Matt Hardy Weighs In On ‘Inexcusable’ Raja Jackson Incident

On the latest episode of Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy, the TNA star talked about the incident involving Raja Jackson and Syko Stu at a Knox Pro wrestling event. You can check out some highlights below:

On his initial reaction: “The fact that he’s [Stu] been around 16 years-ish or so? It’s still — it was a poor move on his end when he walked up and he first interacted with Raja and did the thing. You know, ‘you don’t know who I am,’ and he took the beer can and smashed it on his head. It was just a poor move. We don’t need things in wrestling like that right now. He was in the wrong and doing that. I mean, if anything else, just like, ‘Hey, how are you? Very nice to meet you. So we’re doing something tonight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ Small talk conversation, get to know each other, you know? And it almost felt like you know, he was kind of pulling out the wrestling vet card. But I think the wrestling vet card is kind of dead and gone in this day, you know what I mean? I think you need to respect someone who is a vet who has been around and kind of paved the way for others who might be in their same space. But you can’t take liberties with anybody, especially someone that you don’t know very well.”

On Raja’s mentality: “With that said, when Raja was sitting front row and he was live streaming like, ‘Nah, that pissed me off. I don’t play that. How many subs to knock him out? How many subs to take him down,’ or whatever it was. And he’s going, ‘Oh no no, I’m gonna knock him out. I’m gonna hurt him.’ And I know there was a guy that told him backstage, said, ‘Hey man, you know the deal. Get your receipt. Get your receipt.’ Even like stirring it up, which is not doing anybody any favors.

“But when Raja was in there and took him down — it looks like when he slammed him, he like threw him down as almost like an Alabama slam from Bob Holly…. it’s brutal. It would always be hard. But like, if your head hits the wrong way, it’s very easy to get knocked out from that too. So he slung him down in an MMA takedown. He laid there as soon as he got on to — as soon as he mounted him and started throwing punches. The Syko Stu guy, his hands were by side. He never brought them in to cover up. So I mean, he was unconscious almost immediately. And his hands are out here, and this guy is laying in like hard shots. And you know, his dad, obviously a UFC fighter, MMA fighter. This guy, I’m sure he is trained in an MMA style… yeah. I mean, he’s aware of all this. And he gets in there and he’s laying these shots in, and it’s not one or two where it’s just like, ‘Oh, here’s a receipt. I got you back.’ I mean, there were 20 shots.”

On Raja’s actions: “I feel like, if he hadn’t been pulled off, he was so enraged. He was so malicious that the intent was so powerful there that he would have kept punching him until he killed him. It felt like — I mean, he was on another level. All he saw was red. And it’s one of those things — sure, was that a dickhead thing the guy did to you? But did it warrant that? No, absolutely not. I mean, that was major bodily harm, that’s on the verge of like, permanently paralyzing or crippling or hurting or injuring or killing someone, and it was absolutely uncalled for.”

On Stu’s actions not being an egregious violation of trust: “No, it wasn’t. And also something we should add in there — if you’re just listening this, you haven’t seen the situation after that one incident happened, which I thought was a really dumb incident, because of the veteran when he smashed the beer can in his hand. They actually made up and like shook hands and like you said, dabbed up. And they were like, cool and they were like on the same page. ‘Okay, cool. I’m going in the ring and let’s let’s work together, brother. Let’s do this angle.’ And like everybody acted as if they were on the same page, which made Raja’s thing even worse.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.