Matt Hardy was the latest guest on the Talk is Jericho podcast and he spoke specifically about his decision to jump to AEW, his debut in Rochester, and his creative plans moving forward.
Hardy first talked about how pumped he was to debut in Rochester in a double-debut episode that also saw the debut of Brodie Lee. Hardy thought it was smart to tease the idea him being the Exalted One, when it was never the plan to make him the leader of the Dark Order. That said, he also noted that his debut didn't go exactly as planned.
First, Jericho was told to stretch the segment because he couldn't see or hear the Vanguard 1 drone. It wasn't until Matt Jackson finally called attention to it, that Jericho knew the segment was on. Even then, it wasn't quite right. Hardy said the drone was supposed to fly back to him in the rafters and get a cool beauty shot. He had to call an audible when that didn't happen.
When asked about his first reaction to being in AEW, Hardy said he can already tell there is a huge difference between working with AEW and WWE. He says it's very laid back and that on his first day, he said, "Hey, I'm thinking about doing this!" and AEW's response was "That sounds great!" After debuting, he shot some promos and vignettes and said, "I'm thinking about saying this!" They said, "Sounds cool." Hardy explained, it's nice to be able to do "your thing and be you."
What Hardy Has Planned For AEW
Jericho said Hardy is going to be let loose creatively in AEW and the company is extremely excited about what Hardy will do. When asked, Hardy shared a bit about his plans.
Hardy talked about his Broken character coming from an idea he had while watching the show True Blood. He was fascinated by vampires living in different time periods and having different experiences. He thought to himself, what if I became a new vessel for each experience and time period? How would my character work and change over time?
From there, he created Broken Matt and each new character is a new vessel that comes as the old one that gets destroyed. Just prior to coming to AEW, Zenith was killed off by Kennagen and Abomination and, moving forward, he'll be Damascus, who is a more fierce character who originates in 999 BC.
Damascus will lead to other characters, AEW will take their time, work often out of House Hardy, where his family will be included in his promos and videos, and Hardy sees there being multiple characters that he'll be bringing to the company."I feel like going forward, I want to look into the mind of Broken Matt", suggesting it's a very strange mind.