Darby Allin Reflects On Match With Jeff Hardy, Growing Up a Fan Of His

Darby Allin battled Jeff Hardy in AEW back in 2022, and he recently looked back on the match including the big ladder spot onto a bunch of chairs. Allin and Hardy competed in an Owen Hart Foundation Tournament match on the May 11th, 2022 episode of AEW Dynamite. The chaotic match included a big spot where Allin leaped off the top of a ladder onto Hardy, who was on the outside of the ring. The two of them fell into a group of chairs that had been set up on the ringside floor.

Allin looked back on the spot during his appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet. He talked about growing up as a fan of Hardy’s and working with him. Allin noted that he had not thought the landing of the dive and that he is “very chill” with potential injuries. You can see the highlights below:

On Being a Jeff Hardy Fan:

“Him, Mick Foley, a lot of those guys really spoke to me as a kid, especially coming from skateboarding and stunts and wildness, they weren’t your traditional wrestlers, so they were very appealing in that sense.”

On If He’s In Pain At that Moment:

“No. I’m not lying. I’m completely straight edge. I don’t take pain pills, I don’t take anything. I asked for this, and I want to deal with it mentally and with the human brain, and all the meditating and everything that I do, I feel like I can deal with anything.”

On His Match With Hardy:

“For the first time in my career it did feel like I was calling a match with myself, and that was a fun feeling. Because originally it was supposed to be just a straight-up wrestling match, but nobody wants to watch Darby Allin and Jeff Hardy trade wrist locks. We got to bend the rules a little bit. Then one thing led to another, and it was for the Owen Hart Tournament. So, all right, this is relaxed rules, whatever that means. And the next thing you know, we’re out here talking about, all right, I’m gonna do this. And then he’s like, I’m gonna do this, and it’s just super fun, because, to me, I love traditional wrestling, I love World of Sport, I love all of that. Not a lot of people would think I do, but I am obsessed with all that technical wrestling. But you got to think of the big puzzle of what AEW is and where you can fit on that, what makes it different. I’m not going to go in there and be like, oh, I want to be a technical wrestler, because you take a guy like Danielson, he’s the best at that. So I’ll be the guy who will be willing to go places no one’s willing to go physically. That’s where I fit in, and everything like that. So it was just super fun, because you got that energy match with somebody like Jeff, and now you’re like, Oh no, this is a car crash. This is everything I would love if I was watching TV flipping through the channels. Oh my god. It was a really great experience.”

On Jumping Off a Ladder In the Match:

“Well, I don’t know. I felt like it wasn’t so much of live up to the hype of what people expected, it was to live up to the hype that I expected. So it’s like, man, because I expect a lot out of myself any night of the week. I don’t save any big things for a pay-per-view. I’ll be going ballistic on Dynamite, Collision. It don’t matter. I’ll be going ballistic every night. But with this Jeff Hardy match, I was like, ‘Dude, we gotta go.’ And all I kept thinking is, ‘All right, there’s this ladder, and then there’s a stack of chairs.’ I don’t know where it came from, but it just seemed like the most logical step. But also, I’ve never seen it done before, because everyone’s like, how are you supposed to even land that safe? I honestly don’t know.”

On Not Thinking the Landing Through:

“No. And also I’m very chill with going to the hospital and breaking things. I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me, which I think, in the long run, actually, that helps me, because when you’re afraid of stuff, that’s when you get hurt. But if you just go with the flow, like it’s nice and loose, you’d be surprised what your body can handle.”