On the latest episode of the Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, the TNA World Tag Team Champion weighed in on the confusing finish to the recent Women’s Championship triple threat match on Friday Night SmackDown. Hardy called the situation “unfortunate” and used his veteran experience to explain the difficult position the referee was in.
“My takeaway from it was first and foremost, it was just unfortunate that happened with the finish. It is what it is. It’s live TV. Shit happens. Mistakes happen, certainly not always perfect,” Hardy said.
He then elaborated on the referee’s dilemma, noting that there are often strict rules and even financial penalties associated with stopping a three-count. “I do feel like whenever the ref started counting, the ref probably should have finished counting,” he explained. “I do remember back early in the day, even Vince in the mid-2000s, he would be real upset if someone didn’t kick out and the ref didn’t count to three… I remember when we returned in 2017, there was a point where you would get fined if the wrestler you were counting the shoulders down, if they didn’t kick out and you stopped the count.”
Hardy concluded that the incident appeared to be a simple case of miscommunication among multiple people in a high-pressure, live environment. “It’s tough for those refs too, because the ref doesn’t want to fuck up the finish. Everybody was kind of on different wavelengths, it is what it looked like,” he said. “The biggest thing I can say about anybody involved in those situations, is you just have to communicate. You have to communicate like a motherfucker to everybody.”
The match in question, which saw Tiffany Stratton retain her WWE Women’s Championship against Nia Jax and Jade Cargill, took place on the September 26, 2025, episode of Friday Night SmackDown. The confusing sequence of events at the end of the match led to widespread online debate among fans regarding what went wrong and who was at fault.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Extreme Life of Matt Hardy with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
