Professional wrestling legend and former WWE United States champion Matt Hardy who is also a former 11 times Tag Team Champion recently talked about his Version 1 gimmick which he played nearly two decades ago and said that Vince McMahon loved this character.
Towards the end of 2001, WWE already decided split to the Hardy Boyz as they were having difficulties coexisting together. After Survivor Series pay per view event of the mentioned year, they started a feud and they had a one on one match at the Vengeance pay per view event, but quickly allied again as if nothing happened. They kept on working together for the next number of months.
Matt Hardy Claims Vince McMahon Loved His Version 1 Gimmick
On August 2002, Matt Hardy decided to betray his own brother Jeff when Jeff was having a number one contender’s match for the Intercontinental Championship against Rob Van Dam. After this incident, Matt joined Smackdown and Jeff remained RAW. This was the first time when Matt had his Version 1 gimmick debuted. This gimmick became quite famous in Smackdown.
Matt kept on playing this gimmick for the whole year and he remained a heel. A lot of fans really loved this gimmick but in 2004 after he got drafted to Monday Night RAW he told babyface when he started a few with Kane and the version 1 gimmick was scrapped. After that we never got to see that gimmick ever again.
Matt Hardy who is also a former 11 times Tag Team Champion recently spoke to the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy where he talked about his Version 1 gimmick which he played nearly two decades ago and said that Vince McMahon loved this character. He said;
“Vince was very high on what I was doing there. I had a great relationship with them at that time. It almost reminds me of when myself and MVP had a run on SmackDown. The door was always open to us because we were like the highest thing on the show and he loved us. It was a little bit of the same deal on SmackDown.
“I love the fact and I was very grateful that Vince inserted me into the top feud on SmackDown, which was Brock and The Undertaker, it’s almost like Brock and Paul Heyman were using me as an underling, taking advantage of me to where I didn’t realize it. because I just realized that was a big deal.
“You know, Matt Hardy, Version One, Brock, Undertaker, the three big stars on SmackDown. Vince understood I was very aware of everything I was doing. I remember as we were doing that day, it was somewhere in Louisiana.
“I remember but we fought to the back and there was a deal where I kind of want a cage to get away from Undertaker Brock comes out he ends up F-5ing him and I feel like they were gonna do it on the floor, and they did it on the popcorn bags if you remember that. It was very weird, strange, you know? That’s where I ended up pinning Undertaker after.”
H/T and transcribed by Fightful