Matt Hardy recently shared a story from his time in AEW where a planned television appearance was mysteriously canceled at the last minute, leading him to believe that CM Punk was responsible for having him removed from the show. Hardy described the incident as “unprofessional” and something that “bothered” him greatly.
The incident occurred during a set of back-to-back tapings in Canada, with Dynamite on Wednesday and Collision on Thursday. Speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, he explained that Tony Khan had adamantly requested he stay for the Collision taping to be in Ethan Page’s corner for a match against MJF.
“I talk with Tony, and Tony’s like, ‘Yes, I want you tomorrow, be out in the corner with Ethan. I definitely want you there,'” Hardy recounted. After changing his flight and making arrangements to stay, Hardy received a call from the travel department late that night. “They say, ‘Just heard that you’re not needed for tomorrow’s event,'” Hardy said. “I was like, ‘What do you mean I’m not needed? I just talked to Tony three hours ago, and he said I’m in and he was excited.'”
Given that Collision was widely known as CM Punk’s show and that Punk had significant creative influence, Hardy believes he was the one who vetoed the plan. “I don’t have this on authority, so I don’t know, but like, someone stopped that from happening, and there’s only I couldn’t imagine, it’s someone besides Punk, because Punk was going to be there. That was his show, right?”
The last-minute change resulted in major travel headaches for Hardy, who didn’t get home until three in the morning the next day. “That f—ing that, that that bothered me. So there’s, there’s sometimes to where, especially there in the AEW relationship, where he was in such Tony’s ear, and did whatever you want to do, and that ended up kind of being problematic,” Hardy stated, while also reiterating that the ultimate responsibility for mismanagement falls on Tony Khan as the boss.
Matt Hardy is now performing in TNA Wrestling, where he and his brother Jeff are the reigning TNA World Tag Team Champions. They are scheduled to defend their titles against Mike Santana and Ortiz at Slammiversary.
Matt Hardy’s podcast drops every Friday at ExtremeHardy.com. If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit ExtremeHardy.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
