Jeff Hardy Says He Couldn’t Do In-Character Interviews Like Matt, Talks Final Deletion

– Jeff Hardy appeared on the latest The Art Of Wrestling Podcast for a new interview (H/T to Wrestling Inc for the quotes). The highlights are below:

On why he doesn’t do shooting star presses anymore: “I don’t do [the shooting star press] anymore, even the 450 splash. I was talking to Fénix at the show tonight and he’s not doing the 450 anymore because he kind of over-rotated and bummed his shoulder out and that’s the reason I stopped doing the 450 because I over-rotated and jacked my shoulder up. I thought I broke my collarbone or something, but those days are over, so I’ll stick with the Swanton [Bomb].”

On Matt doing in-character interviews: “It’s weird, man, because some people believe in staying in character whenever you do interviews or when you’re promoting whatever. Do you know what I mean? But I’ve got all kinds of characters. But it would be hard for me to do a podcast as Willow or Itchweeed. It would be extremely hard unless I really thought it out, but Matt’s so good. He’s like the master of improv these days with his character because he believes in it so much, which is great…it would just be extremely hard for me to see myself doing this [interview] as Itcheweeed, Willow, The Anti-Christ, Brother Nero, and feeling serious or believable in some way. But yeah, some of the coolest things that happen [in pro wrestling] aren’t preplanned and that’s the way it is.”

On trying to keep a straight face when Matt does his Broken gimmick: “We were at the Aloha [Safari] Zoo in Cameron [North Carolina] like with the kangaroos. It was unbelievable, man. ‘Brother Nero, Smokin’ Joe, are you ready?’ And he locked up just like a human, man. Their grip was so tight. Oh my God! I don’t know, but it was nuts. He kicked the s–t out of me a couple of times. And then, I said, ‘okay, Matt. It’s your turn.’ And the first time they aired it with the kangaroos, you can always go back and watch this, and Matt was in there, and this is the best story ever, and I was watching it. And you have the contacts in and everything and I was like, ‘okay’ and he grabbed ahold of Matt and I knew what that felt like because I went first. But then he’s balanced on that tail to hit him with that double superkick in the midsection and Matt’s saying, ‘punish me, Joe! Punish me! Punish me!’ Man, you see me walk out of that frame because I lost it. I thought it was about to bite Matt’s ear or either take Matt down and like really f–k him up.”

On The Final Deletion: “It was so cool because it was so raw. Maybe like four people and a camera guy and that was it. That was it and that’s what made it so cool because it was such a low budget. We funded everything, worked our asses off for two-and-a-half nights or whatever.”

On his giant symbol: “It was really hard to build, but again, like another donation, basically, to TNA just for the product of it all. Built a $3,000 volcano, I mean, just for the love of the sport, the artform.”