AEW Star Discusses Debuting During The Pandemic

AEW

An AEW star has discussed debuting during the pandemic.

In 2020, Matt Hardy made his way to All Elite Wrestling where he has become a consistent member of the roster and been involved in many storylines over the past three years.

With Hardy making his debut on the first pandemic episode of AEW Dynamite from an empty Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, he has seen the strides made for the company.

Speaking with Alex McCarthy of Daily Mail, Hardy was asked how he looks back at that introduction now and would he have done it differently. He answered:

“‘Looking back in hindsight, if I would have known there weren’t going to be any fans for a year and a half and if I knew there was going to be a pandemic, which obviously no one could have predicted that, I probably wouldn’t have started as Broken Matt Hardy.”

“I would have started just as a regular version of Matt Hardy. Because Broken Matt Hardy is such a fan-driven character, you know, just everything he does from the taunts to the people of hearing him say words crazy, whatever it may be. It definitely is driven and fuelled by fans being in the arena.”

“So that’s what I would probably have done different. I would just come in, like Matt Hardy baby face, one-half of the Hardy Boys as opposed to doing Broken Matt Hardy from the jump.'”

Shortly after his debut in the promotion, AEW presented their first pay-per-view of the pandemic era, Double Or Nothing 2020. In the main event, Matt Hardy teamed up with The Elite to face Inner Circle in the first Stadium Stampede match.

When asked what was the unique stipulation like to put together and then see it come to fruition, Hardy replied:

“‘It was a blast. And obviously, we worked with super creative guys, you know, being able to get there and work with The Bucks and Kenny. That was my first time really getting to know Kenny, because I’ve never worked with them before then and working with Jericho, obviously, and all the Inner Circle guys.”

“I mean, that’s something I am extremely proud of. I think the Stadium Stampede is one of the best things that came out of the pandemic. You know we were kind of forced to go there and do that.”

“I remember when Tony Kahn proposed the match initially, we weren’t sure what it was going to be. There were different ideas making it some sort of football-based match. And we, we had different ideas. But then, ultimately, we kind of like settled on doing a cinematic match.” 

“We would just use the Jaguars stadium to our advantage, and I look back at that, and I’m very, very proud of what we did. It was very special, especially when the world was in such a strange, weird place, and I feel like it was important for us to entertain people. It was like the best escapism you could possibly have, the Stadium Stampede.'”

Matt Hardy also shared his honest thoughts about CM Punk and his “loyal fanbase” elsewhere in the interview, which you can read here.

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• Stadium Stampede
• Matt Hardy
• Debut
• AEW

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