Matt Hardy discusses Jeff Hardy's last match in AEW.
At the February 14th taping of AEW Rampage, Sammy Guevara faced Jeff Hardy in a No Disqualification Match. During the match, Hardy suffered a broken nose. He and Guevara finished the match, as Guevara hit the GTH for the win. Guevera was later suspended because concussion protocol was not followed. Jeff Hardy went on to leave AEW when his contract expired in June.
Speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, Matt Hardy was asked about Jeff's match against Sammy Guevara and Guevara getting suspended.
“What I can tell you is that whenever we had that match, I think we had half-ass convinced Tony Khan to try and let us do either a new gimmick or turn us heel, or whatever else, because apparently that was his mentality behind booking Jeff to lose some matches back to back on TV. He has this match with Sammy, and the deal happened where Sammy landed on him, he was bleeding, they stopped it, and I do know they wanted him to go straight home there. I think Jeff, probably on autopilot, but [he] was still pretty aware of what he was doing, came up, and they went into his finisher, the GTH, whatever, and they did it, and Jeff was okay. But I think they had asked him not to do it, just to go home, and I think Doc Sampson was the one saying, ‘Just end it now.’ I think they would have been fine if he would have just grabbed him and rolled him up or whatever it maybe have been, just hold him down because he’s hurt. They took that as Sammy was defying orders. I think just that and they said there were a couple of other incidents, whatever, they did, they suspended him, and it was legitimate, that suspension. He was gone for a pretty long time following that," Hardy said.
Matt Hardy went on to note that the angle where he got in the ring and confronted Guevara after the match was always part of the plan. He noted that they were trying to set up the next step in the plan for The Hardys, as they were in the midst of transitioning to something new. Hardy reiterated that this was the planned direction, regardless of the injury.
"At the very end of the match, the stuff where I came in, I was trying to flex, I’ve gotten into great shape, I was ready to rock and roll, I had been ready to rock and roll. That was something we planned already. We were gonna do [that] in an attempt to transition into whatever we were doing next, even if we’re this over-the-top delusional GOAT tag team who ultimately portray babyfaces, or if we end up becoming heels, we wanted, we knew as The Hardys, we had been so beaten so much for so long and devalued to a degree. We wanted to turn the corner, and we wanted to do something new to kind of get a fresh start, and that’s kind of why we had that at the end. That was always the plan. If it had been a regular match and Jeff hadn’t gotten hurt, I was still gonna get in the ring, I was gonna take off my shirt, we were gonna flip behind off, we were gonna tell him to go fuck himself, and then we were gonna leave, and then he was gonna get attacked or something at the end. But that was part of the angle and story we were trying to tell. But immediately because he’d gotten hurt, and they tied Sammy to me getting hurt, they’re like, ‘Matt Hardy’s like, ‘Fuck this guy, I’m coming in and I’m gonna tell him to go to hell, and maybe we’ll get into a shoot fight, and it’s gonna turn into the UFC.’ But it was one of those things, that stuff was planned to happen as it was anyway, and that was gonna be part of our story that we were trying to tell, and it’s so funny that the Internet ran wild with that," Hardy said.
During the podcast, Matt Hardy recalled getting knocked out in his match against Sammy Guevara at AEW All Out 2020. Check out his comments here.
Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy have returned to TNA in recent months. Guevara has returned to AEW/ROH, and he has won the ROH World Tag Team Championship with Dustin Rhodes.
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