Matt Hardy has again denied Perry Saturn’s claim that he complained to Vince McMahon about Saturn’s work in the ring.
On the September 25 episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, Hardy addressed clips of Saturn discussing him that fans have tagged him in. Saturn repeated the story in a video posted to Maven’s YouTube channel earlier this month, saying McMahon reprimanded him for working too stiff with Hardy and that he believed Hardy was the one who told McMahon. Saturn made similar comments on Wrestling Shoot Interviews in 2024, saying he and Dean Malenko had problems with Hardy over how matches were laid out.
Hardy said the story does not match his memory.
“I saw a couple clips he did. He said that I was telling Vince he was hurting me or beating me up, which I’ve never told Vince someone’s hurting me or beating me up. And he said, ‘Well, get used to it. You’re working with him. You’re in a program,'” Hardy said. “I was never in a program with Perry Saturn at all. We had that thing with Dean Malenko where it was the angle with Amy and Dean, where he was the ladies’ man, but I never had any kind of long-term functioning angle with Perry. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
Amy refers to Amy Dumas, who wrestled as Lita and was the Hardys’ on-screen partner at the time. Saturn and Malenko, both members of The Radicalz, worked against the Hardys in late 2000. When Saturn told a version of the story in February 2025, Hardy responded on X that he had worked with Saturn a couple dozen times over his career, mostly in tag matches involving The Radicalz.
Hardy said any friction likely came from a disagreement over match structure after the Radicalz arrived from WCW in 2000.
“Well, one thing I can say with Perry, which maybe this is where his issue comes, is just that I remember he said, ‘Oh, we’ll do this and do this and do this.’ I was like, ‘Hey, dude, me and my brother, we’re established here in WWE. I respect you because you came from WCW, and I know you guys have your specific styles that you work. But we have to incorporate some of our stuff in this,'” Hardy said.
He said he holds no grudge.
“But no, I never had any kind of issue with them, and all this kind of comes out of left field in so many ways, and I kind of feel bad for Perry in some ways. I know he’s been through a very tough life, a challenging life, and it is what it is,” Hardy said. “You’re going to be very hard pressed to find a lot of people say, ‘Oh man, Hardy’s an a***.’ Because 99% of the people that I’ve worked with have lots of love and respect for me.”
Responding to Critics
The Saturn discussion came out of a broader question from co-host Jon Alba about how Hardy separates online noise from honest criticism at 52.
“Because I know what the f*** I’m doing. I’m a professional wrestler who knows what’s up. I understand what’s going on,” Hardy said. “If I need to go out there and go 20 minutes, I can do it. If I need to go out there and have a No DQ match with Nic Nemeth as I did last week, I can do it.”
Hardy challenged Nemeth for the TNA World Championship in a No Disqualification match on the September 10 episode of TNA Impact, losing after Nemeth struck him with a wrench.
Hardy also addressed a common criticism that his career rests on his brother’s.
“It’s funny, people go, ‘Oh, if it wasn’t for Jeff, Matt would have never done anything.’ But a lot of people forget, whenever Jeff was released from WWE, I thrived more than I ever did when I was doing the Matt Hardy Version 1 thing, and Vince was in love with me, and he had all these different plans, until things happened and I got hurt, whatever else,” Hardy said. “I’m not on the level of where Jeff is. I’m not the kind of performer Jeff is. But I understand who I am, and I think at being 52 years old and knowing who I am and knowing what I can do that works and people will buy into it, there’s a victory in that. If you’re successful in anything, you’re always going to have people that are going to just be pissed off at you for whatever reason.”
