Matt Hardy On Jeff Hardy’s Return To TNA, Their Contract Statuses

On the latest episode of Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy, the TNA star talked about Jeff Hardy’s return at Against All Odds and their status with TNA Wrestling. You can check out some highlights below:

Matt Hardy on his own TNA arrival: “Well, let’s even go back in time. Let’s talk about when I first came to TNA; let’s start the story here. So when — I was buzzed by TNA, Tommy Dreamer. And he has said, ‘TNA is really interested in doing something with you. Are you up for doing it?’ And I had to buzzed him back a couple days after he contacted me. And I just said, ‘Yeah, I am. I am free for this Rebellion date.’ He’d sent me all these dates, right? They I said, ‘It’s just funny, like a lot of the cons I’m, doing it kind of fits into my schedule, what you’re doing.’ Then we ended up putting that together, where I would show up and do something at Rebellion, and I talked about creative a little bit. And with creative, we talked about a couple of directions. Maybe somebody with Frankie Kazarian, who’s doing the King of TNA, maybe something with Moose, a couple other things. And I said, ‘Dude, let’s do this deal with Moose.’ I said, ‘Let’s build.’

“And Jeff was still with AEW, obviously. And I was saying ‘Well, let me kind of match up to what his deal is, when his deal ends. And I’ll work through that. And if something works, where I can go back to AEW, and we team together, then that’s cool. We’ll do that.’ And as you know, I was talking with those guys back and forth many, many times. We came to two or three different offers, and nothing was quite what I wanted. Because I was doing all the negotiating for myself and Jeff, that’s how things work here. But I was trying to set myself up for something that was near when Jeff’s contract ended. I ended up going Against All Odds. I said, ‘Let me do a program with Moose. We’ll have a killer match, and then I’ll put Moose over, and that’ll be the deal.'”

Matt Hardy on Moose: “I like Moose a lot. I think he’s a great dude. You can tell he’s an athlete. Yyou can tell he played football, like when he starts jumping and doing stuff. He said ‘Clothesline me, I’ll do a back flip. And he legit did a backflip, like he’s a crazy athlete.”

On feeling like he and Jeff devalued in AEW: “So I said ‘That’s be cool, I’ll come back in and do this. We’ll build up an angle, it’ll get me hot. It’ll be rebuilt equity back in myself, because I had been devalued for so long, the last almost year. And then I said, ‘Let me build up some value in myself. And then I can put Moose over in this match, and it’d be a win-win for both guys.’ And that was the plan.”

On Jeff leaving AEW: “So, as time started going on, Jeff was just telling me, ‘Yeah, no one’s reached out to me.’ And I was like, ‘Are you going to reach out to them?’ The only time they had offered Jeff adeal was when they would offer me a deal, if I would speak to someone and make it my intent to reach out to them. Or like, they would call me, and I would get back with them, whatever it may be. But like Jeff didn’t care. Jeff wasn’t going to — unless they just offered him something that he liked and was good, he wasn’t gonna reach out, or he didn’t care. So, as Jeff was saying, ‘Well, no one’s talked to me, my deal might be up.’ I said, ‘Okay, well, I’m really enjoying this time at TNA. And Jeff isn’t looking to resign. No one has reached out to him, Jeff doesn’t really feel like he’s necessarily wanted there. Jeff’s an interesting cat; as you know, he thinks very differently. And if someone is not trying to reach out to him to tell him, ‘Hey, we really want to do this with you or want to do that with you, or whatever else.’ If you’re just like sitting back and they don’t contact you, then he just kind of feels like, ‘Oh, well they must not want me. I’ll move on.’ That’s kind of how he is.

“So I told him I would love to extend this thing a little bit. And they said, ‘Well, if Jeff’s deal is coming up, because you said initially, would Jeff be interested in doing this?’ And I just told Jeff, ‘If your deal comes up, TNA said whenever your AEW deal goes and it’s finished, they’d be interested in doing something with it if you would like to.’ And Jeff got back to me a couple of days after that — which is pretty rare for him — and said, ‘You know what? Yeah, If my AEW deal runs out, and they don’t offer me anything, I’d be up for that.’ He said, ‘I would love to come there. I’ve always loved my time at TNA.’ And lo and behold, what happened. And then we got to the day before where his contract was coming up that day. I started talking to them creatively, like, ‘What if Jeff does come tomorrow? This idea thing, what can we do going forward?’ We kind of did a little workshopping. And then that Friday morning, we spoke with Jeff, we got Jeff a flight that afternoon, getting in that evening to Chicago. And lo and behold, Jeff showed up at the show. So that was going to be my last night, I wanted to blow off a word and just put Moose over strong. Have a great match with them and have a great rivalry during this time. You know, now Jeff’s there I think we can move very, very simply into something with Eddie Edwards and Brian Myers for the titles, too.”

Matt Hardy on their TNA contract status: “No, we’re both free agents. We don’t have any contract. We’re just doing TNA per appearance right now. And we’ve agreed to work with them for a couple of months, and then we’re not opposed to extending that. And if they wanted to offer something, we would have a conversation with them. Because it’s been really good. I’ve really enjoyed my time there. And it’s been fun, and I feel energized. It’s nice because I feel utilized. I feel optimized.”

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.