Back in December, Jeff Hardy was competing in a six man tag team match during a WWE live event in Edinburg, TX and Jeff exited by going over the barrier and leaving through the crowd.
Following the incident Jeff Hardy was released from WWE after the company tried to send him to rehab and he refused. Since then there’s been a lot of discussion about Jeff Hardy’s WWE departure, but during a recent episode of The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast the Charismatic Enigma shared some insight regarding why he did what he did.
“That night in Edinburg, Texas, I finished my heat, I took the heat, and I said, ‘I’m ready to go.’ Went over the rail, disappeared into the crowd. Naturally, they think I took something like drugs or whatever, but I didn’t. If I was that bad, I should have never went out there, that’s the way I see it. I thought, ‘Just another unpredictable thing I can do and I’ll get away with it.’ It was more serious than that.
Again, it was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done because everything worked out so perfectly, mainly because my first day in AEW, I felt valuable for the first time. The care and love I was shown, I got chills thinking about it. In WWE, it felt like they just wanted to keep me there to sell action figures. I put so much love and joy in painting my face, when I see it come out and immortalized in an action figure, I’m like, ‘that’s why it do this, it’s so cool.’ That’s one thing I’m super excited about in AEW, my first action figure with the face paint.”
The former WWE Champion went on to say that he wasn’t trying to get released on purpose, but he did question why he was still with the company at times.
“It felt right in the moment. I wasn’t trying to get released. Just thinking about Survivor Series and how fun that was, the connection with the crowd and they wanted me to win so bad, it made me think back to SummerSlam, it was a big crowd, and I was just there all day for nothing like, ‘Why am I even here?’ I was so excited to be a part of it, some little spot or something, but I wasn’t even involved. ‘Why am I even here?’ Not just SummerSlam, but, ‘Why am I still here in WWE? What’s my purpose?’ because it didn’t feel like I had much of one.”
H/T Fightful
