The Hardy Boyz' WrestleMania return will go down as one of the event's most iconic moments.
At WrestleMania 33, The New Day introduced a mystery tag team to be inserted into the night's tag team ladder match against The Bar, The Good Brothers, and Enzo Amore and Big Cass. While at first it seemed The New Day would announce themselves, they instead shocked the world by introducing the returning Brothers Hardy.
The moment was especially memorable because, just a day earlier, the Hardy's competed in Ring of Honor against The Young Bucks in another ladder match.
On The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy Podcast, the elder Hardy brother spoke about the magic of that moment, what it meant to fans, and what it meant to him, personally.
“As time moves forward, this moment becomes more and more special. It becomes more and more legendary in some ways and iconic just cause there are people that constantly — I probably hear this more than anything else from people that have attended events. Some people would say like, ‘Oh my god, I was at the tag team ladder match against Edge and Christian, It was amazing. Or they’ll say, ‘I was at TLC 2’ or ‘I was at the triangle ladder match.’ What I hear more than anything and I hear it almost weekly at this point, ‘Oh my god, I was there at WrestleMania 33 in Orlando when you and your brother returned. It was insane, I can’t describe how crazy it was.’ This moment is just such a huge massive moment for so many people and it meant so much to them, but the further away we get from the original moment of the happening, I think it means even more and more to us and it continues to climb up the list of the greatest moments of our career because it was so special. WWE being our birthplace, the place that gave us our initial opportunity, we were both burned out at the end of that, we went to other places. I was in Ring Of Honor some, Jeff was at TNA and we did stuff and worked our way back to come back. We came back and it was great in the beginning and there was a lot of good stuff that happened during that run I had from 2017 to 2020. I’ve said this many times before, if the mindset was different with Triple H, I think I probably would’ve ended up staying there, but it is what it is. Just that moment, it’s so precious because it shows all the hard work we did and all the kind of work we did on ourselves during that period to get us back there.
Now, we’re kind of on the verge, it feels like of this other moment now that we’ve kind of dipped our toe into the NXT water and doing that. It feels really good, especially for Jeff, I can tell it’s very cathartic to him because is very serious about this. The first time that he was trying to get everything together with his alcohol issues and alcoholism was during the time that our dad was dying. I think it was hard from him to stay fully focused on stuff, this isn’t me making excuses for him, he made terrible decisions during that time, but now he’s finally got to a point where he has finally got everything together and he is in control and he’s a totally different person with a totally different mindset and it’s just so nice and refreshing to see every time I’m around him. The fact that we feel like we might be on the precipice of another special moment like this — even the return to NXT, those were special moments, but it’s so rewarding when you feel like you’ve worked on yourself and you’ve worked on your craft and you’ve been through a struggle and you’ve had to overcome something in life, whatever obstacle or challenges it may be, and you feel like you’ve accomplished something and then you get rewarded for that accomplishment. That is ultimately what the WrestleMania 33 moment meant to both of us. It’s a very special moment and everytime it comes up, I go, we’re so grateful for that moment because they gave us that moment, it was special, it’s burnt in people’s memories. We are very blessed to be associated with that moment as the guys who were returning to WWE and being entered into that ladder match to win the titles, it was a really special moment,” Hardy said.
The Hardy Boyz would go on to win that match and reign as the WWE Raw Tag Team Champions one more time.
Hardy spoke on another of other topics, and fans can listen to the interview in its entirety in the video embedded above, or by clicking here.
For results of this year's WrestleMania, check out our results page.
