Matt Hardy Recalls Feud With MVP, Vince McMahon Overseeing Basketball Game

Matt Hardy recently shared a few memories from his famous feud with MVP in WWE from 2006 to 2008 including the basketball segment Vince McMahon oversaw. Hardy and MVP had a feud based on oneupsmanship that saw the two compete in every competition they could think of, up to and including beer drinking. The feud led to the two becoming tag team partners together before they broke apart again, and Hardy ultimately won the US Championship at WWE Backlash 2008.

Hardy spoke exclusively with Casino.org US for an interview and was asked about that rivalry. He praised MVP and their chemistry together, noting that Vince McMahon loved what they were doing and got “strongly behind it.” You can see highlights below:

On Enjoying His Feud With MVP:

“I did. I think one of my favourite things about working with MVP was we were very close and we ran pretty hard. When we weren’t on camera, we were good buddies. And I think that helped us out so much, because it added to our chemistry.

“And I think the coolest thing to us was he would say, ‘I’m better than you,’ or whatever. And then we started really symbolising that by doing these crazy competitions, whether it was a push-up contest or a chess match or basketball, whatever it could be. We introduced that element and Vince ended up loving it. Vince loved our whole story, and he got so strongly behind it. We were one of the reasons that Smackdown was so hot at that time. We were one of the acts that were carrying Smackdown.”

On His Basketball Game With MVP:

“Yeah. Well, this is a funny story too. I remember he said, “Are you good at basketball?” I said, “I’m okay.” Baseball was my best sport when I was growing up. I said, “I played football too. Basketball is probably the one I’m least talented at, but I am okay. I’m pretty good.” People would want me on their team. I was okay.

“And he said, ‘Okay, well, if you are really good, I want you to change it. Whenever you dribble down, after you hit MVP in the head with the ball and it bounces off, I want you to dribble to the basket as white as humanly possible. Just be as white as you can.’ I said, ‘No problem, we can make it happen.’ So it was funny. Vince, very much always into comedy and exaggerating things to the maximum, he was there for it on that, for sure.”