The Hardys are changing direction after the Righteous Deletion, and Matt Hardy says the version of the team fans are about to see is one he pitched years ago and could not get approved.
Speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy after the cinematic match aired on Impact, Hardy said the blow-off with The Righteous was designed to reset both brothers.
“The thing that is so cool about this is that it is going to reshape myself and Jeff, our characters going forward, and we’re going to be doing something new, and we’re excited,” Hardy said. “I think Jeff’s really excited about it too, which is kind of different for him, because Jeff is typically very Jeff. But we’re going to try something that is kind of new and innovative in the pro wrestling world.”
He then laid out what the plan looks like, starting with Philadelphia.
“I’m very excited for when we go into Philadelphia now, Jeff and I,” Hardy said. “I think Jeff’s going to be the Antichrist. I’m going to switch things up a little bit. Maybe Matthew the Broken. We’ll see. We haven’t finalized it yet.”
The framing, he said, will lean on everything they have already done rather than turning their backs on it.
“We’re going to still be grateful to our diehardies, our fans. Without them, there’s no us, no doubt,” Hardy said. “We’re going to stand on all 10 toes about all the cool s*it and groundbreaking things we have done in pro wrestling, and we’re going to be a little ego about it. It’s going to be an interesting new twist to the Hardys.”
Hardy said the idea is not new. He and Jeff wanted to do it in AEW and were told no, and the reason was the reaction they were getting every night.
“We talked about doing this at AEW and doing it as heels to a degree, but we never got the clearance to do it,” Hardy said. “Tony has said, oh my God, I can’t turn you heel. You get one of the biggest reactions every single night. I can’t do that.”
He believes it would have worked there.
“With that audience, it would have worked 100 percent,” Hardy said. “With that audience, no doubt.”
As for the match that set it all up, Hardy said he has been building to this for the better part of a year.
“Matt is crazy proud of the Hardys’ Righteous story,” he said, noting the feud ran about eight months. “That is pretty much what I planned out when I was trying to lay this thing out. That was all on purpose, no doubt about it.”
The Hardys and The Righteous closed their rivalry in the Righteous Deletion, a cinematic match shot at the Hardy Compound that aired on the July 23 edition of Impact.
