Matt Hardy On Shawn Michaels’ Influence On The Hardy Boyz, Impact in NXT

On the latest episode of Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy, the TNA star talked about Shawn Michaels’ influence on The Hardy Boyz and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On Shawn Michaels’ influence on The Hardy Boyz: “OH my god, yeah. I mean, he was our guy. I mean, we were — I love Bret [Hart], and I thought I was more like Bret. Especially after we started working more. I was more of the solid guy than my brother Jeff was. But we both really admired Shawn, and Shawn was very inspirational to both of the Hardy Boys. Like, we loved what the rockers did. And that was probably our initial motivation, inspiration to be a tag team and kind of wrestled that particular type of style. So yeah, Shawn was hugely influential in both myself and Jeff’s career.”

On seeing Shawn with Marty Janetty as The Rockers: “Yes, that is the first time [we saw him]. At WWE, when he’s doing stuff with the Rockers. And we’re digging — you know, the wrestling style, they’re doing high-flying moves. They have this young hip, cool, trendy, outfit and look going on, and the chicks dig them… The tag team right there, him and Marty and yeah, we just thought they were cool. Cool as hell, man.”

On Shawn Michaels’ influence on NXT: “Because he’s a chef, John. I mean, he’s cooking, like all the cool kids say. [laughs] No, I mean he really does have just an unprecedented mind for the process of pro wrestling, the way things work, the way you incorporate telling a story with different moves and different actions and what makes those matches work. And it’s so great to see that he’s been able to make the transition from doing that for his match, now that he is taking a whole roster and putting the other shows. And like, ‘Well, this would work here. And I think we could slot this in here. And if this guy did this promo, and said this and started going down this road, I think that would pay off for them. And we can move this guy closer to that.’ I think he’s very smart at looking at all the pieces of a wrestling show. Much like if you’re looking at all the pieces on a chess board, and you’d go, ‘Oh, how would I move them to be the most effective? How would I optimize every single move?’ And that’s, that’s what he does literally, week in and week out with NXT.

“And I think he’s very smart. I think to him, too, it’s probably a challenge, like, ‘You don’t have to give me people that are like, have a great name value that has had tons of TV time, that are established and known. Just give me talent who are talented, and let me do what I can to build them and put them in positions to succeed.’ And I feel like what Shawn has done, is he’s been so good at being a worker himself and understanding how to put himself into a position to succeed in the context of a performance of a wrestling match. Integrating character and wrestling and moves, and selling, and heat, and everything else. He’s able to do that now with every other talent. Which makes me think — like Arn Anderson, I said that earlier, he worked really hard to understand every different aspect of character. Whether they’re a very serious character, whether they’re a vengeful character, whether they’re a comedy character. Whatever their particular strength is, I feel like Shawn is really good at having an understanding of all that, and being able to incorporate and integrate their greatest strengths and putting him into a position to succeed on the NXT program.”

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.