Matt Hardy Thinks WWE Had No Long-Term Plan for Pat McAfee WrestleMania Angle 

On the latest episode of Extreme Life Of Matt Hardy, the TNA star talked about his belief that WWE had no real long-term plan behind the Pat McAfee and Jelly Roll involvement at WrestleMania 42 in the program between WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton. McAfee reportedly “opted out” of the angle and was removed early on in the match, only coming back for the finish. You can check out some highlights below:

On McAfee Pulling Himself Out of the Angle:

“If that was the case, whatever, I know obviously this angle — and we talked about it right here, right? We discussed it in depth. It was a very polarizing deal. They were looking to get these celebrities [to] do this, and they were trying to tie them into the story. And whenever I said if, depending on how they follow through with it, they might could turn it into something good. It could be good if they have a plan.

“But like you said, it didn’t seem like they had any kind of long-term plan. Or if there was any kind of long-term plan — which I don’t think there was — I think they were just going, ‘Hey, let’s add these guys, let’s try and build some more hype. Let’s try and get more publicity, let’s try and sell more tickets.’ And this is me. If you do something, and you have an idea of what you’re going to do, and you have a plan. And you think it’ll work and you feel pretty solid about it, you have to follow it through and get it done. If there was no plan, then it is what it is. They just clipped it right there.”

On His Experience With the Broken Universe:

“Whenever we started the Broken stuff, and I had a vision… and I had all that stuff thought out. And whenever we did that first contract signing, it was so polarizing. People thought it was the greatest thing they’d ever seen, and people thought it was the worst s**t they’d ever seen. And they’re like, ‘Well, what should we do?’ ‘Let’s continue through with it. Let’s do this. Let’s do the final deletion.’ And we had a couple ideas and we figured out a lot of it on the fly…

But if you have a plan, and you think your plan is going to work, then follow through with that motherf**ker. You can’t — just because there’s backlash right from the beginning, you can’t just say, ‘Oh my God, people hate this.’ Because the people online, they’re going to be the most outspoken, and they’re also usually the most critical. But with that being said, I don’t think they had any kind of long-term plan. They were just trying to throw things at the wall and try and get some celebrity buzz. But with that being said, I don’t think they had any kind of long term plan. They were just trying to throw things at the wall and try and get some celebrity buzz and get more buzz for the match, whatever else. But I don’t think it had been thought through, and then they ended up pulling the plug.”

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.