Jeff Hardy Reveals When The ‘WrestleMania 33’ Plans Came Together And How Hard It Was To Keep It A Secret
Matt and Jeff Hardy shocked the wrestling world when they returned to the WWE as surprise additions to the Monday Night Raw tag team ladder match and then won the titles on their first night back. Since then, the Hardy Boyz have put on great matches and recently lost their titles, making some wonder what is next for the brothers.
Jeff Hardy was on Talk Is Jericho and explained that the plans to return to the WWE were set much earlier than anyone expected. According to Jeff, they knew after their contracts expired with Impact Wrestling that they were returning to the WWE, which was not what they had told fans and reporters previously.
“We knew that after our contracts expired with that other world, basically, we knew, we’d been through all the deal we had to go through. We just had to keep it a secret and that was so hard.”
When Matt and Jeff Hardy left Impact Wrestling, they signed contracts with Ring of Honor, showed up as a surprise there, and immediately won the tag team titles from the Young Bucks. Impact Wrestling freaked out and sent a cease and desist, preventing the Hardy’s from using the “Broken Matt” gimmick. This even cost Ring of Honor money by having a cable provider drop their next PPV in fear of a lawsuit.
However, Matt and Jeff Hardy remained committed to doing their part without costing Ring of Honor a lawsuit and put on great matches with teams in the company.
Jeff Hardy told reporters the month before WrestleMania 33 that they were not going to the WWE yet and would be with Ring of Honor through the summer. That was part of the deal with their WWE return, and Jeff told Chris Jericho that he had to keep it a complete secret from everyone.
“Like, that day of WrestleMania, I was lying like crazy! ‘Will we see you tonight?’ ‘No, I’m on the first flight out of here.'”
Hardy added that “even in interviews on the Friday and Saturday before with these people, I even said, ‘yeah, we’ll be with Ring Of Honor through the summer.'”
It worked because the pop that Matt and Jeff Hardy got when they walked out at WrestleMania 33 was deafening. It was one of the biggest surprises of the WrestleMania weekend, and fans seemed excited to see the brothers back in the WWE as a tag team once again.
While the rumors of the WWE attempting to revive the “Broken Matt” gimmick in some way persist, Jeff Hardy admitted that the biggest money is when they are together and not apart. He said that it was fun to fight Matt Hardy at times, but the fans are not as invested in that.
“It’s cool for us, like Bret and Owen [Hart] wrestling each other years [ago]. We loved that. Naturally, for us, back in the day, it was awesome. But yeah, the bottom line is people would rather see us together instead of apart.”
Matt and Jeff Hardy returning to the WWE seemed inevitable and Jeff said that he knew that he would be back sooner or later. The brothers really became stars in the company, and at one time, Jeff was one of the biggest stars in the world, with merchandise sales that rivaled even John Cena.
Jeff Hardy did admit that he wasn’t sure how the WWE return would happen for a long time, but he always considered the WWE to be an extended family, and they knew that there was a home for them in the WWE. That day arrived at WrestleMania 33, and the Hardy Boyz returned home.
[Featured Image by WWE]
