the funk is going on right now? But we
loved it, man, we loved it. So a little insight
into that there's this place like fifteen minutes from us,
which is so crazy because we live out in the
middle of rural North Carolina, obviously little po dunk Town, Cameron.
(39:24):
There's this place where there's a little privately owned zoo
and they had these couple of animals they had, like
you know, the giraffe was George Washington. He was always
a bit and like Jeremy boor Rash who was shooting
all that stuff. Loved going out there and I was like,
I mean, I would talk to these animals like I'm
talking to you right now. I would be fully invested,
you know, with whatever we're doing, and this is a
great story. The first sound with Smoking Joe, we were there.
(39:46):
I said, yes, I said, brother Nero, you know, I said,
I have established a very special boxing match. He's going
to help us with our strikes so we can take
out the books of youth. And I said, yeah, let
me to get into And I'm sure how Smoking Joe works,
I said. And then like they told us, they said,
this guy's an older Kingaroo. They said, he throws some
pretty vicious kids, but he's the most tame of the
three we have. So if you guys are gonna shoot
(40:07):
some with him and be best do with him. And
he one time rare up into a real hard kick.
And then I remember, I told you so, brother Nero,
you're such a spot monkey. You jump off the top rope,
off every purcabaable. You should fight him fust And the
cameras was like, and I had him the Kingaroo first,
I want to see how bad the damage was, Just
like I got, I'm sitting there with Dr Doolittle and
(40:28):
I gotta take a book from a real kangaroo. And
the jet locked up the man, I was like, and
he kicked the shot, and then and then after Jeff went,
I said, dude, I said, I said, dude. I said,
all right, man, I said, I'll go bad thank you
man for taking the first bull. I said, I'll go,
I'll go. And I was in there and I looked
up with him. He started kicking me and he was
kicking the ship out of my knee, and I thought,
(40:48):
he's gonna bug on my knee. I was gonna have
to go in and jale surgery and in character and brokemancing, Yes,
punish me, Joe, punish me. And I was like, I'd
getting wrong. I had to run out of there. You
to tap out, bro You gotta get locked up with
the room. Oh my god, Oh my god. No one
(41:13):
else could ever tell that unless they live in Australia.
Nobody else can tell that story. Listen to you, guys.
I appreciate both of you so much for taking time
out of your day, from taking time away from the
Animal Kingdom and from the Hardy Compound and from flying
all over the place. Matt, keep that active brain of
yours going, keep reinventing, keep evolving. I love it. Jeff,
(41:38):
keep living in the moment. Brother. I hope you're still painting.
I hope you're still making music. If not, please start again.
A balanced artist is a happy artist, so please continue.
I'm I'm playing at the Whiskey on June second. Yeah,
please come out if you can. Man the Whiskey. Where
where where on sunset and l a, get out of here.
The Whiskey the legendary place, my Whiskey. Dude, I haven't
(42:01):
been there, And dude, I would love to come see you.
Jazarian like Kazarians bands opening up for us, so it's
like a full band. Then it's like a ghostic a
second like Whiskey nice too. Oh dude, well ship l
A show up, show up? All right, you guys. I
appreciate you both. Lots of love to you both, and
uh to everybody listening, thank you for the time. And
this was wrestling with Freddy. This has been a production
(42:24):
of I Hearts Michael podcast Network. For more podcasts for
My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah,
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