Matt Hardy sees what Solo Sikoa is doing as a complete reinvention and thinks it is the only thing that keeps a wrestler from becoming obsolete.
Sikoa drew one of the loudest reactions of SummerSlam weekend on night one, teaming with LA Knight and Royce Keys against Jacob Fatu and The Usos, in the clearest sign yet of how far his character has shifted.
Speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, he was asked about it while discussing Terry Funk, who spent the mid-nineties reinventing himself in ECW rather than insisting on still being a nineteen-eighties main eventer.
“That’s the goal. You have to adapt or you fade away and classify yourself as obsolete. You have to change, especially in pro wrestling, because you can’t take one character and keep it the exact same. Because if you do keep it the exact same, people are going to get tired of you telling the same story over and over and over.”
On Sikoa specifically: “It’s a complete reinvention of his character, and he’s over right now.”
Hardy has a stake in the argument. His own Broken gimmick, which began in TNA in 2016, is the most successful reinvention of his career and it divided people at the time. He said Terry Funk sent him a video message about it.
“One of the greatest compliments I ever received, I was sent a video where Terry Funk said, hey, Matt Hardy, it’s good to hear about you. I know you got a real successful character going on now with this Broken Matt Hardy. Some people don’t like it. Ah, but to hell with them.”
“He said, I love that. You’re thinking out of the box. You’re doing something different. He said, you got to innovate. That’s the only way. That’s the only way we bring new ground in this business. Take care and stay healthy, bud.”
“Which was one of the coolest things ever.”
He said the ECW run is what he admires most about Funk.
“I love the fact that he was in ECW, this big star Terry Funk.”
Terry Funk died in August 2023. His brother Dory Funk Jr., who trained Hardy at WWE’s Funkin’ Dojo, died on Tuesday at the age of 85.
