It never hurts to respect your elders.
In the late 90s, The Hardy Boyz were being managed by Michael PS Hayes, while their rivals, Edge & Christian, were members of The Brood with Gangrel. Though all of the men were friends off-screen, there was one night when the two figureheads got into a tussle using their heads.
Gangrel was the guest on the most recent episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy and shared the story of himself and Michael Hayes getting into a headbutting "contest" while at an Outback Steakhouse.
“I don’t know how we all ended up there [Outback Steakhouse]. Matt and Jeff ate healthy. Christian and Edge were really healthy eaters. At that point I didn’t really care much about eating, I was just looking for my next Jack Daniels shot. So we ended up at the Outback and I went to the bar and sat down with Michael Hayes which was a big mistake. So I go to the bar and we’re doing shots and it’s all cool but then, I don’t know if you’ve been around Michael Hayes, but he tells a lot of stories but they’re stories you’ve already heard once, twice, three times. So when you’re getting on about the tenth round of the same story and you finish the story for him and he gets hot, ‘Hey, wait a minute. It’s my time! You know what that means, boy?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah I know what that means, you can shut up [laughs].’ He goes, ‘You wanna headbutt?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah I wanna headbutt,’ because I was frustrated. I think we started headbutting in the Outback. If I remember right, Matt, Jeff, Christian, and Edge came over and said, ‘We gotta get this outside.’ So we went outside and continued going outside. We went back and forth and he caught me with one good one so I riffled back with another one, boom. Then I hit him with one more. I think he started bleeding and I was getting ready to go in for the kill and Christian and Edge and Matt and Jeff, they broke it up because we were getting ready to go down the side of a hill," Gangrel said.
Gangrel would continue on to admit that perhaps he was in the wrong, but even despite that, he has nothing but respect for Michael Hayes, and are still good to this day.
"Don’t get me wrong, I love Michael Hayes. Michael’s been nothing but good to me, he just wanted to headbutt that night. He thought I was being disrespectful, but maybe I was. Shit man, I heard the story ten times. You got a few drinks in you yourself and you say stuff you shouldn’t say. He’s a senior to me, I should have been quiet but it ended up in a headbutting contest. We were good after it. Still good today,” he said.
Gangrel would briefly manage Matt and Jeff towards the end of 1999 as The New Brood, but that would only last for a few months. He appeared on a pre-Double or Nothing episode of AEW Rampage alongside The Young Bucks as they took the "Hardy cosplayer" criticism levied against them to the next level.
Elsewhere during the interview, Gangrel commented on Paige VanZant's first match in AEW. You can learn more by clicking here.
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