On the latest “Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast, Jon Alba and Matt Hardy discussed CM Punk’s storyline feud with Jeff Hardy in WWE in 2009. Matt was asked if Jeff had any issue with Punk because Punk would bring up Jeff’s real-life addiction issues in his promos:
“I remember Jeff said, ‘Dude, this is like, because we’re the polar opposites, go crazy. Whatever you want to say about addictions or my rockstar lifestyle, drug issues, go ahead. It’s great for our story, it’s great for our angle, and it’s perfect for your character. It makes you an amazing, hypocritical, bad guy towards me because you’re saying all of this stuff is wrong with me, even though you’re the bad guy in this scenario.’ Jeff was totally open with that. Like, ‘Yeah, go crazy. Nothing’s off limits, like whatever you want to do.’ He was very open and willing to work with Punk at that time.”
Jeff left the WWE before the 2009 WWE Breaking Point PPV. Matt was asked about the heat that developed between the Hardy’s and CM Punk when Punk referenced in his promo on the Pay-per-view how he was right all along about Jeff Hardy because all you have to do is look to TMZ and all the headlines on the internet, and that you won’t see Punk’s mugshot, but you will see Jeff’s:
“I mean, obviously when that arrest went down with Jeff, Jeff was not in a good place in life in general. I feel like because Jeff had just been so open and giving to Punk about talking about his addictions and situations and suspensions and everything else in the program, I think Jeff really started to resent Punk after he said that when they were no longer in an angle, and it was like real life for Jeff. Jeff felt like that was a low blow. I just know that was a big turning point that just made him resent Punk, especially when he felt like he had done a lot to help Punk and he had given Punk so much ammunition to use against him in their program. When he left, he was fine with Punk, cool with Punk. I think it was from that point, the deeper Jeff got into his addiction at that point, you see this resentment come out, and it comes out in a very unflattering way.”
“Once again, myself, I wasn’t in the best place at that point either, but I’m gonna have my brother’s back and I always will. I mean, he is blood. As I’ve said before, blood over everything. I think that’s where that stemmed from. Once Jeff got through the whole Victory Road thing, and Jeff totally got away from the pill issue, and not even gonna talk about going forward, but that’s when it became an alcohol thing, that’s when Jeff would never take a pill again after the whole Victory Road thing. I mean, Jeff just kind of changed the mentalities and whatever, like, ‘I kind of see what Punk was doing’, and Jeff let bygones be bygones and he had no issue with him.
“I feel like that’s kind of how we both are now, like, there’s been times in the past where we had issues with someone or, you know, felt like they had wronged us or whatever, but life’s just too fu**ing short man to harbor resentment and to be angry or to be mad. I feel like Jeff certainly moved past that, and I definitely know that’s my mentality. I mean, life’s too short and life is too good to spend your time being miserable and to spend your time resenting people or even just spend your time angry. Be happy. Smile. Life is short. Enjoy it. It’s actually good if you try to.”
Matt was asked if there is dissension in the AEW locker room over CM Punk:
“I don’t know. I really couldn’t speak on any of that. I mean, I can speak from my experiences. AEW has been great and everything I’ve done has been good. There’s no outright chaos and dissension backstage. Whatever kind of conversations that happen between Punk and the people in the office, I mean, I’m not privy to that right now, but he came last week and he was there to do business, obviously.”
“It’s real life. It’s human beings interacting with each other and they’re gonna have differences of opinion. They’re gonna get upset with one another. Even going back to what I said about how Jeff resented Punk whenever he made those comments, I mean, things happen. People are human beings and they have emotions and they feel, so yeah, but I mean at the end of the day, people love the fu**ing drama from behind the scenes and backstage. So a lot of times, especially to the diehard fans, that’s almost more interesting to them than the actual kick ass product they get to see right in front of their face that we’re doing for them.”
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